Jumping Journal: March 03, 2009

T minus one and counting.  This is March...it feels more like January.

 

Well, as the rest of the season has been thus far...expected the 'expected'/unexpected.  The plans for jumping Sunday got canned thanks to the rain on Friday.  I wasn't all that surprised to see the jumps in Lebanon bulletproof with no chance at all of us jumping them.

 

Sunday night into Monday was suppose to be rather interesting weatherwise.  The forecast was for 7-14 inches of snow.  Some forecasters were talking about how this would rival the ice storm we saw back in mid December.  When I went to bed Sunday evening the snow hadn't arrived yet.  I woke up a couple of times overnight and looked out the window toward the restaurant that sits right beside my house.  I didn't notice any snow falling as I looked toward the light on the building.  I woke up around 5:30 and found it had started to snow.  I had gotten around 1 inches or so by sunrise.  By 9AM it had pretty much stopped snowing.  I did get a little bit more snow throughout the day off and on, mostly off.  To the west of me was another story.  The weather radar made it look like western Vermont and eastern New York got pounded.  The snow was mostly moving north/northeast and it kept its distance about 50 miles to the west of me all day long.  I ended up getting a total of three inches out of the storm.  Talk about a dud.

 

Now the cold weather has settled back in.  It's 8 degrees right now at 10:15PM.  Some places nearby was even colder than that this morning.  It sure doesn't seem like March.

 

Thanks to the expected snow storm yesterday all plans for jumping in Lebanon last night got cancelled.  I checked out the Newport jump this morning and it is pretty much finished for the season since the trestle is just about snow free up top.  I was surprised how little snow it had on it.

 

I headed on up to Lebanon this evening to hopefully get some jumping in since I know I probably won't be around either of the next couple of days.  I arrived to find quite a few people there and everyone was getting ready ot head on out and jump the K25.  I didn't see any lights on the K50 when I arrived.  After doing some chatting I suited up and headed on up the jump.

 

The first jump wasn't bad.  I was kinda feeling things out more than anything else.  I won't say I really tried to jump or anything.  Jump two was a much better jump.  Pretty much one of the better jumps I've taken this winter...at least...until I landed.  I landed very stiff legged.  I noticed it big time.  It's been a long time since I last landed that stiff legged.  I managed to pull it off but I was a little worried.

 

The third jump and I found my luck running out.  Once again it wasn't a bad jump at all.  I landed a little bit better but was still stiff and I ended up going down and clobber the back of my left leg quite nicely.  I almost quit for the night after the jump.  It took a minute or so get the leg so it wasn't sore.

 

Gee, just what they need another jumper hurting himself.  Mike, one of the adults managed to give himself a slight concussion on one of his jumps before I started jumping.  I didn't see the jump so I don't know what happened for sure.

 

I walked up and decided to not give in just yet.  Jump four was better.  I did manage to land it fine.  I wasn't quite as stiff legged but there was something else going on and I didn't understand it until jump five.

 

When I landed jump five, like most of the rest this evening, somewhere around 19-20 meters I noticed as I rode through the transition that I was quickly switching over to a snowplow.  I'm not sure why I was trying to stop by going into an early snowplow.

 

Cannonball noticed and mentioned the same thing when I went past him as I was heading up for the sixth jump.  He said I should also jumper higher at the takeoff.

 

I decided to give it some more pep for the next jump and ended up with the best jump of the evening.  I landed somewhere down around 21+ meters I would guess.  I still was fighting stiff leggedness and trying to snowplow very early.

 

I walked up for one last jump for the evening and naturally it wasn't as long as the previous jump but since I did get by without crashing or anything like that I decided to stick with my original game plan and call it quits.

 

Right now I'm guessing it won't be until Saturday before I get back out again since I won't be around tomorrow or Thursday.  Instead I'm planning, as of right now, to be out enjoying some time away playing in the snow.  The forecast for the weekend is looking like things are maybe turning around finally.  Saturday and Sunday are looking to be in the lower 40s and then by this time next week it should be in the 40s as well.  There isn't much let of winter but hopefully I will get a little more jumping in before the snow melts away.

 

Crash