Jumping Journal: November 01, 2007

Brrrrr, it's cold out here.  What difference a week makes. Just a little chilly tonight, right around 50 degrees or so while jumping.  After 70-80 degrees while jumping the last several times tonight seemed a little more winter like.

 

I got to the hill and found Dan already there, I believe he had went out for a short run to warm up.  Cannonball came in later after having the first of two/three meetings for the evening.  We decided we would get November out of the way right at the very beginning of the month.  It turned out the one junior jumper that has jumped quite a bit this summer and fall was actually going to be around tonight.  His family is in the process of moving to coastal Maine and I thought he was pretty much gone other than for an occasional visit.  His mother said it best later on in the evening, "Things don't always go quite as you plan them."  Turns out he ended up showing up after I had taken one or two jumps.

 

I changed clothes and we all headed up the jump.  My first jump pretty much started off right where the last week ended.  I was still getting decent distance and it felt like I was jumping up, err jumping with more of my available power than I do when I try to jump out.  I still jump out mostly by tricking the mind into thinking about jumping higher.

 

The second jump was probably the best jump of the evening.  It reminded me of the next to last jump last week.  I was down around 19 meters once again.

 

I was starting to notice one real strange thing though by the second or third jump.  I was noticing that I was making it a lot further into the outrun than normal.  The ground was dry so that was no reason for the extra distance.  I finally came to realize on the fifth or sixth jump that I wasn't try to help myself to stop by dragging my hands as much as I always have in the past.  After jumping plastic in Lake Placid this summer I knew that I had to try to break myself of the habit of using my hands to help me stop.  I've been working on it and now I'm starting to notice that I'm not dragging them so much anymore by making it further out into the outrun before coming to a stop.

 

The third and fourth jumps were just a little behind the second in terms of distance and overall performance.  They were still nice solid jumps but it seemed like I didn't quite have the same power as before.

 

The fifth jump I jumped late but still ended up in pretty much the same area 17-18 meters.  The sixth jump was more so on time than the previous jump but I still ended up in the same area.

 

I took a nice break and talked with Ian's mom and watched Ian jumping and having a good time.  When he decided he had his last jump in for the evening I headed up for my last jump.  Woooooo.

 

The jump was nice and smooth.  The landing needed a lot of work.  I landed and thought for sure I was going to eat plastic.  I didn't come out of the flight position before landing.  You could say I stayed into the flight position all the way into the landing and than some.  I don't think I have stayed in the flight position that far into the landing ever before.  I figured for sure I was going to go down.  Fortunately, I was wrong.

 

It appears to be the end of another summer of jumping at Storrs Hill.  Not bad, 85 jumps for the summer on the 25 and amazingly enough another 11 jumps on the 48 in Lake Placid.  Still can't believe I finally made it up to Lake Placid to jump on plastic.  Admittedly, I did lose the masters class race this summer.  Normally I end up jumping more than any of the other adults I jump with.  This summer Cannonball over 100 jumps on plastic.  Oh well, I have never tried to claim to be the most active ski jumper in the east on plastic.  I save that for the winter months and instead I claim to be the most active ski jumper on snow east of the Rockies each winter.  I challenge anyone else to prove me wrong.

 

Then again, in one respect I'm the most active ski jumper in the world.  83 consecutive months of ski jumping as of this month.  Not bad...for someone that figured he would never get the chance to ski jump anytime in his life.

 

Crash