Jumping Journal: December 28, 2006

Fast and graceful.  Nice ways of describing the first time of jumping this winter when the temperature has actually been below freezing while I was jumping.  It only took how long???

 

I arrived at the hill quite early as I didn't have much else to do.  I blew some time working on suduko puzzles.  I noticed that a car had pulled into the parking lot and I noticed that it had skis on top of the roof rack.  The guy got out of the car and started walking toward the lodge.  I pretty much knew who it was even though I hadn't seen him in almost a year.  I had heard that he was planning on going out to US Masters this year and I was wondering if he was going to bother doing any jumping before the trip.

 

We ended up talking for a while and then headed on up to the jump inn where he started working on replacing the binding on his skis.  He only jumped once or twice last year and hadn't jumped in a couple years prior to that due to his work schedule.

 

Soon after Cannonball showed up and the women from the local newspaper also showed up.  She is doing an article on the high school jumping team and also is seriously looking at doing an article on the masters jumping in Lebanon.

 

I figured tonight would be a slow night with most everyone up in Lake Placid getting ready for the jumping meet on Saturday and Sunday.  I was WAY wrong.  It ended up being all five of "local" masters, two juniors and one senior jumper out on the hill tonight.

 

I got suited up and headed up the jump and was going to be the jumper off for the evening.  As I was walking up the inrun I started thinking that I better watch out caused I figured it might be a little sticky after the light snow that fell earlier in the day.  Turns out I was wrong.  I was the fastest/best conditions so far this winter.  The first jump went pretty smooth.  I did end up back on my hands right after the transition.

 

The next couple of jumps I was slightly late on them but not as late as I was on jump seven.  It was horribly late, the latest I've been in a long time.  The thing I did notice was that I was making it down the hill quite nicely.  Several of the jumpers were going from the second bar down from the top and I got tired of moving the bar and just started going from the second bar as well.  After one or two jumps I noticed that it wasn't making any kind of difference in how far I was going.  I was still going down into the 35+ meter range.

 

As I was walking up the landing hill from having taking the eighth jump of the evening I said the heck with and decided to go from the first bar and just send myself down the hill.  I knew that there is no better way to get used to going to the bottom of hill than to go to the bottom of the hill.  Unfortunately, their isn't any snow in house or I would have just went from house and got all the speed that I possibly could.

 

For both jumps nine and ten I ended up going real close to 40 meters if not a little over on jump ten.  They were definitely the longest jumps of the season and real close to the longest jumps I ever taken so far.

 

Something has definitely happened, the last two jumps, and for that matter all but maybe the first two jumps of the evening have proved it to me.  I'm not sure what happened or why it happened but the switch has occured.  I'm not crashing like I use to by any means and my technique has went through the roof at the same time.  The mind has given up some more of the fight...I just wish I knew what caused the change to occur.

 

Hopefully, if plans continue as they currently are I'll reach my goal of 100 jumps before New Years on Saturday as several of us are planning to do some jumping Saturday morning.  I only need another 15 jumps to hit the big 100 for the season. That will mark the first goal for the season completed.  Admittedly it was an unplanned goal until day three or four of the season.  I already have two or three more goals in mind all coming up in January.  Hopefully, Mother Nature will cooperate and I will reach those goals as well.

 

Crash