Jumping Journal: January 24, 2009

Gee maybe I should take up playing the lottery.  I sure called this one right on the money.

 

Yes, I said it correctly with the last sentence I wrote yesterday "If the rest of the season has been any kind of indication as to what tomorrow will bring...it should be interesting what reality will hold for me."

 

Why should I not have been surprised one little bit by what happened today.

 

After stopping by the Newport jump to pick up some boots that the Chris Hastings was wanted to borrow from Ron for the Ford Sayre kids I drove on up to Lebanon for the annual Winter Carnival jump meet this morning.  Their had been a fresh dusting of snow overnight and the skies were gradually beginning to clear our to what was going to be a beautiful day, even though the wind was a bit brisk.

 

I arrived at the hill and after a while Chris stopped by and I let him pick from the boots he thought he night need.  I waited around for a while as no one was wanting to jump the K50 yet and I wasn't going to bother jumping the K25.  A few takers showed up and we still had no real flagger/coach for the hill and everyone else was pretty much anxious but still not willing to move.

 

Finally as the second round of the competition on the small hills was getting underway some jumpers started to work their way over to jump inn.  We suited up and headed up the hill.  Since there was a group of three seniors about 5-6 high school kids and oe junior jumper present we decided to flag each other.  The flow of jumpers coming up the hill was going to be plenty.

 

We headed up the jump and I stayed behind to flag the first couple of jumpers.  I walked on up the tressel and after waiting on a couple more kids and Bill, I put on my skis and got lined up with the track.  Everything to this point seemed totally natural.

 

I started down the inrun and I noticed something really weird.  You could say it was the spookiest experience I've ever had ski jumping.  I won't call it nerves but the mind was playing all sorts of tricks on me.  It almost like the mind didn't want me jumping.

 

I hit the takeoff and managed to grab somewhere around a 30 meter jump.  I knew the jump wasn't worth a crap.  I also knew the thoughts going down the inrun were very unnatural.

 

I walked back up and I got my turn once again.  I started down the inrun and things seemed better but it still didn't seem like normal.  I jumped at the takeoff and it was a better jump than the one before.  I landed and I'm not sure what happened but I ended up going down.  I started sliding and the skis came off and I saw that it looked like one of them, if not me, was going to go in the brook.  I ended up staying on the bridge and one of the skis came to a stop on the outrun side of the brook right after it cleared the bridge.  The other started rolling back down the small bit a drop toward the transition and stairs.  It was looking to go off the side of the bridge.  I got up and ran and grabbed the ski.  All this same time I could tell I had made the hole in the suit much bigger than it was before.  Also this time I had managed to rip the more than just the suit.

 

After grabbing the ski I noticed the front throw was missing.  I looked back up the outrun and saw it laying there.  I knew my day was over.  I walked over and picked it up.  Their was only one screw still in it.  I picked up the other ski and started the walk back toward the jump inn.  After getting to the jump inn I changed clothes and saw I went through everything.  The hole in the suit was more noticable, the sweatpants I had on had a big hole in them and my underwear underneath the jump suit had a hole in the butt on them as well.  Now I also had none of the screws remaining from the front throw.  I knew my day was over.  I didn't really care.

 

I guess I called it pretty good yesterday, "If the rest of the season has been any kind of indication as to what tomorrow will bring...it should be interesting what reality will hold for me."  So far the winter has been the crappiest winter I've had for ski jumping in the nine years I've been jumping.  No consistency of getting out to jump as one thing or another always ends up interrupting.  I always seem to get cut short no matter what.  It just hasn't been the winter that I could have ever expected, wanted or planned.

 

You could say I find myself right now saying "Is spring here yet."  Yeah, I'm ready for this winter to be over.  I have a very strong feeling I only have two more weekend days of jumping left this winter.  McCrillis Cup and Mud Meet.  Otherwise I think I'm going to end up doing other things this winter on the weekends.  Why fight a losing battle.

 

Crash