"We’d all like to be Nathan Florence, surfing
around the world and being handed out full-body cardio workouts
like they’re a morning coffee."
So I’m in the garage, sweating away on a
half-broken elliptical, my Chromebook balanced
precariously on the office chair sitting in front of me, watching
the latest Nathan Florence clip.
Have you seen it?
MULLAGHMORE GOES XXL: THE INSANE
RIDES, BARRELS AND BEATDOWNS OF NOV 9TH 2023
It’s nuts.
Nathan Florence and his coterie attacking what has to be one of
the scariest, most fuck-off waves in the world. The jagged, kunji-covered jewel in
the crown of Atlantic surfing. Mullaghmore.
It’s hard to imagine how Nathan Florence can raise the bar any
further.
Yet here, I think as my spindly legs thrash away on the rusted
piece of exercise equipment that my wife won’t let me bring into
the house proper, he’s done it again. Side-slipping down the face
of cartoon-like portals. Treating spine-crunching Mullaghmore like
it’s three-foot Bingin.
It’s easy to hang shit on the YouTube generation and their
hamster wheel of cheese-grade content creators. But Nathan Florence
is inscrutable. An institution. Like Thanksgiving dinners or
Christmas puddings.
Like Thanksgiving dinners or Christmas puddings.
That’s a good line.
I’ll have to write it down before I forget it. I click the
elliptical into a lower gear. Up the resistance. Imagine I’m a
dedicated, elite athlete. Just like Nathan Florence.
This fucken elliptical. I’d prefer to be surfing.
But it’s another one of those cold, bleak November afternoons at
home. Soft rain dribbling across the windows. A strong nor-east
wind has been blowing for days, causing another cold water
upwelling. Spring time water hovers at icecream-headache
temperatures. A weak, long interval south swell has a couple of
little ones wrapping around the Point every ten minutes.
Objectively, it’s not worth getting wet.
I decide for a quick session on the elliptical instead.
You tried one before? They’re pretty regular in gyms, I am led
to believe, though I have never stepped foot in one to verify. Like
a treadmill, but with handles attached to the footing so you get a
full body workout.
Because, fuck it, I’m closing in on forty. And this is the
shit you need to do to yourself sometimes. When you’re an office
worker, sitting down eight hours a day. We’d all like to be Nathan
Florence, surfing waves of consequence around the world and being
handed out full-body cardio workouts like they’re a morning
coffee.
But this was the hand I was dealt.
I found the thing on the side of the road only a few doors down
from my place, the elliptical, about a week or so ago. A “Free”
sign hanging jauntily off its handles. The electrics were cooked,
so no calorie counting, but the pedals and apparatus itself were
all in tact. You could even still manually adjust the setting.
This is it, I thought to myself as I surveyed its weathered
frame. This is my ticket to fitness. I imagined myself on it 24/7.
During work meetings. Watching tv. At family events. At the end of
the aisle at my daughter’s wedding, popping away. I’ll be the
fittest man alive.
The cunt was heavy, but. Too much to carry back up the road
myself without scratching the fuck out of it. All I had on hand was
the wife’s hatchback. I ran back home and grabbed the keys. Rolled
the car back down the hill, and reversed up next to it, like a
snake sizing up its prey. It was going to be tricky. But I popped
the boot anyway.
Some inspired thinking and I had it in the car. Then it was in
the garage. And now here I am, bopping away on it like the fuckwit
I am.
It’s funny.
I can run for an hour and not break a sweat. But twenty minutes
on this thing pumps me. It gets boring, though. I burn through the
podcasts. Only so many spotify soundtracks I can listen to.
Which brings me back to this afternoon in question, and the
entire reason I am watching YouTube on my Chromebook, resting
awkwardly on the side of my chair.
I’d seen a clip of the new Nathan Florence video on Insta and
just had to watch it. I cued it up on the lappy before I started my
run. A 25 minute episode. Perfect.
He drops in on one. Crouched, his hands fused in place to the
rails, body and board locked into a stupendous free fall. He looks
like one of those toy plastic soldiers I used to throw from the
upstairs balcony.
He lands in the foamball. Is annihilated.
What runs through your mind when you’re throwing yourself into
something like that, I wonder as I slow my rhythm on the elliptical
back down. Surely there’s some sense of self -preservation
flickering somewhere?
I know my automatic instinct. My deeply ingrained
fight-or-flight response, proven time and time again on the
countless waves I could have went, but didn’t. Pull back. Save
yourself.
I guess that’s why I’m here in a garage, on a broken down
elliptical, and Nathan Florence is the Content King of the Surfing
World.
Content King of the Surfing World.
That’s a great line, I think to myself as I begin to speed back
up, the elliptical groaning and shuddering under my weight. I need
to get it down before I forget.
