Today was another cold one, and even though I got my share of outside time for the day, I'm left with a little bit of cabin fever.  It's got me thinking about Ice Fishing.  The idea that people can be so impervious to cold that sitting on in the middle of a frozen lake and fishing for hours becomes recreation-- that's inspiring.   Especially when faced with a long winter season, you can't let the tough weather turn you into a vegetable.  Check this video out-- it makes me want to go ice fishing myself.

At points this week, the wind chill temperature in New York City dipped down to zero degrees-- it was definitely the coldest front yet and I can't imagine how anybody stood in Times Square to watch the New Year's ball drop. It's fun to catch up on inside activities on cold days like this, but braving the cold is great too. Getting your heart rate up in cold weather feels amazing, and the human body is capable of adapting to deal with seriously frigid temperatures, as long as you train and dress properly.

Being acclimated to cold weather can be rewarding-- in Sheboygan, Wisonsin, winter wind storms can turn the Lake Michigan into a formidable surf destination among those willing to brave the cold. For me, cold weather surfing is a constant inspiration to seize the day even when it's easier to stay home. 

Now that 2008 is fully behind us, we owe ourselves a little bit of reflection on the events of the past year.  2008 brought on a serious world financial crisis, but in terms of sports, I think it was a great year-- especially for skateboarding.

The early 2000's were characterized by big-money skate video production, big gaps and absurd handrails.  As the skate industry became more and more mainstream, skaters and their sponsors tried to differentiate themselves in terms of who could jump down the biggest staircase or fly the highest over a vert ramp.  This year, Thrasher magazine named Oregon's Silas Baxter-Neal Skater of the Year 2008, showing the world that the hammer years are over, and that smart skateboarding is where it's at.  Here's hoping that 2009 will bring more style and creativity to all of our lives.

Not long ago, I wrote a post here on PlayCity about bike safety where I took videos of cyclists in New York City and graded them on their safety-consciousness.  I really do believe that video analysis can reveal all sorts of bad habits that we athletes aren't conscious of.  On Christmas day I stopped into the skatepark near my parents' house in New Jersey and had the place all to myself.  It seemed like a perfect chance to do a little bit of video analysis on myself.

The longer I skate, the more I understand the importance of maintaining speed over obstacles-- there's nothing more annoying than coming up short on a trick because you're going too slow.  In the video, you can see that my last two maneuvers each eat away at my speed significantly.  I think that I could alleviate the problem by training to increase my vertical leap, making the muscles in my legs stronger-- if I could jump higher, I could also pump harder over obstacles, holding speed over objects and landing tricks more cleanly on the ground.

In a matter of seconds, I've found a vertical-leap training routine that seems like it will help me.  The how-to reccomends a number of different squat exercises that can be done with zero equipment.  Here's to improvement!