Jumping Journal: February 05, 2009

Shocking and solid.  It's one thing when someone tells you you have been robbed...but its another thing when your telling yourself you are being robbed while the robbery is taking place.

 

Not much more can be used to describe tonight.  I arrived at the Newport jump around 6PM for a rather cold night of ski jumping.  The temperature was already in the single digits by the time I arrived at the hill and was only getting colder as the evening wore on.  The nice and rather unusual thing tonight was the total lack of wind.  Newport normally has a bit of wind floating around and the jump always seems to collect all the wind and funnel it right up the hill.  Tonight was crystal clear skies and dead calm winds.  You couldn't ask for much more.

 

After suiting up I headed up the hill for the first jump of the night.  I figure it would be an okay jump more than likely and it would end up taking two or three jumps to really get any kind of decent jumps occuring.

 

I got the signal from Ron and headed down the inrun.  I jumped at the takeoff and thought it was a pretty typical jump for me.  I was going through the air thinking the same thing.  Next thing I know I'm still in the air and just going by the light which is roughly 27 meters.  I think to myself, WHAT???  I didn't think the jump was that good.  I landed somewhere below light pole, roughly 28-28.5 meters maybe a slight bit more even.  Going through the outrun I was shocked to have that jump all night yet alone on the very first jump of the evening.  I didn't have the slightest clue what the rest of the night was going to hold.  Talk about starting the night off on a good note.  That never happens.

 

I go up for the second jump.  It definitely was nowhere near as nice or as long as the first jump.  The third jump was getting back down real close to the light pole, err 27 meters again.  Most the rest of the evening I was landing in pretty much the same location.

 

The landing hill and outrun tonight had returned to good old fashion ski jumping material...hard pack.  I would love to see the soft, yet hard pack, snow return that was around Tuesday evening and a few other times earlier in the season.  I don't think I'll ever see conditions like that again.

 

The next several jumps were all pretty much the same.  I had one jump where I thought I was going to go down on my rear end as I was going through the transition on the landing hill.  I think it was the third jump of the evening.  I pulled off a nice save.  The last jump of the evening I pulled off another nice save after I almost went in head first but pulled it off.

 

The best jump of the evening and the most irritating jump of the evening was jump eight, the next to last jump of the evening.  The previous jump or so I had started working on lifting my head up in the air and looking toward the bottom of the hill.  On the next to last jump I jumped at the takeoff.  I real nice jump, not the typical slide off the end with a small amount of effort, instead this jump had some real nice effort to it.  I got in the air and I wasn't stopping the move in the air like it seemed I had been doing earlier in the evening.  I kept right on going with the move until I started to get down around the lights and then I let the ankles go so and I saw the tips start to drop.  I was still in the air already getting mad at myself.  I knew I lost 2-3 meters on the jump easily by not holding the position all the way into the hill like I should have.  I could have easily went 30 meters on the jump if I would have held the position.

 

I have noticed that my jumping seems to have improved quite a bit compared to the past few years but tonight was going to be the night I would be informed by Ron that it had improved.  After taking the above jump I walked back up to the knoll where Ron and one of the parents were standing talking to each other.  Ron made the comment to me, "I keep seeing you walk up the stairs but I never see you jump, at least not anyone that jumps like you".  I had to laugh.  I didnt jump much around Ron at all last winter since the Newport jump never saw any jumping action last winter at all.

 

It looks like I should have a few days off and hopefully will get my next chance to jump the K50 in Lebanon on Monday evening.  I may see if I can get lucky and jump it this weekend but I'm not sure what everyone is planning on doing at the present time.  Most jumpers will be down in Salisbury, CT for the jump meet but a few, like me, will stay behind.

 

Crash