Jumping Journal: December 12, 2006

The hills are alive with the sound of snow guns...

 

Wait...that was last week.  I'll try that again.

 

The hills are alive with the sound of ski jumpers.

 

Yeah, that's more like it.

 

After making snow all last week, now this week has been a little on the warm side for making snow.  That's alright for us lowly ski jumper here in the east.  We have enough snow on the 50 meter jump in Lebanon to start jumping.

 

I spent last night shoveling off the steps on the inrun and some of the steps on the landing hill.  Still have some more work to do on Thursday evening before jumping  though to get all the snow removed from the landing hill steps.

 

The landing hill isn't quite to grade/spec in the middle part of the hill but it is just makes it jump a little more like it did before we spent all the time on it in the fall of 2005 getting ready for Junior Olympics.  We're going to have make some more snow to get it up where it belongs.

 

I arrived at the hill around 4:30 this afternoon planning to spend a while shoveling off the landing hill.  I ended up putting in around 1:30 shoveling/chopping hard, ice packed snow.  The natural stuff is sooooooo much easier to shovel.  Upon finishing the first jumper was at the top of the jump ready and nippin' at bud ready to jump.  Cannonball flagged him and he was off for the first jump of the season.

 

After jumping back on November 15, I put my skis in the maintainence building, right beside the K25 and across the main slope from the K50.  I figured Dan and I would probably end up jumping the 25 before jumping the 50.  Last year we ended up getting three nice snows before the 50 was ready to jump.  This year...notta.  We almost had enough snow that we could have jumped last Friday but we decided to spend the evening helping make snow on the 50 instead.

 

As I walked over to grabbed my skis I heard Cannonball tell a couple of the other kids to watch out because the jump wanted to send you high.  Boy, he wasn't kidding.  Then again, I haven't jumped the 50 since March 10 and I tend to think I have forgotten plenty, LOL!

 

After changing clothes I walked up to the knoll and put on the skis for an outrun.  It seemed fine but my mind was still working me over.  Yes, I did have on the jump suit tonight.  I decided to take another outrun to play it safe.

 

Everything was seeming fine.  I walked back up to the takeoff and Cannonball mentioned to me to make sure that I was keeping my hands up and not letting the butt drop.  I have seemed to have a problem with that over the years.  I walked up the inrun and went for the first jump.  The inrun was in great shape.  I couldn't complain any about it.  I got to the takeoff and jumped.  BOY, was in for a surprise.  I had forgotten that Cannonball had mentioned to a couple of the other kids about the takeoff wanting to send you high.  I felt like I was launched into space.  I was startled by how high I was in the air.  I lost it.  Right before landing I dropped a tip and ended up sitting back and dragging my hands the entire way down the landing hill.  Upon coming to a stop I yelled back uphill "Send you high, my foot!"

 

I walked back up and the second jump was much better.  I was WAY more prepared for being sent high on the second jump than on the first one.  I do remember though that it seemed like I was getting compressed on the inrun.  On the third jump I did get compressed on the inrun and ended up dropping one of my arms as a result.  I didn't realize what had happened until I was about to go down for the fourth jump of the evening.

 

The first three jumps seemed like they went quite a bit farther than what they should have given my technique.  I simply say that the takeoff was adding 3-5 meters to each jump tonight.  The last two jumps were even wilder in terms of distance which leads me to really believe the takeoff angle was the cause.

 

On the fourth jump I decided to make sure and keep myself up higher, so as to make it harder for me to get compressed right before going into the transition.  It worked quite well.  I didn't drop the hands and didn't get sucked down into the transition like I had on the previous three jumps.  I ended up going 30-32 meters roughly.  The jump was smoother than the previous three.  I still wouldn't give the jump that much distance though.

 

On the fifth and final jump of the evening I was again just making sure that I didn't get compressed going down the inrun.  It worked again and I had an even better jump.  It felt more solid and it went further down the hill.  I would say it was around 34-35 meters.  Seemed quite far given the technique.

 

Time shall tell if I'm crazy or not.

 

Now that the season is underway hopefully I'll once again be able to top 400 jumps for the season and hopefully hit 60 days once again this winter.  I'm already starting out behind last year but hopefully by the time the weekend is over I'll be caught up and maybe even a day or two ahead of last year.  Now I just hope that Mother Nature will cooperate FAR better than she did last year and we won't end up getting several rain storms in Janurary like we did last winter.  Hopefully the end of this summer is a nice indication of what winter will bring and I may end up not crashing as much this winter as I have in the past.  That would be a true joy.

 

Crash