Jumping Journal: March 11, 2006

Day 57, err day 13 in a row, and the end of a long stretch.  I believe this ties my longest stretch of ski jumping.  I did either 13 or 14 days in a row back in 2002 or 2003.  Since then I haven't been able to pull off anything more than 9 days in a row.  I had truly been on the verge calling this the craziest season ever until this stretch started to form.  I hadn't had any luck putting together long stretches all season and to have this many days of jumping without a long stretch didn't really seem possible.  I'm beginning to realize that it may actually be possible.

 

Left very early this morning and met up with Dan at the hill around 5:30AM.  I tossed my stuff in his car and we took off for Lake Placid for the annual Lion's Club Meet.  This is the final jump meet for the season in the east.  Granted next weekend is truly the final weekend of scheduled jumping but both of those are fun ski meister meets versus just jumping/nordic combined meets.

 

We arrived in Lake Placid aroun 8:45AM and noticed on the way that their was hardly any snow to found on the ground other than at ski areas.  It has just been one weird winter.  Normally right now I have a ton of snow in my yard, this year it's almost all gone already.  Normally right now you will find bobhouses sitting on the lakes, this year most of the lakes are almost iced out.

 

From the road the jumps didn't look that bad, well covered with snow and the cross-country course even looked like it was in pretty decent shape.  Things changed the closer you looked.  We pulled in to find them shoveling snow onto the inrun of the 48.  The cross-country wasn't in too bad of shape but that was about to change.  The temps were already close to 40 and climbing.

 

I met old time ski jumper Don West while changing clothes.  We talked for quite a while as we waited for the hill to get ready.  Each of us took a landing hill.  Turns out my wax job last night was doing pretty good, no surprise here.  We both rode the chairlift up and got ready for our first jump.  The track was a skied in track and as I started down the inrun I blew it big time.  I couldn't stay in the track to save my soul.  I jumped at the takeoff and went nowhere fast.  I ended up just clearing the knoll on the 48, barely.  It was one of the worst jumps I've had off the 48 since the first day I jumped it.

 

Don comes down and I missed his initial landing but from what Cannonball said later on, he ended up lifting a leg after he landed and instead of sitting down he tried to ride it out.  When I finally noticed him I saw him dropping over onto his shoulder hitting with a nice thud.  Fortunately, the temps were probably into the mid 40's by this point and the snow in the transition area where he crashed was getting slushy.  He managed to get up but his day was definitely over.  For this 68 year old ski jumper, who had several real nice rides on the 90 earlier in the week, it was sad to not see him jumping during the competition.  See you next winter Don, and yeah...keep the ski tips up.

 

After collecting Don's gear from the fall line Cannonball and I headed up the chairlift and awaited our  position at the top of the inrun as the competition was starting.  I was the last person to go in the round and had to wait my turn in line.  The trail round didn't go much better at least not from the takeoff through the landing.  I ended up jumping 21 meters in the trail round.  At least the inrun was much smoother than the first time.

 

I knew after the first jump what the real problems were, not only was I about to be crazy enough to jump in a competition but I was doing it with the 90 meter jump within spitting distance.  Oh yeah, it was really trying to haunt me.  I could feel it in my gut, quite literally.  I never had had such a build up of gas in my life as I did through the trail round.  My mind was trying to fight me as usual.

 

I went up for the 1st round jump and simply repeated to myself "I choose to jump on time".  I didn't even think about trying to put anything into my mind.  I headed down the inrun and jumped on time and ended up going 30 meters.  Strangely enough it was the same exact distance that Dan jumped.  The talk was already on about how close that this could end up being between the two of us.  Cannonball had jumped 34.5 so he was nicely ahead of us.

 

We headed back up for the 2nd round jump.  This time I decided to add in a V.  I thought I heard that Dan had jumped 30.5 meter on his second jump.  I was trying to get my cord reattached to the ski as it had come out during the the 1st round jump after I landing.  I finally got into position and started down the inrun.  I jumped pretty much on time and tossed in a bit of a V.  I ended up landing at 30.5 meters as well.  It was obvious that it was going to come down to style points as to who was going to second place in the Masters division this year.

 

Dan and I both decided to go up and take another jump before getting ready for the cross-country portion of the competition.  My final jump went pretty much the same as the past two.  It was probably a meter or two shorter than the ones before it.

 

We changed clothes and gear and got ready for the cross-country race.  Since I don't have any cross-country equipment I just do it with my alpine skis.  Yes, it is far more difficult but I don't care.  It just means I get a better workout.  Admittedly, the longer poles, as I found out afterwards, make one heck of a difference compared to the short alpine poles.

 

In the process of waiting for the races to begin I find out that I just edged Dan out by 0.5 point.  Yes, it all came down to style.

 

Naturally, we was both starting at the same time, Cannonball starting like 2:00 ahead of us.  We knew there was no chance to catch him as well I knew there was no chance for me not to get blasted massively.  I was just doing the cross for the pure fun of doing it, as well as to get ready for Lead Dog next weekend.  They MAY be able to use the same course we used last year for Lead Dog and used today for the race.  It will take some grooming work to bring it back into shape though..

 

Quite naturally I got dropped like a rock, right from the very beginning.  Heck, Tim Norris a long ago nordic combiner got talked into putting on the cross skis and racing with us.  He dropped me and Dan both right from the very beginning.  He's no young pup either, almost twice my age.

 

After the awards were handed out, second in jumping and third and DEAD last in nordic combined, we ate lunch and then headed on home.  Upon arriving home I decided to take a look and see what the warm temps were doing to the jumps.  The inrun on the 50 had lost about two to three inches on the inrun, I was shocked to see it had lost that much.  There is just about enough room to put your skis into the track on the inrun at the top bar.  Everything else to the side is all melted.  All the "stored" snow on the inrun is practically gone as well.  By tomorrow, with the rain that is forecasted, the top bar or two won't be usual.  The landing hill was naturally still looking real good.  It has lost some snow off of it but not not as much as the inrun.  The outrun looked about as bad as it did a couple of days ago.  The wet spot just beyond the bridge was looking questionable as well.  I didn't walk out to it to find out if it was still ice or if it had started to melt and turn to water/slush.

 

The 25 was almost in worse shape.  The inrun is starting to look mud seasonish.  The top 10 feet or so is down to plastic.  The landing hill down to around 8-9 meters is plastic, and the end of the outrun is already down to dirt.  The end of the outrun has very little snow depth left to it.  It may be all down to dirt by the time Tuesday comes and the cooler temps move back in and we start working on the hill to get it ready for Mud Meet next Saturday.

 

Hence, I think tomorrow may end up being the first day in almost two months that I haven't been around a ski jump.  Something seems very wrong with this picture, LOL!!!

 

Crash