Jumping Journal: October 22, 2007

Last day of summer jumping for 2007...I think. I didn't say the last day of jumping on plastic for 2007, I said the last day of summer jumping for 2007.

I knoew fall arrived a month ago, but no one told that to Mother Nature, YET!!! After more unseasonably warm weather today, high temperature of 78, I guess you could want to say that today was still summer. It sure felt like it at least. The forecast for tomorrow is only 62 and 55 on Wednesday. Sunday into Monday is forecast to be only in the upper 40s for highs. The average high this time of the year is 54 degrees.

I got to the hill a little earlier than normal since we were jumping half an hour earlier than normal. Cannonball had a meeting at the hill this evening and since he wasn't going to be around Thursday he decided we could jump tonight instead.

Like I already made mention it was warm out for this time of the year. Very strange to be trying to avoid sweating up a storm in October. There was one other kid that was out jumping with me.

I got up top to find that someone had walked off with the soap since last Thursday. After putting on my skis I headed down the inrun and wasn't really surprised, even though I sounded like it. It was slow and I only managed to go around 13 meters. The jump wasn't bad but the extra speed on the inrun was missing, quite big time. I really noticed the difference in inrun speed.

The second jump did seem a little better in terms of inrun speed, not much but I did notice the difference and made mention of it as I was coming down the inrun. The jump wasn't quite as nice as the first one but it still took me to about the same distance.

I had been focusing mostly on trying to drive through the heel and keep the chest down. It did seem like I was bring the chest up in the air. On the third jump, Cannonball mention the crazy idea of trying to jump higher instead of trying to jump harder. I gave it a go and according to him on the third jump I did keep the chest down and was jumping more like I should be. It seemed to me like I had either jumped late or that I was still chesty.

I did the same thing on the fourth jump and it did seem like it was better. On the fifth jump he had me put on some of the liquid soap that was down at takeoff. There was very little left in the bottle and since the bar soap was missing their wasn't anything else to use right at the jump. This jump did go farther down the hill, not surprisingly. I was getting back closer to 18-19 meters.

I decided to go for another jump. This jump I did notice that I was more out over the skis versus being chesty. I could feel the difference. Cannonball told me to grab the bar of soap that was in the lodge and bring it up with me after I took the sixth jump. I could see it was going to be a longer than normal evening.

I grabbed the soap and headed up the landing hill and after we soaped up I headed on up the inrun. I did pretty much the same thing I had been doing the past couple of jumps and this time I went down the hill. I ended up landing right around 19.5 meters. It was the closest to the blue line that I ever remember landing, thus far on plastic. I couldn't except that as the last jump though, like an idiot.

I walked back up the stairs for the eighth and final jump of the evening. To say the least, it didn't go as well as the last several before it. I didn't crash but after the past several I might as well have. The technique just came unglued and left me with a real crummy jump to finish up the evening.

Hopefully now I'll be back to jumping normally next week, LOL!!!

Crash