I love the way Boston marathon runners or Tour de France riders can get showered by cool, refreshing water during the heat of battle. The relief is usually offered on an uphill stretch, either by a pot-bellied guy with a garden hose, or a madly sprinting fan with a bottle of Evian.

However well intended, these time-honored traditions just wouldn't work in an inline skate race. It's sketchy enough skating through a wet feed zone, where botched hand-offs and tossed, half-drunk cups of water contribute to hairball slipperiness.

In fact, because of the inherent danger of skating on wet pavement, I've always wanted to zoom out ahead of my arch rivals during a big race and drop water balloons so they'd crash and burn. I'd do it on a secluded, sunny part of the course where my teammate trailing behind could stop and pick up the plastic bits while the rest of the evidence dried up before the officials could arrive.

Actually, I don't have enough mean bones in my body to be this devious. Throwing water balloon interference qualifies more as a blood sport than a water sport, so I've come up with a few aqueous inline skating activities that could pass as good fun:

Cliff Jumping in Jamaica

On skates, I once got run off the road in Jamaica and nearly ended up in the ocean. Witnesses were so angered by at the driver's carelessness that they started pulling him out of the window before even checking to see if I was okay. Were it not for me breaking it up and convincing everybody to give the guy a break, he might have been beaten to a pulp by the angry mob.

The close call gave me the idea to skate off the cliffs of Negril that evening, just as the sun sizzled into the ocean. At one of the exclusive hotels, there was a paved patio on top of a wave-cut coral sea stack. The path leading to it gave ample runway on which to ramp it up to speed before leaping into the cool water.

Skating the Dock

Perhaps it would be more practical to lay some plywood over milk crates at the end of a pier and launch into the ocean. That would be a super way to practice gnarly new tricks without the danger of slamming into the pavement upon landing. I've taken enough belly-flops in the swimming pool to know that water can be hard as a rock, but at least a face plant into the water won't disfigure you like the concrete.

With a good set-up on a hot summer's day, there'd be no end to the number of possible acrobatic variations. You could go for maximum height or distance, best trick, or most number of flips or spins before hitting the water. My personal favorite would be to try and catch a ball in midair that was thrown to me, like my dad used to do as a kid, when I'd shag flies in midair off the pool's diving board.

Steeple Chase Track Racing

Inline racing on a track can sometimes be a big bore. Whether it's 100 meters indoors, a 200 meter banked track, or a 400 meter outdoor oval, all you do is go around and around and around. What fun is chasing after your own tail? Track racing could become much less repetitive by installing a hurdle and a water pit that contestants would have to clear each time around. Given enough speed and strength, it would be possible to clear the water barrier, but as fatigue set in, staying dry would not be an option.

Imagine the fun of seeing skaters hurdling the obstacle, sometimes catching a skate and tumbling into the wet. They'd have to splash out of the water, slipping and sliding on wet wheels like cartoon characters, regain their traction, and then motor on. Think of how cumbersome it would be to wear heavy cotton uniforms that sopped up the moisture.

Underwater Skating

I always used to practice holding my breath underwater because I had heard that to become an astronaut you had to be able to hold your breath a minimum of 2 minutes while. I'd gulp down air and go under, trying to walk the length of the pool while holding on to something heavy ñ a couple of bricks or the anchor of the pool umbrella.

Inline skating on the pool bottom would be like skating on the moon. The skates would weigh you down enough to simulate the moon's gravity, and it would be possible to practice moves you always wanted to try but never dared to, like skating down stairs or dive-bombing down a 45 degree slope. Only in the water, there'd be no bruised tailbones or busted hips, no road rash or raw flesh with embedded pebbles.

Dry Waterslide Skating

During drought years, why not take over the waterslide park and skate it dry? It'd be like a standing luge event. Provided you wore something slippery, a fall in the twisty tube would turn into a harmless ride like on a playground slide.

The only tricky bit would be the entry into the waterless pool. If the slide's point of entry was the shallow end, it wouldn't be hard to shoot out and land it rolling. You could keep your momentum and skate the pool sides like a halfpipe, the way skateboarders skate pools. I'd love to learn to do a handstand on the pool's edge, then drop back in and do a fakey-backside-flip (whatever that is).

Keep It Cool

Ventilation is overrated. The real way to cool off is to get them skates wet and let the evaporative cooling of the wind keep those feet from getting blistering hot. The faster you skate, the greater the chill. In Holland, where inline skating enjoys the same status as baseball in America, racers regularly squirt water into their skates on the fly when they get overheated.

Regular Ol' Skating in the Rain

In all seriousness, skating in the rain can be quite safe and fun. Very few skaters intentionally skate when there's an aqueous film on the road, but sometimes a deluge cannot be avoided. Most races are run rain or shine, so you need to know how not to flail on wet pavement. Skaters in Seattle and Florida have figured it out by necessity, but you should always keep the following points in mind to avoid any potential mishaps.

1) Shorten up your stride. If you try to get in a major push in the rain, your wheels will slip, especially if you're skating over the double yellow line, for example. Shortening your stride requires a concomitant increase in ppm's (pushes per minute) to keep up to speed. This higher tempo allows you to back off on the amount of power you apply per push ñ just like the granny gear on a bicycle.

2) Push with wheels perpendicular to the pavement. Whether it's wet or dry, you should always try to push off the tops of your wheels for maximum traction. Pronation, which is caused by improper alignment (=bad balance) and not weak ankles, leads to severely angled wheels which barely maintain any grip on dry pavement, let alone the wet stuff. Pushing down and into the pavement off the tops of your wheels, not the inside edges, allows you to push almost infinitely hard, even in the rain.

3) Avoid paint, polished concrete, and wet leaves. Always look for a little rough stuff when you're skating in the rain. If you must skate over something incredibly smooth, glide, don't stride over it, and maintain a staggered stance for balance (like scissors -- one foot forward leading the way and unweighted, the other foot back and supporting your weight).

4) If you go around a turn in the rain, assume a wide stance. Your skates will slide out from under you if you attempt a turn in the rain with your feet together. Spread them instead slightly wider than your shoulders ñ a downhill stance too ñ so that iffin' you start sliding, it's on a stable platform that you can ride out.

5) Learn the frontward t-stop. If you can balance well while gliding on one skate, then you can use the other skate as a lever with which to apply stopping power to the pavement. While sitting deeply on your gliding skate, slowly lower your forward extended skate onto the ground, at an angle that permits it to slide easily. Then start increasing the weight on the sliding skate until you grind to a halt. This stopping method is difficult to master but truly empowering.

6) Make the rain your friend. Chances are, if you hate the rain, it'll hate you back. So work with it the best you can. Realize you may have to curtail your speed just a bit as a safety compromise. Realize, too, that once the pavement is completely wet, your traction will be better than if you skate from a wet patch to a dry patch or vice-versa. So if it's wet out, stay wet and make the most of it.

Eddy Matzger is a speed and distance world record holder on inline skates. His primary sponsor, TWINCAM, manufactures bearings which can swim. Roces skates, PowerBar, and Transpack backpacks and sunglasses round out his sponsorship. Eddy dispenses his skating knowledge through weekend workshops (toll free 1-888-WRK-SHOP) and via the world wide web, at inlineskate.com.