Inline skating rewards Rick Sadlier, 31, with stamina

• His exercise background: Even though Rick Sadlier, 31, has owned inline skates since 1995, he didn’t call himself a skater until he joined the Atlanta Peachtree Roadrollers five years ago. Before that, he says, “I was working overnight [at Home Depot]. I just wasn’t getting out that much,” he says.

• How he got started: One weekend he went to Piedmont Park to skate and he saw a group of people skating through cones.

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ADRIENNE HUGHES-HARRIS/Special

Rick Sadlier loves to inline skate for his favorite workout.

THE WORKOUT

A few resources to get you in your skates and out on the road:

• The Atlanta Peachtree Roadrollers welcomes newbies. Check out the Web site for beginner skate nights: www.aprr.org
• Paul Kennedy and Cindy Spalding are members of Atlanta Peachtree Roadrollers and professional skate instructors: www.bohemianskateschool.com

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“Two of the skaters who I eventually became good friends with said, ‘you can go through the cones yourself’ even though I wasn’t very good at it.” Sadlier says that the guys were very encouraging and told him, “You’re never good at it right away.”

So Sadlier went through the cones over and over again until he was hooked. When he moved to a daytime schedule at work he joined the group and began skating with them on Monday and Wednesday nights.

• A breakdown of his sport: Inline skates have a single line of wheels on the bottom rather than two front wheels and two back wheels like roller skates. While Sadlier’s first experience with the Atlanta Peachtree Roadrollers was performing tricks through cones, he says the club mostly does street skating.

• Skating in a group: Sadlier says that thanks to the club he’s met a lot of people. “This is mainly a social thing. We go out to eat afterwards. People get married who met skating. We just had a baby shower for people who met skating,” he says. “We have a wide range of ages; I’m probably one of the younger ones at 31.”

• Favorite places to skate: When the group gets together it usually starts at the Carter Center and skates 10 to 15 miles around the city. “We go into downtown Atlanta and every once in a while we’ll go into the Emory part of DeKalb County,” Sadlier says.

• Cross-training: He works out at LA Fitness, but says he doesn’t have to do any leg workouts because skating takes care of that. When it’s too cold to skate outside, Sadlier says he gets his cardio in by running on the treadmill. “I do ride a bike as well. I ride about 50 miles a week,” he says. And he even gets together with other folks from Atlanta Peachtree Roadrollers to go rock climbing, hiking and kayaking.

• What it’s done for him: “I work on the floor a lot and I walk from one side of the store to the other,” he says. Skating helps him to have the stamina to stay on his feet all day long. And he credits the sport with helping him sleep better, too. “I found myself to be more alert. When I worked overnight I had terrible insomnia. Once I started exercising it got better because I got sounder sleep. I get a full eight hours of sleep,” he says.

• Skating races: Luckily for Sadlier, one of the biggest inline skating events in the country is right here in the area — the Athens to Atlanta road race, held each October. Sadlier has participated in the 87-mile race for the last three years and says his favorite part is meeting different people along the way.

• His advice: “The biggest thing people say about skating is being afraid to stop,” Sadlier says. In fact, it’s such a skill that there is a group (the National Skate Patrol) that holds a stopping clinic on Sundays in Piedmont Park when the weather is warm.

Sadlier says that beginners should learn how to stop correctly, either by attending one of the skate patrol’s free clinics or taking skating lessons. His other piece of advice? Get a good pair of skates.

“You get what you pay for,” he says of cheaper skates. “They don’t roll as well; I’ve learned that first hand.”