Jumping Journal: September 09, 2007

The Sunday after Labor Day 1997, the first Dion Cup, the New England Summer Ski Jumping Championships was held.  It was also the start of something big for the boys of Storrs Hill in Lebanon, New Hampshire.  It was first time that kids would get a chance to jump on plastic in Lebanon.  Until that point in time the only summer jumping available in the northeastern part of the United States was in Lake Placid, New York.

 

This same Sunday also started what would become a world record tradition of ski jumping in Lebanon.  Summer jumping became a way life for the Lebanon kids.  After that day of jumping they continued jumping into early November.  By the time December came around it was time to start jumping on snow.  The snow lasted through March.  Toward the end of April 1998, Coach Cannonball stopped by the hill and saw that the snow was melted and everything was ready to start summer jumping once again.  He called the boys up and that got out for some April jumping.  The rest is history.

 

Today marked the 121st consectutive month of ski jumping in Lebanon, okay so I jumped back on Thursday evening, who counting anyways.  The boys, err old boys mostly now, of Lebanon have managed to make their way through ten Dion Cups and ten straight years without missing a month of jumping the K25 in Lebanon.  As far as it is known, no other ski jump in the world jumps twelve months a year.  A few have jumped year round in the past for a couple of years at a time but no one, to our knowledge, has managed to put together a streak of ten years of year round ski jumping.  Only the boys in Lebanon have managed to accomplish this feat.

 

Today was the annual Dion Cup, err the New England Summer Ski Jumping/Nordic Combined Championships.  You could say given the competitors that it was the unofficial US Masters Summer Ski Jumping/Nordic Combined Championships as well.  The youngest of the five competitors was 32 years old.  This year would mark the first time for both an all masters field and also it marked the first time that the nordic combined event would be held.

 

The past couple of days had been hot and humid.  Temperatures breaking records across the northeast into the upper 80's and lower 90's.  Normal highs for this time of the year are in the lower 70s.  Today was...well...downright chilly after the past two days, highs today were in the low 60's.  I arrived at the hill on a rainy Sunday morning.  I saw no one there and decided to run a couple of errands and come back.  I got back to the hill to find Cannonball, Dan, Bill, and Matt talking.  They were trying to finalize the details of the competition, how does the old saying go "Flying by the seat of your pants."  Things were definitely changing compared to how they have been held in the past.

 

The first change was the jumping was only going to be based on distance, no judging.  If you fell before the fall line you lost 2.5 meters off the distance.  That could come key and vital into the nordic combined part of the competition.  It was deemed for the nordic combined that it would be a 6 second per meter penalty on your start time of the nordic combined running event.  The running event was a 1.4 mile, err 2 kilometer course.  Being that part of the course is a stone parking lot it naturally wouldn't make for a very good inline skating/roller skiing competition.

 

After a short warmup run everybody got suited up and took some practice jumps.  Cannonball and Matt decided to only take one jump while the rest of us decided to go with two practice jumps.  My first jump was okay but nothing compared to what I had been jumping back on Thursday evening.  It was quite obvious before the practice even started that this was going to be a very close jumping competition.  VERY CLOSE.  I knew pretty much the Cannonball had some distance on the rest of us old timers but after that it would be WAY too close to call ahead of time.

 

My second jump was about the same as the first.  Walking back up the stairs after the second jump I started to think that it must be the additional jumpers being around that was causing the jumps to not be as good as they were on Thursday evening.  Then again, the competitive environment never helps, at least not in my case.

 

It was decided that the start order for the first round would be youngest to oldest.  The second round would be based on how you jumped in the first round and the third round would be based on your total points thus far.  This put Matt up to jump first.  He ended up with a nice 18 meter jump.

 

I take my first jump and I'm late, quite late.  Strangely enough though the jump ends up being down around where I had been jumping Thursday evening.  I was quite surprised how far the jump went given how late I was.  They said the jump was also 18 meters.  It did seem like it was down around 19.  Normally I do pretty good at marking myself.  Today I wasn't doing worth a crap.

 

Bill jumps next and comes in at 17 meters. Dan follows with a 17.5 meter jump.  Cannonball comes down to finish out round one with an 18 meter jump.  Talk about a tight competition.

 

Bill's second round jump equals his first jump.  Dan's second jump was also 17.5 meters just like his first jump.  Matt's second jump was the same as his first jump.  My second jump was...wellllll...not so good.  I ended up jumping early but I still pulled the jump off and ended with a 17.5 meter jump.  Cannonball comes down and improves on his first round jump with an 18.5 meter jump.

 

The third round of competition sees the order change ever so slightly as Matt and I swapped jump order.  Bill takes his third jump once again down to 17 meters.  Dan takes his third jump down to 18 meters.  I take my third jump and once again it wasn't the greatest but at least I wasn't early.  I end up once again at 17.5 meters.  Matt joins me with a 17.5 meter jump and Cannonball goes for an 18 meter final round jump.

 

It had been pretty dry during the jumping but it did start to rain asl Matt and Cannonball took their last jump.  As least it wasn't rain like it was on the drive up to Lebanon.  That would have made for some interesting jumping.  Talk about not being able to see out your goggles.

 

Everyone changed clothes and got ready for the 1.4 mile foot race.  With the 6 seconds per meter lead it gave Cannonball a 3 second headstart on Matt, a 6 second headstart on Dan and I, and a 15 second headstart on Bill.

 

As the race started it didn't take long for the rain to start falling again.  It pretty much lasted the entire race.  It definitely provided for a different foot race than what I have ever been involved in before.

 

Cannonball starts and Matt takes off, what seemed a little longer than 3 seconds, after Cannonball.  Dan and I take off 3 seconds after Matt.  I notice that I'm outpacing Dan right from the get go.  I noticed that Matt had quickly caught up to Cannonball and he passed him shortly before I passed Cannonball.  I joke with Cannonball as I pass him, "You aren't going to let Matt pass you like that are you?"

 

Upon reaching the turn around point I see that I have put a nice separation between Dan and myself and Bill was about to catch Cannonball.  I remain behind Matt by about the same 10 seconds or so from just before the turn around point until turning back into Storrs Hill.  He had been slowly pulling away from me right from the start.  I wasn't able to close the gap.

 

Matt ended up winning the nordic combined part of the competition with a race time of 8:10.  I came in second with 8:34, Dan came in third with 9:01, Cannonball came in fourth with 9:34 and Bill came in fifth with 9:44.  The strange thing has been that the other four guys have been running all summer.  They recently ran a half marathon.  Dan has been winning all the races thus far.  He had under 2 hours in the half marathon.  Strange how he didn't beat me or Matt.  I haven't did any running since sometime back in late May or early June.

 

All in all everyone had a good time and the tradition of ski jumping year round in Lebanon continues.

 

Crash