Jumping Journal: May 18, 2006

An interesting evening of jumping.  First of all, we haven't really been planning any weekday jumping this summer.  Last summer we was jumping quite often on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  This year things really have slowed down to pretty much only planning on jumping on Sunday afternoons.

 

Wednesday I received an email from Cannonball saying that he wanted to jump on Thursday.  I guess he needed to jump the 25 before heading to Lake Placid to spend Friday through Sunday on the 48 with some of the kids that is headed up to open up the summer jumping season in Lake Placid.  I sent back an email and told him that I would join him.  I figured why not since I didn't get to jump on Sunday thanks to all the rain/flooding that we had last weekend.  Some areas of New Hampshire saw 16 inches of rain over a three or four day period starting last Friday.  Around here I saw 4-5 inches of rain.

 

I arrived at the hill and several minutes later Jon pulled in and I found out that some vandals had struck the hill in the previous few days.  They had broke a window in the lodge and then managed to be too chicken to stay on the whole foot as they slid down the landing hill of the 25 pulling plastic out place on the way down.

 

After getting the hill back in shape we changed clothes and headed up the jump.  Cannonball went first as I flagged him.  He had a nice jump, typical of the Cannonball.  If I could only jump that well, HA!

 

I walk up the inrun and rub soap on the bottom of the skis and then get the skis on.  I wasn't expecting much from the jump but I was planning to focus on jumping through the heel.  I started down the inrun and made it about halfway down when I noticed something rather strange.  It seemed like my inrun position was ballistic.  I don't ever remember feeling such a solid inrun.  I ended up jumping late but otherwise the jump went real well.

 

I get back up top and Cannonball commented on my inrun position.  I knew it wasn't my imagination.  I get ready for my second jump.  Truly, I figured knowing the way things typically go, I wouldn't stand a chance at being able to repeat the nice inrun position again.  I was wrong.  The second jump was just like the first jump.  The inrun was solid as could be.  I was late at the takeoff, just like before.  Again, another nice jump.

 

I headed up for the third jump.  The inrun was fantastic once again.  The jump was solid once again.  The landing was super.  Once I got to the transition things changed.  I ended up getting off balance, for some unknown reason, and I went down doing a complete flip head over heels.  I was a little surprised to say the least.

 

I walk up for jump four and once again the inrun was great.  The jump was solid.  The landing was sweet.  The transition...well you guessed it, I went down again.  Fortunately, I managed to flip side over side this time instead of head over heels.  I get up and am told that I'm getting defensive right before I get to the sawdust and that is leading me into the crash.

 

I go up for the fifth and final planned jump of the evening.  I definitely was planning on staying balanced through the outrun and let myself stay relaxed like I know that I should have no problem doing.  Once again the inrun was great, the takeoff was late, the landing was fine.  I got above the transition and noticed that it felt like I was starting to go down again.  It seemed like I fought it, briefly, but Cannonball and Fred didn't see my reaction.  The reaction may have just been mental.  I made my way through the outrun and came to a stop.

 

Afterwards Fred mentioned that he had noticed on my second crash that I was looking right in front of me, like I was trying to react to what I was seeing.  I have never been one for keeping my head up, other than on the inrun.  I have always buried my head while in the air.  I pretty much always find myself looking at my ski tips instead of looking down to the transition on the landing hill.  I always find myself looking right in front of my skis as well while riding down the remain landing hill and through the outrun.  This is something that I am going to have to change.

 

Crash