Jumping Journal: January 28, 2007

Crash City and a taste of New England.

 

First, a point of intrigue that I have made mention of on a few occasions earlier this winter.  To show the contrast between the beginning of January and the end of January.  In the first 14 days of January the average temperature was 35.4.  Since January 15th the average temperature has been 11.8 degrees.  Quite a contrast.  I guess that is why I have been so cold while out jumping this past week/weekend, HA!

 

This weekend is typically deemed as being the Upper Valley weekend.  Granted with the warm start to January, see above, the original Upper Valley weekend was suppose to be two weeks ago.  It ended up getting rescheduled to this weekend.

 

Lebanon and Hanover are neighboring towns that both have long traditions in ski jumping.  Jeff Hastings, the voice of Olympic ski jumping since, at least, 1992 comes from the Hanover, NH/Norwich, VT area.  He started jumping on the hills that I was jumping on this morning before moving on up to the 50 at Storrs Hill in Lebanon, and then onto the bigger hills in Lake Placid.  His brother Chris is naturally from that area as well.  Also the Holland family, Mike, Joe and Jim all come from Hanover area.  All three brothers were in the Olympics back in the 1990.

 

In my first couple of years of jumping the 50 was normally jumped on Saturday while the 25 and 10 at Storrs Hill was jumped on Sunday.  The Hanover meet on their K10, 20 and 32 meter hills was held on a separate weekend.  In the past several years they have been jumping all the hills at Storrs Hill on Saturday and then having the jump meet in Hanover on Sunday and have turned it into the Upper Valley weekend.  It saves an extra trip up/over this way for out of town jumpers to make it to both meets.  You can get between the two jumps in a matter of about ten minutes, they are that close to each other.

 

Today it was time to pay the north side of interstate 89 a visit for the first time this year.  I drove on up to Oak Hill on the northeast side of Hanover, just a mile or so from the old Dartmouth ski jump back in the day when college ski jumping was around.  I arrived with the temperature in the single digits.  It kinda made me think back to 2003 when the meet was held with the temperature at -20 Fahrenheit.  The only way to stay warm that year was to keep jumping and walking back up the stairs to take the next jump.

 

Compared to yesterday it was already warmer and the sun was out shining even though some little snow fell occasionally throughout practice and the meet.  I got suited up and headed up the inrun, first mistake of the day.  Normally after the first day or two of jumping each winter I never ride the landing hill on any jump I jump.  Today was no exception, like I said before a BIG mistake.

 

Oak Hill has one thing not going for it, water and a good dirt profile.  I guess their is a spring that runs somewhere along the jump.  Combine that with a profile in the transition on the landing hill that isn't quite as smooth as it should be and it causes them to have to make a lot of snow to be able to cover the water and fill in the bumps/holes in the dirt profile.  Well, the bump in the dirt profile became a bump in the snow profile today.

 

I headed down the inrun and jump at the takeoff with not all that bad of a jump.  I get into the transition and hit the bump and it throws me good.  I ended up going down big time.  Another jumper, a high school jumper, came down shortly after me and did the same thing, followed a little while later by another master jumper.  They ended up spending time between jumpers during practice trying to smooth out the bump the best they could.  It still wasn't working for me.  I ended up having one of the crappiest days of jumping of my career practically today.

 

I walked back up and took my second jump after they had did the first round of scraping snow in the transition.  It goes smoother and I manage to stay up through the bump.  The bump wasn't gone by any means though.

 

The third jump was just like the first one, including the crash.  The fourth jump was like the second one.  Every other jump I ended up crashing through practice.  I called it quits after seven jumps figuring that would end up giving me 10 jumps off the 32 for the day.  That's about twice as many as I had in all of last year off the 32.  I was getting some nice distance with the jumps I was taking.  It seemed like I was getting several extra meters than what I have ever had at Oak Hill.  I always use to be jumping in the 24-25 meter range.  I was seeing some jumps that looked like they was down around 28-29 meters today.

 

The competition started and only three masters were out.  It time for revenege, LOL!!!, on Dan Brown who beat me yesterday purely by style.  The trail round ended in another nice crash.  I landed right on my left hip that I had bruised last weekend falling on glazed ice while helping make snow on the Newport jump.  Yes, the bruise looks even better now.  At least it isn't on the right side.  I've suffered enough bruising on my right side thanks to ski jumping back in 2003 to last me a couple hundred lifetimes.

 

The first comp round jump ended at 26 meters and I managed to ride out through the transition without any problems.

 

The second comp round sent me down to 27 meters with another smooth ride through the transition.  It was starting to seem like whenever I didn't come fully out of the V before landing I would have trouble through the bump in the transition.

 

They decided to call a longest standing jump.  I figured "Oh well, let's make it eleven jumps for the day".  I walked back up and put the number 29 into my head.  I figured why not trying for 29 meters.  I knew if I jumped on time and put in the V that I could probably put one in down to 29 meters.

 

I make my way down the inrun and have a nice jump at the takeoff.  I land down at 29 meters and then get nailed in the transition once again.  Not bad, eleven jumps with five crashes.  Heck I've only had two crashes all season long in over 180 jumps UNTIL today.

 

It was a little surprising to be jumping so close down toward K.  It's the first time I've really did any jumping that far down a hill.  The strange thing of the day, other than the bump in the transition, was the inrun.  Their were a few rolling bumps in the inrun that wasn't really noticable.  The thing that was noticable was the longer table and what almost seemed like a rise in the table before the takeoff.  I wouldn't call it a kicker by more so a rise.  It was different from any other time I have jump on that hill, and from any other hill I have ever jumped.  I MAY be back there Wednesday evening jumping with the high school kids during their meet.  If not there then I will be jumping with the high school kids at the meet in Newport.  Right now it is a complete toss up as to which meet I will go to.  Time shall tell.

 

Yes, after threatening to change the nickname to LATE, I have decided to leave my nickname as Crash. LOL!!!

 

Crash