Jumping Journal: December 23, 2005

A rather unusual afternoon of jumping today.  It seems like I get so use to jumping at night on the 50 that jumping it during the day doesn't seem quite right.  Today was, and it looks like tomorrow might be a couple of those strange days.

 

The first thing I did this morning was to replace the cord on the ski that broke on the first jump last night.  I headed on up with all the 'boys', actually more adults than kids today.  Three members of the Lunatic Fringe group versus two kids.  Well...okay, so the kids can kick our butts without even trying.  We all took several jumps on a halfways warm Friday morning.  Temps were in the low to mid 30s with cloudy skies.  The track was somewhat slower than last night, thanks to the warmer temps.

 

The first jump, well I think you have already gotten the picture on what to expect out of the first jump each day.  Yep, another crash.  Everything went fine until I got to the transition and than once again I was leaning too far forward and didn't have my head up enough.  I went down hard on my already black and blue tailbone.  What a way to start the day.

 

Second jump went better, and the third jump better yet.  Definitely none of the jumps today were as good as the latter jumps were last night.  I ended up the day with 8 jumps in all.

 

It does seem strange to already have in 35 jumps on the 50 so far this year.  Normally I'm lucky to be averaging five jumps a day on the 50 during the first several weeks of the season.  Right now, I'm averaging seven jumps a day.  I keep thinking that it must be all the spring/summer/fall jumping this year that has helped to keep me in better shape so I don't mind walking up the steps as much.  Having Cannonball coaching on the 50 this winter may also be helping out more than anything else.  He doesn't seem to mind letting us jump.  The past couple of years it always seemed like once we got five jumps in the coach wanted to call it quits.  Cannonball seems to have more of the mentality to let us jump longer.  It does make it nice as it always seems like the longer I jump the better the technique gets.

 

Heck Cannonball even broke tradition today and ended up having six jumps.  He pretty much has a rule of taken no more than five jumps in any given day.  He was finally getting a 'V' and the assistant coach told him he should come back up and jump again to help reinforce the 'V' concept in his brain.  It didn't work so well, but that's a totally different story.