Jumping Journal: March 10, 2006

Day 56, err day 12 in a row.  I'm almost up to another record.  I think the best I've ever had is either 13 or 14 days in a row of jumping.  That was in either 2002 or 2003.  It's been a while back.  It was also early in the season and not this crazy late season stretch that I have been seeming to find in the last year or two.

 

The Semisonics song "Closing Time" I think best says what I believe today was for jumping on the 50 this winter.  Given the weather forecast for the next several days it seems like today is closing time for the 50.  The landing hill is good to be jumped on in April I would guess.  Most of the inrun will survive the next several days but the outrun is another story.  I tend to believe with the warm temps that are forecast, along with the rain and wind that is forecast now through Tuesday more than likely even by the time Monday arrives the outrun will be unusable.  Hopefully I'll be wrong but it doesn't look good.  There isn't much snow available to be pushed by the groomer along the service road that it uses to get to and from the outrun to push onto the outrun.  I know we could still ski it with only half the outrun available, we was doing it tonight intentionally, not because conditions warranted.

 

After getting some raking of the bottom of the landing hill finished and trying to cover over some of the dirt and icy spots on the outrun I changed into the jump suit on a very weird Friday afternoon.  Around 3PM it was 42 degrees about 20 minutes, by car, east of Lebanon.  By 3:20PM it was 49 degrees about 5 minutes west of Lebanon.  The warm front that was supposed to have moved through early in the day had finally arrived.  On the way home around 6PM it was up to the mid 50's and the wind had finally arrived as well.

 

I went up for the first jump.  I was a very different scenario from any day of jumping I have ever had.  Each of the last three days has gotten more and more relaxed.  Almost hauntingly so.  It's like it's automatic to jump in comfort instead of being on edge/rushing it.  I'm getting eight jumps a day without rushing it, just taking my time thanks to having no coach around, just Dan and myself flagging each other with a cell phone setting up on the coaches stand in case one of us gets hurt.  Both of us move at the same pace.  It takes him pretty much the same amount of time to climb the stairs on the landing hill as it take me to climb the stairs on the tressel, and vice versa.

 

I climb up the tressel and notice what Dan had mentioned earlier.  The temps at the top of the tressel are some 7-10 degrees warmer than they are at the takeoff.  Talk about a temperature inversion, WOW!  I put on the skis and slide out onto the bar.  I say to myself, using the EFT platform from Myth #3 Debunked, Part 9, "I choose to jump on time".  I yell for the flag and head on down the inrun and actually jump right on time.  Granted I didn't have the V, or the head up or the ankles cocked.  Actually, I had my ankles very uncocked.  If I didn't know better I would think that I had alpine skis on instead of jumping skis.

 

I go for the second jump and say "I choose to jump on time with the ankles cocked and the head up".  I pull off each of the elements of the jump.  It was the best or second best jump of the evening.  Third jump was about the same.

 

The fourth jump, brought jump #200 for the year on the 50.  Amazing to think I have had that many jumps on the 50 this winter.  It doesn't seem possible.  I decided to try to put everything together and go for the best jump of the season.  You guessed it, I jumped late, didn't have the ankles cocked, the head up or have a V.  What else is new.

 

The fifth and sixth jumps were just about the same.  Crappy.  About this time I started to notice the wind starting to move the trees around.  It wasn't effecting anything other than up at the top of the tressel.

 

Jump seven I decide to go back to the basic of "I choose to jump on time."  Jump seven was the best or the second best of the evening.  A nice solid jump that was on time with the ankles cocked.  The head wasn't up quite like it should be and there wasn't a V, but who's counting.

 

Jump eight, the final jump of the afternoon/early evening was pretty decent as well.  Coming back to the opposite side of the stairs where we walk up to the jump inn at I started thinking of the song "Happy Trails".  I really do hope I'm wrong but I have a strange feeling this was the last day to jump the 50 this winter.  Not bad, 204 jumps off the 50 so far this winter.  Weirder things have happened around these parts.

 

Now it's time to scare myself crazy.  Yes, I'm going to do the unthinkable, I'm going to actually hot wax my skis.  I must be losing it.  I haven't hot wax a pair of skis in years.  I normally just rub on the wax, and leave it at that.  I never hot wax.  I guess I'm hoping for a nice day tomorrow when I make a rather unplanned trip to Lake Placid.

 

Crash