Where to find Instruction

Our skate school builds skaters, builds community, and improves the quality of the lives of the students. We love to skate, we love to skate with each other and we love to support each other’s goals. It sounds corny, but all of our teachers learned how to skate at our skate school and they continue to help build skaters, create community and support each other.

They teach inline skating (+ quad skating by Cindy) outdoors in Piedmont Park which offers students a variety of skate-friendly terrains to learn skills and get a good workout. Speed control in hilly Atlanta is a necessity. Our instructors are able to teach this as well as the other skills to enjoy your skate experience to the max. As you master skating and speed control, you may want to join the Atlanta Peachtree Road Rollers (www.APRR.org) skates or Goal-Oriented Training (GO Training). Our GO Training is a training program set to your specific needs and desires to complete a skate marathon or ultra marathon such as the Athens-to-Atlanta Road Skate (www.a2a.org). It includes one-on-one time with Paul, the head coach + a personalized monthly schedule to meet your goals.

Skate Schools

Our skate school builds skaters, builds community, and improves the quality of the lives of the students. We love to skate, we love to skate with each other and we love to support each other’s goals. It sounds corny, but all of our teachers learned how to skate at our skate school and they continue to help build skaters, create community and support each other.

They teach inline skating (+ quad skating by Cindy) outdoors in Piedmont Park which offers students a variety of skate-friendly terrains to learn skills and get a good workout. Speed control in hilly Atlanta is a necessity. Our instructors are able to teach this as well as the other skills to enjoy your skate experience to the max. As you master skating and speed control, you may want to join the Atlanta Peachtree Road Rollers (www.APRR.org) skates or Goal-Oriented Training (GO Training). Our GO Training is a training program set to your specific needs and desires to complete a skate marathon or ultra marathon such as the Athens-to-Atlanta Road Skate (www.a2a.org). It includes one-on-one time with Paul, the head coach + a personalized monthly schedule to meet your goals.

Finding the right fit

1. Size
Stand up with your skates laced and your heel snug in the heel cup. Your toes should just feather the end of the toe box. Then, as you bend your knees, your toes will pull back slightly from the toe box. Cramped toes are bad. But so are loose ones with too much wiggle room. That's why we build K2 skates in both men's and women's specific models, and in half sizes - for a perfect, custom fit.

2. Wrap
You want an even, snug fit, without pressure points or hot spots. To achieve this, adjust your laces and power straps to alleviate pressure and spread support evenly over your entire foot. Unlike hard-shell boots, the lace up design of the K2 Softboot™ allows you to make minor adjustments over the entire boot for a custom fit.

3. Flexibility vs. Support
Both are important but in different places. Forward flex is critical to maintaining the right skating stance. Knees bent, shoulders and head centered over your skates. Lateral stability, on the other hand, is crucial for a powerful, efficient stroke. That's why every K2 skate has a hinged cuff that works just like your ankle. It flexes forward, but provides excellent stability from side-to-side.

Anatomy of the Perfect Skate

B) The Cuff
The cuff should provide lateral support and allow forward flex. Look for a cuff that flexes just like your ankle does, and offers the right amount of stability and support.

C) The Wrap (how the skate closes around the foot)
Boots with a standard lacing system offer more points of adjustment and a better fit than boots equipped solely with buckles. Extra ratchet straps and power straps, when combined with laces, can add stability and adjustability.

D) The Frame
This is the chassis of the skate. It should be stiff enough to provide a powerful stride, but still absorb enough shock for a smooth ride. Shock absorbers in the base can help smooth the ride, too. Aluminum or carbon fiber frames increase the stiffness and power transfer for more advanced skaters.

E) Men's vs. Women's Fit
Women's feet, calves, and ankles, are obviously different from men's. Look for a skate that's designed on a last (foot mold), specifically for your gender, in half sizes. Just like shoes are made. It's the only way you can be sure you're getting a perfect fit.

Basic Strides

Head Up: chin vertical to the ground and looking at least 12-20 feet in front of you.

Ready Position: knees bent enough so you cannot see your toes. Keep your knees 'soft' meaning although you bend them, don't lock them in that position - skating is fluid.

Arms in front: do not let the elbows get behind the lateral line of your body, do not swing your arms, and keep them mostly straight. Face the palms down as if they were flat on a table and keep them on the table.

Feet in a V Stance position (AKA Duck Walking): You are on the inside edges (where the big toes on both feet are closer to the ground than the little toes) and you walk in a duck-like pattern, forward, keeping your knees bent.

Push off (AKA Stroke): Pushing off on all four wheels at the same time in a 45 degree angle. The push off is only about 6-8" and then the foot comes off the ground.

Glide: When you push off on one foot, you will glide on the other foot. You will initially be on your inside edge, but as the glide lengthens you will end up centered. Increase the length of time (or distance) of the glide to improve the fluidity. Make a goal of gliding a distance of one foot, then two feet, then a yard and so on.

Stride: The Stroke (Push off) and the Glide together create a Stride. Bring your feet back together: Your feet are the most powerful when they are underneath you. Most new skaters have a wide stance and must intentionally work on bringing their feet back together at the end of the stride.

Upgrading Your Skate

Maybe a primer about the skate history and skates of today will help you understand how the skates are made, and how that influences their longevity. Initially skates came out in a hardshell form, with a ‘moon’ boot liner inside which could be taken out and washed. This insured good ankle support and insured the skates would last a long time. However, this type of skate did not provide a lot of stability for your foot, inside the boot.  As skaters began to improve, and move on to using their edges, more control and support was needed.

K2 developed the very first softboot as a solution to the lack of foot control that hard shelled skates offered. In doing so, we created a foam-packed skate that we construct the same way that high end footwear is built, which creates precise control of your edges, which at the end of the day keeps your foot comfortable and your skating experience a positive one. First of all, why and when should you upgrade from your first pair: Skates, like tennis shoes, will break down over time. Once they begin to break down they no longer provide you with the support you need in order to skate well.

So why does the foam package matter? The foam inside a boot is often actually four or five different types of foam, depending on the location and the type needed to insure a solid and supportive fit.

So how do I know when I should upgrade?
One reason to upgrade is when your foot starts to slosh around inside the boot. A second reason is when your skating gets good enough that you want to try one of the various skate disciplines: Distance/trail skating, racing, hockey, hip hop, aggressive, basic fitness, freestyle dance, slalom and/or street skating.

Each of the skates sold today has a specific audience and a few will work for several disciplines. The skate portion of K2skate.com is broken up into the various disciplines to help guide you towards the right skate for your needs.

What kind of skate should I upgrade to for distance on trails and skate marathons? The ideal choice would include five wheel skates, or the four wheeled race/fitness skates which have 90mm – 100mm sized wheels. They come in basically three boot cuts, one is the race boot with a low cut, just above the ankle, another is the mid cuff and the other is the higher cuff. Regardless of the cuff you choose, these types of skates all have longer frames that are built to carry speed while remaining stable. If you want to know when it’s time to upgrade, it’s probably time to do it now!

Your First Marathon

What is a skate marathon?
A skate marathon is typically the same as a running marathon, 26.2 miles. Often these events offer different distances so when searching for a distant event you can skate, don’t be put off by the ‘marathon’ title because they generally offer a half-marathon and even a 5k or 10k distance. Although I will use the word marathon throughout the body of this article, choose your distance (half, 5/10k) and insert it for your purposes.

Why tackle a skate marathon?
Doing your first marathon is both a frightening and an exhilarating experience. It will give you a goal which will, in turn, give you a great reason to both skate more often and to learn to skate better. When you cross the finish line there is a feeling you achieve, you earn, you deserve, that you went the distance. Signing up for a marathon is setting an achievable goal, especially since they are generally not as difficult as a running marathon.

What skills should a skater have?
What skills will you need?  Skaters who are ready for a distance event are those who have mastered the three basic skills of Striding, Stopping and Turning. Further, you should have experience on skating the trails or streets.

There are many hazards when skating for distance and the quickness with which obstacles appear requires the skater to learn how to react properly when they appear. The following is not an exhaustive list, but includes most of those circumstances that you will face while skating outdoors. The first are those which you should consider performing in a scissor stance (your braking foot scissored in front and with your weight generally on the back foot): down curbs, up or down wheelchair ramps. Over water, sand, grates and any changes in types of cement as in smooth to bumpy or rough pavement which creates a different friction. Finally learning to scissor over road tracks and over any loose stones/debris, pea gravel or wet leaves.

White painted crosswalks are tricky to maneuver, especially if there is any water on them, or they are freshly painted—they are very slick.

Crummy cement. It’s easy to tell because you suddenly slow down and it becomes very hard to stride well.

Wooden bridges. Between the slats and nails and the unevenness of wooden bridges, they are a bear to skate over. Alternating swizzles will help you, although just know it’s slow going. I was teaching a class on Trail Skating and one of my skaters tried to skate a particularly challenging one on our major trail, the Burke Gilman (30 wonderful miles tracking Lake Washington). She ended up stopping as she could not proper herself and she could not even get going again, so she had to walk carefully the rest of the way. By the way, if you are going over a bridge which is down hill, a solid scissor with as much speed as you can muster will insure a safe traverse.

Portions of trails with tree roots, pot holes or any other broken or uneven cement. This is when keeping two skates on the ground really pays off and you have a much better chance to stay upright. When is a skater ready to try a marathon?

There are three areas you need to consider when deciding to tackle a marathon.  One is whether or not you are ready with your skills as noted above.  The second is your fitness level and the third is how efficient are you at striding.

Fitness Level is about the least important of the three. I know this sounds crazy but skating a marathon is so much easier fitness-wise than you would think. The more you skate on the trail for both the distance and the obstacles/hills, the easier the marathon will be, so do yourself a favor and practice!

Stride Efficiency: If you look at the Olympics Games, you will see every athlete as an example of efficiency. Each one has found the easiest way to perform their sport, and therefore it looks effortless and elegant. From curling to short track, from hockey to pairs skating, those skaters look elegant, but truthfully they are simply efficient at what they do and that should be your goal in skating a marathon.

Where to Marathon? There are numerous marathons around the country and although you may think they are only for the pros, the direct opposite is true. The Northshore Inline Marathon is the largest inline marathon in North America with 4,400 skaters. More then half of these skaters are non competitive recreational skaters. The recreational skater will find that they are part of the majority at every Marathon in North America. To see the list of marathons and skate events just head over to the Events section on this website.

How to do a marathon? To train, set up your schedule so you can skate several times a week. One of these days should include a long distance skate, make this a medium or slow skate. New skaters might start out at 5 miles, and then bump that up over the coming weeks/months to 30 miles.

The second day of the week is for speed and you’ll need to do interval training. This is your short day. Usually 30 minutes is sufficient and there are many options for this training.  One option is to skate as fast as you can for 30 seconds, then skate medium for 90 seconds (1/3 ratio) and then repeat. If you don’t want to use a timer, then sprinting (whatever sprinting means to you at your level) between telephone poles is sufficient. The goal with this is not to stop when you feel it’s time to stop, but rather to set your goal of intervals and to not deviate no matter how wiped out you.

The third workout is your skills day. Try to skate with someone else, take a class in trail skating or whatever, but work on going over or around obstacles or work on your stride three (or all three). Although you should always spend time on your skills, this workout is not about building your endurance, but about building your efficiency.  The combination is a ticket to a wonderful skate which is really the essence of trail skating.

Training schedule: This is just an example and depending on your fitness level you may prefer or need to exercise 6 or seven days a week.

Monday: Fast but short skate

RACE DAY
What to Eat: A carbo load dinner the night before the race is highly recommended. You should begin your marathon day with a fair amount of carbohydrates.

What to bring/leave:

What about the start? Look around and get into a group of skaters who look like they are at your level. If you are skating on four wheels, look for others skating similar set-ups.

What about the finish?  The finish line is a wonderful goal and when you get there you are more then welcome to do something that you think is cool. If that is not your style raise your hands and enjoy the reality of accomplishing your goal. Usually there are photos being taken at the end so you can buy a fun photo to commemorate your accomplishment. Be proud of what you’ve done, celebrate it, and plan on how you will improve on your next one!

Have fun, be safe, enjoy the entire marathon as it’s not the finish that matters, it’s the journey along the way!!!