Jumping Journal: December 21, 2006

One of the best days in jumping in memory.  Several people were saying that tonight.

 

Well, this week hasn't went quite as planned/expected.  Monday night I arrived at the hill to help Cannonball cut the new track on the inrun.  He told me that the landing hill was pretty much a sheet of ice.  With quite a few people and quite a bit of time we might be able to get it into shape, but it would probably be better to wait and have it groomed on Tuesday so we could jump Tuesday evening.  Instead, we would cut the track and then go down and put up the safety fence on the bridge.  While Dan, Cannonball and I cut the track, Nick Burkes and Peta Blake put up the fence.  Afterwards we called it an early evening.  No jumping, drats.

 

Tuesday evening came and I got to the hill early and took a look and noticed that it looked like the landing hill hadn't been groomed.  It also did look quite icy.  After everyone else arrived we finally made the decision to play it safe and wait until Thursday to jump and let the groomer hit the landing hill on Wednesday.

 

I arrived at the hill this afternoon to find that the hill had been groomed.  Not much work was needed so we suited up early and hit the jump running.  The conditions were about as good as it gets, fast on the inrun and soft on the landing.  The temperatures on Monday and Tuesday evenings were below freezing but tonight the temps were in the lower 40s when we started jumping and still in the mid 30s when we finished for the evening.

 

The added speed helped with the jumping, to say the least.  The first jump was great other than fact I pulled out of it early instead of letting it go farther down the hill.  I was a little surprised by how much height and distance I was getting on the jump, more than what I was expecting.  The second jump was slightly better but I still pulled out of the jump early.  On the next several jumps I was getting more and more used to the extra distance, even though I was starting from the first bar down from the house.  The house didn't have quite enough snow left in it to be able to go straight from the house.

 

I was still having trouble with timing the takeoff though.  I used to not have that much trouble with it but over the past year or so I have found myself jumping late more often than not.  I haven't figured out what has been the cause of the problem but I sure it would go the wayside like crashing all the time has seemed to.

 

Around jump eight I was finally holding steady in the air instead of pulling out before landing.  I had been putting my arms out on each of the previous jumps this evening.  Finally toward the end of the evening, the final four jumps or so, I held nice and steady right into the landing.

 

The eleventh and final jump ended up being the best jump of the season and their has probably only been one jump better than it in the past couple of years.  It was the longest of the season and second or third longest since the profile of the hill changed last year.  It had to be down around 35-36 meters.  This has to be the first time I've ever had ten or more jumps in while jumping an evening session, weekends it has happened on numerous occasions, but I don't think I have ever jumped even nine jumps in one evening before.

 

The nice thing I have noticed so far this year is the change in my jumping...I'm not crashing once every seven jumps like I have for the past several years.  Even though I have had the jump suit on each and every time I've been out this winter I have not crashed once yet.  I did have the big time hand drag on the first jump of the winter but my butt never touched the snow until I was stopped and the only reason for the hand drag was being caught off guard/freaked out by the height I had going over the knoll.  I'm going to have to go back and look through the blog and see when I stopped crashing to see if I can figure out a reason why I stopped crashing.  I know why the crashing started, I just wish I knew why it has stopped once again.  I'm not complaining though.  My ache free body is truly enjoying not crashing, LOL!

 

Now to get ready for the big switch-a-roo.  Jumping wasn't initially planned for tomorrow but someone has volunteered to flag us so I'm planning on some mid afternoon jumping tomorrow and hopefully Saturday won't be a wash out, but it isn't looking promising right now.

 

Crash