Jumping Journal: January 17, 2007

Heads up, heads down, heads all around.  Fred's gonna kill me for this one.  LOL!!!

 

Another great night of ski jumping with the old boss himself flagging/coaching us.  Good old Fred Baker was back in town.  I haven't seen him standing on the coaches stand in a couple of years now.  He always used to help out with the coaching on the K25 and he was the do it all guy that helped keep things running and came up with the crazy ideas on how to accomplish missions without having to rob the bank to do it.  His wife took a job down in North Carolina a year or so ago and I haven't seen much of him since.  Tonight was a real pleasure.  Thanks Fred.

 

Yes, he reads my blog/journal and was commenting on it quite a bit tonight.  Hopefully I won't screw up too many of the details tonight.  If I do you can correct me, okay Fred, LOL!!!

 

I arrived at the hill and since my original plan got canned thanks to problems out of my control I ended up instead helping Cannonball get things ready for the jump meet this weekend.

 

First we cleaned up in the judge tower and got the lightbulbs in the judge tower replaced.  Finally, I don't have to walk in there and walk about blindly. Afterwards we gathered everything up and proceed to ice down the inrun.  While icing down the inrun I notice someone down on the knoll. It kinda looked like Fred but I had just seen him over Christmas and I figured I wouldn't see him again until maybe the end of the winter at the earliest.  Boy, was I wrong.

 

After we iced the inrun it was on down to get ready to jump.  I had seen Dan floating around earlier in the afternoon but he was nowhere to be seen at jump time.  It was just Bill and I out for the evening, or so it seemed.  We suited up an headed on out to start jumping.

 

I decided to take jump number from the top bar.  Not knowing how much of a difference in speed I might see from the icing job I decided to play it safe and not start from house.

 

Jump one.  Pretty much started off where last night left off.  I was once again jumping down close to the 36-37 meter mark, nice solid technique.  Consistency is my mild name, at least that's what I'm starting to claim.

 

Jump two.  I decided to go from house for the next several jumps.  I kept the head down on the inrun but I decided to change my focus, like the last jump yesterday and instead I focused on looking to where I wanted to land.  WOW! what a difference in perspective that makes.  It makes everything so much clearer as to what you are doing and where you headed for than any other head position I have used in the past.  The jump just felt better than any previous jump.  I still landed in pretty much the same area but the jump just felt better, the landing felt better and the ride on the landing hill/outrun felt better.

 

Jump three.  The same as jump two.

 

Around jump three or four one of the junior jumpers showed up and started jumping with us.  He pretty much always jumps from the bars and avoids jumping from house.  He was going from the third bar down.

 

Jump four through the rest of the evening I wasn't focusing as much on trying to look where I landed.  I wish I would have but I kept forgetting to do it.  I was mostly spending the evening on just trying to jump with more power instead of leaving it all on the takeoff.  Each of the jumps with the expection of the final two and one of the other jumps were pretty much consistent.

 

I believe it was jump four or five where I found myself WAY high in the air.  I think that is the highest I have ever been off the ground while ski jumping.  I felt myself trying to pull out of the jump.  If I wouldn't have reacted to the jump I would easily have had my longest jump of the season if not my longest jump ever on the K50.  I ended up landing around 37-38 meters.

 

Jumps six and seven I decided to see how well I was jumping since I was able to compare myself to the kids that were out jumping.  I knew that one of the two was typically making it down the hill, nicely.  I had been watching him jump/land since he was going right behind me.  He was jumping 42-44 meters generally from the third bar down.  I decided to jump from the third bar down and see how far I was going.

 

On the first jump I noticed something rather unusual.  I noticed the drop in speed on the inrun.  Normally I don't notice it any, but tonight I was noticing it.  I ended up generally going 33-34 meters.

 

Jump eight and nine.  Things had been too consistent for my liking so I said the heck with it and decided to try something I have normally been avoiding and see if I could pull it off or if it would end up spanking me.  I know the kids are always putting in a V and I have tried it in the past with not the best of results.  I can get the ski to go into the V but coming back out of the V before I land has normally not been pretty.  I had a couple of jumps earlier this winter where I almost did the splits on the landing hill thanks to not coming out of the V quick enough.

 

I managed to put in the V on both jump eight and nine.  Jump eight had a much better/further apart V than jump nine.  I was caught off guard on both jumps by having the V and pulled out of both jumps early so I didn't really get a good chance to see what kind of a difference it would make in how far I was jumping.  I did manage to come out the V before landing without any trouble.  It does give me a renewed feeling/willingness to add the V in the future...FORTUNATELY!

 

After jumping and doing some talking with a former ski jumper turned ultra marathoner I helped Bill put the fence up across the bridge on the outrun while Cannonball and Fred were reicing the inrun.  It did start snowing about the time we got around to doing more work but it had pretty much stopped by the time I left the hill.

 

Everything is close to being ready for the weekend jump meets.  The snow in the forecast is looking like it will be out of the way just in time for the weekend.  It is forecast to snow 2-5 inches with some freezing rain/sleet overnight tonight into tomorrow.  Thankfully all that should be out of the way in time for this weekends jumping.

 

The talk right now, by some of us is for jumping tomorrow.  Nothing official is planned but we are talking about doing some ski packing and then jumping in the evening tomorrow.  Time shall tell.

 

Crash