Jumping Journal: January 20, 2007

To rethink an old Van Morrison song:  "Momma never said their would be days like this, days like this momma never said".  WOW!!!  One of the coldest days of jumping I have ever experienced.  Not so much cold temperatures but cold wind chills as the wind was blowing quite nicely.

 

After finally seeing the arrival of winter this past week we was able to get all the jumps at Storrs Hill up and jumping.  It has created for quite a few late evenings of doing hill work.  Normally during the winter months I don't see home any before 8:15, this week I haven't seen home any before 9:15 and even as late as 11:15PM on Tuesday evening.  Definitely it has been one VERY long week.

 

Early this morning I got an email from the coach of the Sunapee high school jump team asking about getting help to make snow on the Newport jump Sunday afternoon/evening and then again maybe Monday evening.  I had to kinda laugh as it was snowing at a pretty decent clip when I received the email from him.  At the same time the storm front was moving through and the temperature were starting to drop and the winds were starting to pick up, hence why he was planning on waiting until tomorrow before making snow.  The high temps for today was suppose to be early and only in the mid to low 20s but the wind and trying to gather the snow making equipment up was going to be the deciding factors in not making any snow at the jump today.

 

I left for Lebanon and arrived to find that the track was already cut on the 25.  I had helped last night to finish smoothing out the inrun after they had made snow on it Thursday evening and figured that we would end up cutting the track this morning.  I did get up there later than I planned so they had beaten me to it, thankfully.  I've been pretty much out of it the past two days after snow making and shoveling snow off steps and the inrun of the 50.

 

With the work mostly out of the way I sat around and even took a short little nap.  Finally noontime came around and several of us headed over toward the 50 to practice for the 2PM meet.  One of the master class jumper, who shall remain unnamed(LOL!!!, he reads the blog on occasion), had decided not to jump the 50 but jump the 25 instead due to the winds.  He managed to talk one of the other master jumpers out of it as well.  Cannonball who has pretty much just about lived at the hill for the past week hadn't been planning on jumping today at all, he was too tired from all the hill work.  That left two of us for the masters class, at least at the start of practice.

 

After being rather slow in getting moving I finally made my way up the jump and saw that both the master chicken jumpers were standing at the knoll ready to watch us and see if we would live or not.  The wind was whipping pretty good up top but down toward the takeoff it wasn't so bad.

 

I started from the first bar down for the first jump.  Conditions were quite slow thanks the fresh snow that we had seen earlier in the morning.  To say the jump was awful would be an understatement.  It was one of the worst jumps I've had all season.  My left ski tip came up nicely but the right ski tip dropped like a rock.  I hadn't had an experience quite like that so far, at least not to that extent.

 

The second jump was even worse, both ski tips dropped right after the takeoff and I wasn't early.  I started questioning what the heck was going on.  I wasn't sure if it was the wind conditions or what.  Now I tend to think the future is catching up with me in the present.  More on this point at a later date, I'll have to wait and see if my thoughts are correct or not.

 

By the time I headed down the inrun for my third jump I couldn't feel my right hand anymore it was so darn cold.  The third jump went a little better but still wasn't worth a crap.

 

I decided before heading down the inrun that I was done after three jumps, forget about the competition or even about the possibility of just forejumping.  I just wanted to get inside and stay inside where it was nice and warm and where I might get lucky and actually be able to feel my hands again.

 

I headed back for the jump inn and was warming up when Cannonball came in with the bibs.  He supposedly had me signed up to jump both the 25 and 50.  I definitely wasn't going to jump the 25, and with the weather I had decided to forgo the 50.  Something one of the masters said made me decide to change my mind.  It also helped that I had warmed up quite a bit and I could actually feel my hands again.

 

We all head up and go for round one.  The wind has died down some and it does feel a lot friendlier without the wind chills being so hideously below zero.  I have jump at -20 to -25 F before, regularly air temperature and that wasn't bad at all. Today was down right wicked.  The temperature was around +10 to +15 F at the start of practice.

 

The first round jump definitely was nowhere near one of my best of the year.  It was much closer to one of my worst of the year.  I still can't put my finger on what the problem was, at least not from a technical standpoint.

 

The second round jump was a little better, but again not by much.  On either the second or the third jump it did feel like I hit sinking air.  I had noticed one of the other jumper get shoved down by sinking air that ended up cutting short one of his competition jumps.

 

Right about the time the third round was getting started the wind was trying to pick back up again.  I ended jumping late at the takeoff had my shortest jump of the day as a result.  The jumper right behind, another master jumper had to wait for the wind to settle down.  He finally got the go ahead and came down the inrun.  Talking with the other jumpers that were standing on the knoll they heard the flagman saying, "I'm so sorry Matt" as he was going through the transition.  Right after Matt was given the flag a nice headwind came right up the landing hill.  They both collided when he got into the air.  He got some real nice lift on the jump and ended up with the longest ride of the day as a result down at 44 meters.  He was happy as could be, it was his best jump in years(granted he hasn't jumped much over the past couple of years due to work and family commitments).

 

All in all six jumps that were pretty much the worst jumps of the year and definitely the coldest jumps I have ever experienced.  I hope not to see either side of the equation again anytime soon.  I don't beg it on my worst enemy to see weather like today.

 

Crash