Jumping Journal: August 31, 2009

What happened to summer!?

 

Yeah...two weeks ago today it was in the lower 90's today the temperature didn't even hit 70.  It was in the upper 50's at jump time.  What a difference a couple of weeks can make here in the Upper Valley.  Granted this is the time of the year when fall starts to arrive.  Oh yeah, did I say fall...the area is under a frost advisory for tonight as the temperatures are suppose to dip into the mid 30's overnight.

 

The sun was finally out as I arrived at the hill this evening.  High clouds hung around until early afternoon and they helped to keep the temperature down.  A couple of the high school kids were unloading their equipment and walkign toward the lodge as I pulled up.  I was a bit surprised not to see more cars in the parking lot.  Then again I did arrive pretty much on time instead of arriving 10-15 minutes late like I typically do during the summer months.  It ended up being that instead of me arriving late several of the other jumps ended up arriving a bit late tonight.

 

After doing a quick bit of stretching I changed clothes and headed on up the landing hill.  A nice crowd did end up showing again, very strange to see this many people out this late in the summer.  Walter, Bill R, Mike, Brad(the one I didn't know his name last week), Jonathan, three high school kids and two juniors all were out jumping with me tonight.  Another night of half a dozen adult ski jumpers.  This is really unusual.

 

I decided to soap up and got the signal from Cannonball.  I was once again a bit surprised by how short the jump was.  Even with the soap I was still only getting down to around 15 meters.  Something does seem strange about what is happening but I'm still not sure what is going on.  Later on in the evening I watched Bill take one of his jumps and he seemed to be jumping short as well.  I don't think it's my jumping as much as it is something going on with the inrun.  The soap doesn't seem to be helping as much with extra speed like it always use to.

 

I went up and took a couple more jumps as everyone else was finishing up riding the landing hill and making their way up the jump.  I was still coming in around 15 meters.

 

The evening as a whole remained pretty much the same.  The last couple of jumps I did manage to keep from dragging the hands through the sawdust into the outrun like I always seem to do.  I was quite glad that I was finally able to get myself to stay back but a bit more upright than what I have been doing for ages.

 

Also, on the last couple of jumps I did make a slight change in the inrun position.  It seemed like I did get down a bit lower but when you jump late like I was doing on pretty much every jump tonight the response you get from being a wee bit lower in the inrun position doesn't really matter.  I may have managed 16-16.5 meters on the last jump or two.

 

After I called it quits I got into a talk with Walterl and he informed me that he had noticed after jump he has seen me take I've been riding the inrun tilted to the right.  It made me wonder how long I've been doing it.  I didn't even realize I was leaning to the right on the inrun.  Normally something like that I end up catching myself doing it and correct it quickly enough.  This time around I haven't even noticed it once.  I do wonder since Walter didn't take a jump after I made the small change to the inrun position if the change I made ended up correcting the problem or not.  I did notice a difference in the feel.  It felt like I was more forward/more crunched going down the inrun.  It seemed like I should have had more power at the takeoff...if I didn't jump late.  I'm going to have to watch next time I jump and see if I can notice myself leaning on the inrun or not.

 

Crash