Jumping Journal: March 21, 2007

Day 45.  Tie a hill record.  WOW, what a long dry spell of jumping!

 

Well to update from last Monday, the last day that I had jumped.  Actually I have to go back to the weekend and lead into Monday.  Saturday at Mud Meet things seemed okay.  Seemed I truly believe now is the key word.  Sunday things seemed okay as well.  Sunday actually seemed better than Saturday, mostly from a psychological standpoint.  I really do wonder if all was well or not though.

 

Monday during the day I noticed that I had been coughing a little.  I didn't think much about.  I didn't think much about either as I was jumping Monday evening. I had noticed Monday evening that it seemed like I was dragging my heels about getting back up top to take another jump after taking my skis off.  I figured that was psychological as well, BOY WAS I WRONG!

 

I woke up Tuesday morning with one heck of a nasty virus/flu case.  I had an annoying headache that just followed me along all day long.  I also had a nasty backache that seemed like I was dehydrated.  I was in the part of the back, around the kidney and it had the same feeling of being dehydrated.  I also was coughing most of the day.  I never saw my nose plug and the sinuses start to run.  I did go to the hill and watched everyone else jump on Tuesday evening but with the backache I couldn't pull myself to even think of putting the skis on.

 

Wednesday the backache was still there and the headache moved from being a constant annoying headache around the temple area to being a cough-only headache on either side of the nose.  Overnight I had been getting up about once every 1.5 hours to go to the bathroom so I knew I wasn't dehydrated but it sure felt that way.  I was completely run down and had no energy whatsoever.  I hadn't been that sick in 20 years.

 

Thursday I started to feel a little better. The headache was mostly gone and the backache was dissipating as well.  I watched as the small kids jumped on the 10 and 25 but the 50 needed work thanks to the warm weather that we had been seeing the previous couple of days and it didn't even get jumped at all on Thursday.

 

Friday came around and everyone left in the middle of yet another snow storm to head up to Lake Placid for the final two meets of the season.  I headed up but got turned away since I hadn't gotten doctors clearance saying that I could jump again, so I ended up driving home and got home with probably 3-4 inches of fresh snow already on the ground.

 

Saturday I woke to find a fresh foot of new snow of the ground.  Talk about a weird winter.  You couldn't get any snow until late January and since then it hasn't stopped falling.  I shoveled out around the house and on Sunday I went up and shoveled off the landing hill and inrun steps on the 50 so they would be ready for this week.

 

Monday saw everyone taking the day off.  Tuesday I went up and helped Cannonball get the 25 ready for the little kids before we went over and put down a new track on the 50.  I was still whooped enough from the virus last week but just down on myself for several reasons and I decided not to join the two or three jumpers that did end up jumping the 50 yesterday afternoon.

 

This afternoon was planned for a nice mid afternoon session on the 50.  I got to the hill and stretched and suited up and headed on up for the first jump in over a week.  This really seems strange.  I'm not use to having this much time off of snow.  It doesn't feel right and it doesn't sound right to even think such a thought.  Boy what a weird end to the winter.

 

I led Cannonball down for the first jump.  Everything went pretty normal until I got to the sun/shade line and then I noticed that it seemed like the sunny part of the outrun was slower than the rest of the outrun.  Cannonball came down for his first jump and ended up crashing it.  I was really surprised to see him crash it.  Now in retrospect, I'm not so surprised.

 

I went up for my second jump and by that time Dan Brown had arrived to join us old timers out jumping.  My second jump started out better than the first then I got beyond the transition and hit a strange rut in the outrun.  It looked like someone had been skiing part of the outrun on a warm day and had left ruts in the snow that you really almost couldn't even see until you were on top of them.  I got my ski caught up in one of the ruts I went down.  The cable on the binding fell off as the screw in the ski that holds the cord to the cable had pulled itself right out of the ski.  I found th cable and managed to get everything put back together and headed back up for another jump.

 

The third went smooth once again.  I still wasn't seeing much of anything past 35 meters and probably not much past 30 meters the entire afternoon.  I wouldn't say it was slow conditions, rather I would say that it was still me coming back, psychologically, from the digger on the 90 a month ago.  Strangely enough I did noticed that on most of the jumps today I was able to keep my arms at the side at the takeoff instead of letting the arms follow the motion of the body.

 

The fourth jump ended up just like the second jump, including losing it in one of the ruts.  The ruts were completely in the shade and like I said earlier you couldn't tell they were there until you were in them.  By the end of the session I knew to be expecting them so I setting myself up before I got to them so I could ride through them safer, without crashing.

 

The fifth jump got better and so did jump six.  Cannonball decided to call it quits after the first jump so he came back out to coach us once he changed his clothes.  He made mention after jump six that I wasn't giving the jump any power but I was jumping on time.  I hadn't even been paying any attention to whether I was on time or jumping with power or anything like that so far.  I was actually watching myself, in surprise, keeping my arms under control.  I did notice that I was having trouble getting them to come back down to the sides right after the takeoff like I should.  I was generally midflight before I would bring them back down to a normal position.

 

The seventh jump was better on the power but I was late, ditto on the eighth and final jump of the session.   All in all not a bad session.  I'm glad to finally have jumped again.  I was beginning to get a little worried for more reasons than just one.

 

On Monday, March 21, 2005 Dan Brown, Bill Ryan and myself jumped the 50 under less than ideal condition.  There were several crashes that day.  I think it was a bad track on the inrun, everyone was getting thrown at the takeoff and it was leading to problem both in the air and on the landing.  Cannonball sayd otherwise.  The outrun was already turning to mud in a few spots.  March 21st had been the latest the 50 had been jumped in numerous years, if not ever.  If it wouldn't have been for Easter Sunday being that very next weekend we could have jumped the 50 on Sunday and it would have marked the final day for jumping the 50 that year.

 

Today under MUCH better conditions, we jumped the 50.  The temperature was just under 40 degrees after an overnight low last night of -5 F.  It has been one crazy winter.  Right now the forecast is sounding more spring like.  Freezing rain overnight tonight changing to rain shortly after sunrise with rain tomorrow and highs in the 50s.  Through the weekend the highs are suppose to be in the mid 40s, right where they are suppose to be this time of the year.

 

Plans right now are to jump the 50 on Saturday morning before they set up the gates on the landing hill for the slalom apine event that is going to be held as part of the end of the season party.  The plans then are to groom the landing hill and get ready for April Fools Day.  We are going to try and see if we can't jump it on April 1st.  Time shall tell.  I would love to jump it on April Fools Day.  I'm questioning if the inrun will survive or if the outrun will survive.  The landing hill shouldn't be any problem at all but everything else is questionable.

 

As for 50 days for the fifth straight year.  I'm tending to think that it doesn't stand a chance, unfortunately.  If it wouldn't have been for the concussion or the virus last week than 50 days could be quite feasible but right now it isn't looking promising.  I'm still giving it a decent run though at 45 days so far with well over 400 jumps on the season.  Not bad to have 290 jumps right now on the 50.

 

Crash