The Mental Deception
It's been 80 months since I started ski jumping and one thing has always held true, I've always been busy on the summer weekends. Almost too busy to keep the consectutive month streak alive. If Mother Nature would have sent rain on the wrong weekends I can pretty much say without a doubt that my 80 consectutive months of ski jumping wouldn't be 80 months right now, not by a long shot. It has always seemed like I have had the weather on my side when I've needed it. Little did I know or understand until a week and a half ago what had really been going on. I had been being deceived by my mind to keep me from spending much time during the summer months doing any jumping by always giving me other things to do that would take me away from home on the weekends so I couldn't jump.
1994 I spent the decent weekend summers out riding long distances on my bicycle, 150-200 mile one day rides by myself. On one of those rides I ended up in the wrong place at the right time and opened my big mouth after I got home. A couple of weekends the rest of the summer I found myself traveling with my brother going to hot air balloon shows. We used to have one in the town I used to live in in the midwest. My brother was always gone that weekend but wanted to be there to watch it. We ended up going to a couple of shows that summer.
The next two summers we went to several balloon shows around the midwest.
1997 found me thruhiking the Appalachian Trail all spring and summer.
1998 found me back, reluctantly, on the balloon show circuit. Since I had nothing else to do on the weekends and I was pretty much a spineless wonder, err not willing to say no even though I wanted to, I ended up traveling 30,000 miles that summer going to balloon festivals with my brother. We predominately just went as spectators and only ended up crewing two flights all summer long. I vowed at the end of the 1998 summer that I would never travel the balloon show circuit ever again.
The summer of 1999 I found my savior, whitewater kayaking, and I was out paddling every weekend. I traveled another 30,000 miles since the nearest whitewater was a 6 hour drive each way from where I use to live.
The very next winter I started jumping. The competitive atmosphere of the sport was/still does put major stumbling blocks in my way of getting better. When summer 2001 came along I talked myself out of ever going to Lake Placid to jump on plastic simply by telling myself that the K25 in Lebanon was bigger then the K18 in Lake Placid and I knew the chances of me jumping the K48 on alpine skis was pretty much zero. During the summer I did go to several of the New England hot air balloon shows. It was kinda a fall back to old habits. I didn't have any other way to fill my summer weekends so I fell back on what I already knew.
The summer of 2002 found me struggling to overcome the crash on the K48 during the winter. My mind fought me in every way it could to keep me from ever jumping a K50 sized hill ever again and I spent all summer crashing BIG TIME on the K10/25 in Lebanon. I wouldn't even contemplate the idea of going to Lake Placid to jump. When I did think about going up there for Flaming Leaves to jump the K18 I crashed on the 25 the weekend before and pretty much called off the idea altogether thanks to crash. It was a nasty crash. Also, I spent a good deal of the summer weekends going to hot air balloon shows. Now I was even helping crew for the pilots.
The summer of 2003 I was going to hit air balloon shows every weekend from early June until late September. In June and July I used one of the local show weekends to get my day of jumping in to keep the monthly streak alive. Being going all weekends was my excuse for not going to Lake Placid to jump.
2004 found pretty much the same scenario as 2003, in all facets of its appearance.
2005 I cut back on the number of shows I did big time but still didn't even contemplate going up to Lake Placid. I came up with new excuses and just wouldn't let myself go up there.
Late in the winter of 2006 I posted on the blog some video of me going down the K120 slalom course during Lead Dog. That video led me to watching some of the videos on video google and then a few weeks later I stumbled in youtube. Some of the videos I was watching was on streetluge riding. I almost started riding streetluge in 1999. I had bought all the equipment except a pair of leathers but I never got into the sport. Instead I got into whitewater kayaking. Watching the google videos did nothing. I didn't mind watching them but I still had no desire to start riding. A few weeks later when I stumbled in youtube I saw someone doing what you would have to call street skeleton, stomach down/head first. That hooked me on the idea of pulling the wheels and trucks back out and finally building a sled.
I ended up building four or five sleds between late April and mid July when I built my current sled. I spent most of my free time in the sunrise/sunset time frame out riding, both weekdays and weekends. Typically if I wasn't at a hot air balloon show I would be out riding on the weekend mornings. I did a few more balloon festivals in 2006 than I did in 2005 but still had quite a few weekends free. I still didn't go up to Lake Placid to do any jumping.
This spring I decided I was going to cut WAY back on the number of balloon shows I did, quite possibly back to two weekends, the first weekend of June and this weekend, the third weekend of August. I got an email from a pilot that I have crewed for several times and saw he was going to be at one of the nearby shows, just 10-15 minutes from Lebanon and decided to add that show to the list to take up the third weekend of June. Otherwise I was dropping the rest of the balloon festivals off my calendar. I knew that too many of the pilots was wanting me to become a pilot and I had no desire to get into the sport. I never have had the desire, its just been something to do. I knew the easiest way to avoid from having to deal with the pilots was to not get around them.
Before having the digger on the K90 in Lake Placid at the end of February I had been thinking about spending quite a few weekends up there jumping this summer. After the digger I knew given everything that I pretty much wouldn't stand a snowballs chance at seeing Lake Placid this summer. The seventh summer in a row of only jumping Lebanon on plastic. I was truly giving up hope on ever jumping Lake Placid during the summer months.
After the end of winter jumping I found myself bored stiff on the weekends with nothing to do and I knew that summer was coming and with nothing on my summer weekend agenda it could only get worse. I figured I might end up spending most of weekend sunrises out streetluge riding, weather permitting, but that still was leaving the rest of the day free. UGH!!!!!
Streetluge to the rescue, kinda. Turned out there was going to be a streetluge race nearby, thanks to my big mouth last fall bragging up the state park road where the race was held. I knew the state park that was going to host the race opened up in mid May but prior to that the road was closed to automobile traffic, or so I thought. During the summer the 3.7 mile, 2300 foot vertical drop road is open to cars and trucks. The road is narrow and very technical, err curvy, making it ideal for streetluge riding but only while their is no cars on the road. Several blind turns make it quite dangerous to ride if vehicles are on the road. Normally in streetluge riding you worry about cars coming up from behind you and running over you because they aren't looking for someone on the road that is only 6 inches off the road. On the state park drop you worry about the uphill traffic that you can't see coming around the corner until its too late.
The second weekend of May I headed out and do a little riding on the road but found quite a bit of the road covered in gravel that the utility companies pulled off the side of the road when they were moving telephone poles as the snow was melting off the road. I knew that the state park would have to clean the road before it opened in two weeks and I was hoping to get a chance to ride the road under clean conditions before the season started. I had no plans of racing in the race since I have pretty much no group riding experience and I knew that the road in question was not the environment to get group riding experience, especially during a race. The opening weekend of the season the road plays host to an uphill car race, hence why I knew the road would have to be swept.
I went back to road on Saturday, Mother's Day Weekend, to check conditions figuring if it wasn't swept that I would stop by and get groceries on the way home and be home by noontime or shortly thereafter. As I pulled up in front of the state park I noticed numerous cars all parked in parking lot across from the entrance. I initially was thinking it was runners and biker and it seemed a little strange to see that many that early in the morning. As I got closer I noticed that most of the vehicles had hang gliders on the roof racks. They do have a launch site from up top the mountain and can only get access to the launch site by using the road. I blew them off thinking, the park doesn't open until next weekend so they don't have access. Oops, my mistake.
As I open my door one of the pilots, before I could even get my foot on the ground, asked me if I was walking up the road and would I drive a vehicle down for them. Turns out they have special access to the park road off season as long as snow isn't on the road so they can get up to the launch site. I knew that added complications to riding immediately. I decided to take the easy route and ride up with them and then drive the vehicle back down.
I was wondering where their launch site was at as I found out a month or so earlier, by looking at the state park website, that my guess was incorrect for its location. I had been looking at the website to see what weekend the foot race and bicycle race up the road were going to be. I ran the foot race last year and was planning on running it again this year. I saw while looking up the dates that my idea of where they launched from was quite incorrect. So the curiousity was trying to get the best of me. All of a sudden I found myself thinking I could ride up with them and walk out the launch. If the road wasn't swept yet I could still be down and home, maybe not quite as early as originally planned but still earlier than if I did ride.
I decided to help them out. It was a double win scenario for me. To make a long story short, I finally got home sometime after 6PM, and no I didn't ride, the road still hadn't been swept. I also managed to make a good/bad(depending on your way of looking at it) impression on everyone. I was in deep trouble and couldn't even see it coming.
A former hang glider pilot, turned driver for one of the pilots that was flying that day, and I got to talking while waiting for the guys to launch. Turned out he had been going to the ski jump meet in Brattleboro, VT for the past several before its recent two year hiatus. He had seen quite a few similarities between ski jumping and hang gliding. Little did I know what was happening.
Within a week or so I found myself intrigued with the idea of replacing hot air balloon shows with helping out the hang glider pilots. Numerous pilots have to go right by my house to get to several of the launch sites around New England. One of the pilots I talked with that day had said he would be willing to pick me up at my house if I wanted to crew for him. Boy, I didn't realize what I was getting myself into, err setting myself up for.
About the same time frame, a week after meeting up with them, I found myself wondering about the strange coincidence that had taken place. Ski jumping got me into streetluge, thanks to this blog, and streetluge had gotten me around the hang glider pilots. So in a roundabout way I would say, ski jumping got me around hang gliding. Yes, I have thought about getting into hang gliding for the past 20+ years, I just never have. Living in the midwest prior to moving up to New Hampshire didn't provide many oppotunities for it, more like NO opportunities, and after I moved up here I kept seeing a car in traffic that was hauling a strange looking trailer. I kept wondering what was in the trailer and finally followed him one day to the local training center for hang glider pilots. Turns out the trailer carried his sailplane. After looking online I decided not to get into hang gliding as I didn't want to spend that much money to get into anything. I've always been the tightwad and like to spend as little money as possible. That left hang gliding out of the picture.
The following weekend was the car race at the mountain and the road was closed for anything other than race vehicles, even though the park is open for the season. Memorial Day Weekend I found myself out crewing. The next weekend I was at a hot air balloon show. The following weekend I was at the streetluge race that was on the road. The following weekend, Father's Day Weekend, I found myself in a strange situation. I was at the hot air balloon just 30 minutes or so north of the launch site. i ended up getting a free balloon ride for crewing the pilot and toward the end of the ride I looked up and saw Mount Ascutney in the background. The thought went through my mind, "Is this the end of the streak". Is this the end of me going to balloon shows. After the Saturday morning launch I drove down to Ascutney, planning on crewing for one of the hang glider pilots that I had started to get to know. They ended up getting rained out and I headed back up for the balloon festival evening launch. The balloon flight that evening went off with a slight delay to wait for the weather to clear. The question was still looming, is this the end.
Each weekend with one exception since then I have found myself out either watching the guys fly at the training center or helping crew. The one exception was due to the weather. I have also found myself spending my evenings reading a couple of the hang gliding message boards. It has helped to keep my from falling asleep before the sun set since I don't have much else to do in the evenings and I don't ever watch television much past the evening news, err 7PM. Earlier in year, post jumping season, I had found myself going to bed at 7:30PM with the sun not setting for over an hour. Boredom can do that to you.
One of the posting I had read on a message board was a question about knowing when it was time to quit. One of the response came back to the effect of when you don't have the desire/the feeling for it anymore. I saw that posting sometime in late July. It never hit me until a week and half ago what I just read. i woke up one morning after having two repeat dreams that you could say bothered me big time. Later in the morning I got to thinking about that posting and realized I always have had "the feeling" with ski jumping and had "the feeling" with streetluge long before I ever started riding but ever after spending all this time around hang gliding I don't have "the feeling" for hang gliding. I can watch someone jump the K90 in Lake Placid and my body wants "to jump" when the jumper gets to the takeoff. The feeling is there. Its been the same way for numerous years for streetluge, even without watching anyone riding streetluge. The body/mind wanting to replicate the necessary motion, whether right or wrong, has always been there.
This thought made me start to realize that I had been had by my mind. My mind had been getting me around these different aviation sports, all as a way to keep me from jumping, another "aviation" sport. Now it was around something I had thought about doing for the past 20+ years. To say I got upset quite quickly would be an understatement. I knew what I had to do and knew that it could be quite a big battle to do it. There was no choice, I had to do. Even though I knew it wouldn't be a wise idea under the circumstances I knew I had no choice. Last weekend was pretty much out of the question since i didn't get the chance to jump last Thursday night due to things I couldn't control. I got an email earlier this week from Dan about the plans for today to go jump in Lake Placid. After jumping Thursday night I made sure to bring everything with me.
A simple problem has come to exist with jumping in Lake Placid. Anytime I even start to think of going to Lake Placid I end up getting pain in my mouth that wants to keep me up all night. I don't have to be planning on jumping, even going up to watch the New Years Eve meet last winter kept me up pretty much all night beforehand. If I'm up there jumping and spend the night, sleeping in my car, I sleep like a baby, but before I leave home I might as well forget about sleeping. It won't happen. My mind has just always been fighting to keep me away from Lake Placid for the past year or so. I knew when I brought the skis home with me Thursday evening that I stood a very good chance at not having any sleep for the next 48 hours.
Crash
posted by Ryan Crawford at 12:02 AM
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