Training areas in Fredericton

I'm going to use this area (and I invite others to add, as well) to document some good training areas in downtown Fredericton. We haven't gone outside of the historic downtown area much yet, because frankly we haven't really had a reason to. there's not many techniques that can't be practiced right in that area, and people tend to keep to themselves.

#1) The obvious one, Officer's square. This is where Fredericton PK starts out on our thursday meets. The possibiliites there for PK are minimal, but it is an excellent place to meet and warm up. There's a paved path for jogging, a large, clean grassy area for practicing rolls, and the sound stage is good for warming up the legs with some light plyometrics to warm up the legs. All in all a good spot to meet and get the creative juices flowing, and it's centrally located to most of our other training spots. The front of the officer's barracks building is a good place to practice the footwork for pop vaults, although I have seen skaters get busted for actually climbing up to the second level, so don't do that, if you were thinking it.

#2) Front of Service Canada Building. This area has a straight stair set and a wheelchair ramp off to the side with many waist high railings, great for practicing balance, precision jumps, all variations of vaults and underbars. It is prominently featured in our spring session training video.

#3) Fredericton Sports Hall of fame/the Bank. Again, within a rock's throw of officer's square, the alley between these two building has an incredibly low wall, good for absolute beginners to practice vaults (it may actually be TOO short of some of them), as well as having walls over head height on each side hedging in both buildin'g wheelchair ramps, which are great for practicing drops to grass from a slightly higher angle, and also wall climbs/passes. I have recently begun practicing turn vaults to drops here, although I am still trying to overcome the squeamish factor of just jumping out into nothing

#4) College of art and design stair set. The stair out front of the college of art and design are relatively small, but they offer some unique possibilities from practice. Last training session, I was using this area to practice cat leaps, with a pretty good measure of sucess.

That's all the time I have for now, as we explore more and I get more time to write things up, I will post more areas.

A few more spots I didn't have time for earlier:

#5) Footbridge behind the library. The footbride is kind of limited by skill level; I suppose some great wicked fancy tracuer could leap off the thing and roll all hollywood style, but at our current level, the rock wall enclosing the stairs makes a great place to practice pop vaults, and the large concrete slab that forms the foundation for the wheelchair ramp is good for utilizing the pop to get into a climb up. Also, For anyone from a climbing background, on the far (River) side of the bridge, the support is kind of a fun spot for buildering (combination of the words "building" and "bouldering"), with the wheelchair ramp on that side, again, being a nice spot to climb up, and maybe at a higher competency level, jump from.

Hey - there are also a few parks across the river. When I get exact locations I'll let you know. I just happen to remember driving by some of those places and getting really inspired, but never having had time to stop and try some stuff out.

Mind you, I'm also horribly out of practice but I intend on getting back in, not only for fitness but for my own personal safety.

Alright, here's the skinny on the UNB Campus. It has a whole host of interesting and unusual features that are great for training, but we were to asked to leave on our last visit, so it's out of bounds. You heard it here first, folks. If you were thinking of going up, don't. Maybe in the future we will be able to gain some access, perhaps if we can get a few university students interested in starting some sort of UNB club, or maybe getting some sort of liability waivers to train there, but in the meantime, yeah. We must respect their wishes and refrain from hopping on their stuff.

Ug, seriously...?

Last time I was there in February I took the opportunity to try some stuff... but apparently I shouldn't have.

Odell Park seems like a good place... also, Carleton park is the place I think I was probably thinking of... Henry park has a sick playground too, or it did. Haven't been there in ages.

That just made me think of something: Wilmot park has got a few structures that house the city water pumps and wells; those structures are great places to practice.

Oh and we also have the Monday Night Event at the Kingswood, Its a Open Gym (Gymnastic) for 1 hour, its 5$. Its great to start off new stuff, and Awesome for Freerunning Training! oh and Goat, do you think there are some locations in Oromocto?

so far as training goes, there's a few stair sets with rails around the oromocto mall. Aside from that... not alot that I can think of. you could practice vaults off the footbridge into the river