Since the beginning of the year the motto has been, "Expect the unexpected". Since Groundhog Day the motto has been updated, "Expect the unexpected, and then some."
After spending the overnight hours sleeping in my car at one of the nearby grocery stores I woke up to find the temperatures -8 to -9 degrees. With the extra blanket inside the sleeping bag and the extra clothes that I had on I was still comfortable for the most part. I had been thinking for quite a while that my sleeping bag had lost most of it stuffing, but I must be wrong. I shouldn't have faired quite as well as I did under the circumstances.
After grabbing breakfast I joined the private schooled kids for the morning session. We started out first at the Olympic Training Center(OTC) warming up, stretching, and doing some immos. It did seem a little strange hanging around of those kids. It wasn't quite the personalilty that I was used to for them. I haven't been a fan of the Lake Placid kids for quie some time. I think it has been listening to too many other peoples opinion. Maybe when everyone else is around it is typically during a competition and the kids are trying to make the best of it and are ending up bringing out a bad attitude as a result. Today, they seemed like normal kids, not bad personalities like I known of them in the past. Admittedly, a few of them were missing that I would normally see at the jump meets but a few of the bad apples were there and seemed to be quite well behaved. Maybe I'm becoming a softy, LOL!!! I have dreaded the idea of jumping the 90 for quite some time simply because of knowing I would have to hang the kids. After yesterday and today I must say I don't mind it at all, and actually I'm beginning to think I might enjoy it more than hanging around the adults, DID I JUST SAY THAT?????
After finishing up at the OTC, we took the short drive over to the jump and it appeared that the wind was going to be in our favor. I started to suit up when one of the kids was saying that the wind was crap, mostly a tailwind. Matt Cook, the coach, took a look and said the wind looked fine. We all suited up and headed out to the 90...remember the motto since Groundhog Day.
While the kids headed up the tressel I decided to ride the landing hill. I decided to go for a full tuck run down it to get a good feel for what to expect for speed off the inrun. I waited and let the first jumper go ahead of me since we both were ready at the same time. I didn't want to keep him up on the bar.
Little did I realize what I was going to get a good feel for. I got down around 80-85 meters and all of a sudden started to notice the air pushing on me even though I was in a full tuck. I was HIGHLY surprised. Standing up I could expect to notice it like that but I didn't expect to notice it like that in a tuck position. I quickly knew that the takeoff would be interesting, their would be a lot more air at the takeoff than I could have ever expected.
Behind me the second jumper came down for his jump and then we headed back up top. I decided to definitely take a second landing hill this time standing up. I wanted to see/know what it was going to feel like after landing a jump and riding down the landing hill.
I got up top and one of the jumpers was talking with Matt. I noticed that it seemed like the third jumper in the grouper hadn't taken her jump. I'm not sure if she didn't jump by choice, or if she got called down off the tressel by the coach. Like I had said one of the kids, right after we got to the jump was saying that the wind was crappy. The coach conceded that he was right and ended up calling off the rest of the jumping and he was going to take the kids back to the OTC for weight training. He got on the radio and found someone to coach me on the 48.
I headed on over to the 48, stumped out of the 90 for the third time in as many tries by the wind. The first jump off the 48 reminded me of the fourth jump yesterday expect I didn't have much of a V and their wasn't any real air to speak of. I ended up landing and riding my hands through the outrun.
The second and third jumps seemed better but it turns out I had been dropping my hands on the inrun for some reason on each of the first three jumps. Mouse, the coach/facility manager at the jump complex in Lake Placid, made mention of it to me as I was riding up the chairlift. I paid more attention to it on the fourth jump and I will agree that I was dropping the hands.
The next couple of jumps are better with the hands but I'm still lacking any power at the takeoff. On jump seven I decide to go for the power. For the first time on anything much bigger than a 25 meter jump I could actually feel it at the takeoff. Problem was that I had once again dropped the hands coming down the inrun.
On the eighth and final jump of the morning I just worked on the hands and still tried to go for more power. I did manage to make it down to around 39 meters which was the longest ride I had for the day.
The one thing I did learn from the morning session...blowing snow, man made snow, stings like crap when it hits your face as you come down a landing hill, LOL!!! They have been making snow constantly at the jump to get a halfpipe ready for a competition coming up in one month at the jump site. It should be interesting to see the final pile of snow that they get made. I guess the size of the halfpipe is unreal. The temperatures have been perfect for making snow and they are forecast to stay the same way for most of the next week or so as well. According to Mouse they will need cooperative temperatures given the size of the pile they need to make.
I left and headed on home arriving back at my house about 3:30PM. I quickly unpacked the nonessential gear out of the car and then headed off to join the Sunapee High School team on the bus to Andover for the high school meet on the K38. My original plan had been to not bother to jump with kids tonight. I knew not to be stupid and jump the 90 in the morning and then jump a K38 in the evening. Since the 90 didn't happen I figured I might as well take a few with the kids during practice.
I changed clothes on the bus. Since I thought my suit was going to be worn by someone else I just put on the ski bibs and was going to wear them for tonight. I knew with all the schools at the meet it would mean roughly 60-70 kids would be trying to get practice jumps in. I got ready so I could quickly get three jumps in and let the kids take over.
The first jump was an utter disaster. I came into the transition on the inrun fine but once I reached the table I was setting WAAAY to far back and almost ended up sitting down on the inrun. To say jump one was a disaster would be a BIG mistake.
Jump two was better but compared to any jump I have taken in the past few days, it stunk miserably. Everything was wrong with that could be wrong with it. If I didn't know better I would have to think I was starting to learn ski jumping all over again. What a difference a couple of hours can make, LOL!!!
After finding out that my suit was needed, I took a third and final jump for the evening. It was better but still no where close to what it should be. Tomorrow I'll get back to a jump that I'm more familiar with, the 50 at Lebanon.
Crash
