Jumping Journal: January 18, 2008

The calm before the storm...or was that yesterday. I guess that depends on which storm you are talking about.

 

This morning saw rain/freezing rain fall for a short period of time before turning back into BIG snowflakes that was falling fast and furious.  I ended up with another 3 inches from this storm.  By noon time the sun was already coming back out and the temperature was up above freezing.

 

I made my way on to Storrs Hill to find Dan and a couple other fellows working on the poma lift for the ski area.  It broke down yesterday after what appeared to be a wire brokw thatwas used to send safety switch signals to the main lift unit.  They temporarily fixed that before the counterweight cable up top ended up breaking leaving them with no counterweight and no lift until they can get everything back up working the way it suppose to work.

 

I walked on to the jump inn and I was about to walk in when someone said hi.  It was Mark Breen.  I hadn't seen him since I took my digger last winter at Lake Placid.  Turns out his winter hasn't been the best to say the least.  All his good intentions of jumping have met with essentially no jumping thanks to Mother Nature.

 

Him and I got our gear on and proceeded to ski pack the landing hill of the K50 while Cannonball raked down after us.  Fred was there and finished up the fence work Bill and I started yesterday.

 

After Mark and I finished ski packing the landing hill we went back up to the jump inn and talked we each other for a while until it was time to jump.  Matt showed up and waxed his equipment to get it ready for the competition tomorrow.  A former high school jumper poked his head in the door and decided to stick around and have some real nice long jumps to get ready for tomorrow as well.  After a while several of the kids from Lake Placid showed up to get some practice time in on the hill tonight before the meet.

 

I stretched and suited up and headed on up the jump.  The inrun looked the best I've ever seen it.  It was all in the question of how fast would it end up being.

 

Jump one.  The inrun speed was definitely faster than it has been all week long.  I headed down the inrun, everything seemed fine.  I jumped at the takeoff and while in the air I noticed it seemed like the jump didn't have the 'fluidity' the jumps the past several nights had.  I ended up landing aroudn 34 meters.  It even seemed short.  I was a little surprised.

 

Jump two.  Pretty much the same as jump one.  I was a bit closer to 35 meters but I wouldn't say I landed it on 35.  Walking back up in between jumps Cannonball said I wasn't putting much into the jump.

 

Jump three.  Again it just didn't feel the same as it had been all week long.  I was starting to figure it was probably the change in the environment.  Things went from being all about the fun of jumping into more a competitive slant with all the jumpers present.

 

Jump four.  I decided to work on including a V.  Once again the same results as yesterday.  I was having good luck on getting the ski tips separated.  I also had good luck on bringing the skis back together before landing.  The problem was letting myself hang out there and maintaining the position until I landed.  I kept pulling myself off the jump.

 

Jump five.  Same as jump four now getting down to 35-35+ meters.

 

Jump six.  Same as the previous two.  I didn't pull out of the jump quite as much but I was still pulling none the less.

 

Jump seven.  It seemed like I did keep myself a bit more under control.  I did change my focus to looking to where I wanted to land.  I'm not sure if that help with the mental game or not but the jump did seem better.  I landed in the 36 meter range.

 

I could have taken several more jumps but I decided to call it quits since I had been having trouble for the past several jumps with the toe plate on the right ski.  Gee, and I thought I was done with the equipment headache.  Guess I better rethink that dumb concept.

 

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get 10-15 jumps at least with it being the annual jump meet Saturday at Storrs Hill.  I always jump like crazy during practice to get in as many jumps as possible.  Generally it is one of the few days each winter that I get the chance to jump like crazy.  I always take benefit of it.

 

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash