Myth #1(Mother Nature killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked

Myth #2(NCAA killed the sport of ski jumping) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Myth #3(The US doesn't have the talent) Debunked Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Mind Of A Ski Jumper Part 1, 2, 3, 4

The Ultimate Coach - Ski Jump Training Device

Jumping Season Digest: (see bottom of this page)

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Jumping Journal: January 12, 2007

Nice and fast, just the way I like it.
 
After the craziest weather I think I have seen over the past week things have finally started to settle down and it appears like winter might be ready for its second go around.
 
I have seen just about anything in the past several days from sun, clouds, rain, freezing rain/sleet, 50 degrees to 40 degrees, but not much in the way of 30 degrees though.  I did miss something didn't I...SNOW.  It's been a little too warm for snow.  From Wednesday morning until Thursday evening we never dropped below freezing.
 
Tuesday evening by the time I got around to jumping...well, planning on jumping, they had already put the plastic on the inrun of the K50 to get ready for the rain on Wednesday.  The high school jump meet schedule for Wednesday evening on the K25 had been postponed until Thursday.  The new jumpers, including a couple new master jumpers were jumping on the K10 and K25.  It looks right now like we might see a 100% increase in the number of new master jumpers this winter in the Eastern Division.  One new master has started over at Andover and I've seen four or five new masters out jumping in Lebanon.  Several new kids have also joined in the action.
 
Wednesday saw high winds and rain.  Some places were reporting 50-70 mph winds throughout the day.  I figured the inrun on the K50 would fair pretty decent, hopefully, but the K25 would be down to plastic.  When I arrived at the hill Thursday I was surprised to see the K25 looked quite nice, to put it simply.  Plenty of snow on the inrun.  Granted when I drove up to Lebanon Tuesday I noticed that the temperature was doing everything imaginable.  About every 5 miles the temperature would rise and fall 10 degrees.  The temperature inversion we had was impressive, and the wildest temperature inversion I thing I have ever heard occuring before.  I think the temperature inversion helped with keeping it colder at around the ski hill/jumps since Lebanon does sit in a river valley.
 
By Thursday grass was showing in quite a few places, but at Storrs Hill there was plenty of snow to go around.  The inrun of the K50, from what I heard, had survived the January thaw quite well.  Turns out, it survived it amazingly well.  There was still snow on the top of the jump.  You could actually start in house.  That really shocked me.  Normally, that would be melted/dry given what we had for weather.  Not this time around.
 
Friday saw rain and freezing rain off and on all day long.  I think most of it was actually freezing rain.  The temperature barely got above freezing all day long.  The high in Lebanon was 37 but around here it only got up to about 34.  During the day I took the walk back to the Newport ski jump and took a look to see how it was doing.  The landing hill was too bad but the inrun was pretty much toast.  It had a very small amount of snow left on it.  It definitely wasn't usable.  There wasn't much wind throughout the day so that did help out.
 
Today I arrived at Storrs Hill around 10AM and after doing some computer work to get the scoring set up for the meet next weekend I helped Cannonball get the K25 ready for the learn to ski jump session at noon.  Dan was over getting the plastic pulled off the K50 and trying to get the inrun back in shape so we could jump it this afternoon.
 
I watched/helped coach the learn to jump session.  There ended up being about a 50/50 split between adults and kids.  Three new adults jumping, including one female, and I believe three kids were all jumping on the K25.  Esky was finally trying to make the jump up to jumping skis.  He has jumped off and on since before I started ski jumping back in 2001.  I guess he did try jumping skis once before and reverted back to alpine skis.  He is trying once again with everyone encouraging him on.  He wasn't having the best of luck getting comfortable on them.
 
After the K25 session was finished we all headed over to cut a track on the K50.  Once that was done it was time to suit up and do some jumping for the first time since Monday.  Yes, the inrun still had snow on it.  In fact, my first jump was from house.  It didn't have much snow left but there was still snow up in the house.  Admittedly, it was a little tricky since the front part of your foot was on snow and back part of your foot was over nothing but air.  Trying to get started was rather interesting.  Hence why the remainder of the jumps was from the top bar.
 
Jump one.  Interesting getting started going down the inrun.  Afterwards I pretty much settled into a halfways decent inrun position and jumped at the takeoff.  I noticed right off the bat that I had very quick response from the ski tips.  It seemed rather unusual to have the ski tips respond like that.  I was very roughly in the 30 meter area when I landed.  I rode the landing hill...falling behind as I entered the transition and end up riding through the outrun on my butt.  This day didn't start off as nice as what I would have liked.  Oh well.
 
Jump two was better on the inrun.  I started from the bar which made getting into a real nice inrun position, in a hurry, much easier.  I guess I must have still had the butt down on the inrun cause I ended up with pretty much the same results as I had on the first jump, including dragging my butt on the ground.  This wasn't looking good.  One thing I did notice was it seemed like I real chesty on the jump.  The ski tips came up and made it seem like I was out over the skis.  I could tell though that I was almost standing up in the air versus out over the skis.  VERY STRANGE feeling.
 
Jump three.  This one went better.  The inrun was better but I was still on the chesty side.  One of the skiers that has been skiing at Storrs Hill as long as I can remember had been taking pictures while we were jumping.  The difference between jump two and three showed a decent improvement but much more was needed.  I was still chesty in the air.  At least I did manage to correct one problem.  I didn't crash this jump.
 
Jump four.  Starting to get some of the chestiness problem worked out.  Starting to get a little further down the hill as well.  I was down in the 32 meter range.
 
Jump five.  Much better.  Much closer to moving out over the skis versus jumping up.  I'm noticing on each of these jumps the tips are coming up without trying.  It almost seems like the cords are too long.
 
I did finally get everything straightened out, it seems, with the skis.  The screws do seem like they are going to stay in now.  I measured back how far from the balance point I use to have the front of the toeplate setting on the old skis and put it the same distance back on the new skis.  The new skis are 2 cm longer.  I'm wondering if I may have put it a little too far back and now the skis are going to be very responsive.  More below.
 
Jump six.  Now getting down around 35-36 meters.  Definitely getting more out over the skis once again.  Getting the ski legs back underneath me as well.  At least for most of the jump.  I did notice in the transition on the landing hill that I was trying to be very one legged.  I was lucky I didn't crash.
 
Jump seven.  The best of the day.  Keeping the chest down more and keeping the butt up more.  Still keep the stiff arms on the inrun.  It was a nice way to finish the day.
 
Right now it looks like I may end up with almost everyday for the next several weeks out jumping...weather depending.  It's look pretty assured all but maybe Wednesday this week I'll be out and I might even be able to swing Wednesday and jump that day as well.  I still would like to break 13 days in a row of jumping sometime.  It's going to happen sooner or later.
 
There was one promising thing I did notice today.  Even though the female master who was trying out ski jumping for the first time didn't make it off the K25 she did spend the longest time of anyone that jumped today watching us old timers jump on the K50.  I think she saw each of my seven jumps on the K50.  She didn't jump the K25 today but promises she will give it another shot, maybe as early as tomorrow.  She hopped out on the bar but couldn't get herself to go down the inrun.  I do think she will be back.  
 
It does appear like the masters class may very well be growing nicely this year at Lebanon.  By the end of the year we may double the number of master ski jumpers we have.  Last year I saw 10 different masters jump at Lebanon on the K25 or K50, one of them, Don West, is actually from Plattsburgh, New York and I have heard he already jumped the K90 in Lake Placid this winter...he's 70 years old now.  Mark Breen lives just north of New York City.  That leaves seven master that would jump on occasion or regularly at Lebanon and one that jumps in Andover regularly.  This year I have seen at least 11 masters jump at Lebanon.  I haven't seen Don or Mark yet this winter but both are planning on being at the meet in Lebanon next Saturday.  The female master has only jumped the K10 thus far.  Andover now has two master jumpers.
 
We may double the number of masters jumping here in the east this winter if we aren't carefully.  Several of the new masters have been out more than once.
 
Crash
Winter 2010
DateLeb 25Plymouth 25Leb 50And 38
Dec 121
Jan 056
Jan 063
Feb 024
Feb 032
Feb 046
Feb 073
Mar 063
Totals133102