Jumping Journal: September 21, 2009

Gee, only four jumpers tonight.  OOPS!  Try again.

 

After a long day yesterday and an even longer...unplanned day today I arrived at Storrs Hill this evening right about 6PM.  As I pulled into the parking I saw very few cars and no cars with Vermont license plates.  My initial response was "Where's Walter?"  Mr. Enthusiastic surely isn't going to miss a night of ski jumping.  I know he is from Vermont so not seeing any Vermont license plates gave me a pretty good idea that he wasn't there...YET!

 

I walked around to the hill side of lodge and found Dan and Cannonball there with a couple of kids gear sitting around.  Cannonball made a quick count and only came up with four jumpers at the hill...SO FAR!  Cannonball made the joke "You remember back when having four jumpers to a jump session was a big thing."  Yeah, just a couple of years ago we would only have three or four jumpers out for a summer session most of the summer.  Not anymore.

 

As I was about to walk into the lodge to change I saw a couple of the kids that he had already counted.  I changed clothes and Dan was also changing clothes as Dan said Cannonball had his suit on.  I looked out the window and sure enough Cannonball had his jump suit on.  I knew he was going to have to get himself in a few jumps before Dion Cup in a couple of weeks.  I just wasn't sure how soon he was going to start jumping.

 

As I was putting on my boots I looked out of the window and saw a rather familiar face...Walter.  I knew he wouldn't let me down, LOL!!!  This was going to be the beginning of the crowd showing up.  Normally I'm the one showing up late not everyone else.

 

After a bit of chatting I headed up the hill with Cannonball, Dan, Walter, Colin, Jonathan and Brad as well as three high school kids and one junior jumper.  Gee, this trend of having so many adults out jumping every session is starting to get monotonous...and quite predictible.

 

I wasn't expecting much from the evening as I was pretty much tired out from the day and didn't have all that much energy left for jumping.  I knew I had to jump though.  I had been waiting for this day for almost a year.

 

My first jump did surprise me a little as to how well it went.  It didn't make it very far down the hill, 15-16 meters but it did seem to go pretty nice.  The walk back up top afterwards showed I was dragging my heels due to lack of energy.

 

The second jump also surprised me by how high I got off takeoff.  I haven't been that high above the ground while jumping the K25 in a long time.  The jump still only took me down around 16 meters or so but I did have nice height above the takeoff.

 

The third and fourth jumps were pretty much the same.  They were only going around 15-16 meters and nothing really spectacular happened with either jump.

 

The fifth and final jump was the nicest of the night...at least in terms of the move at the takeoff.  I did have a much more distance but I did have the nicest move at the takeoff I have had in a long time.  My inrun position was the best it had been in quite a while as well.  I definitely was jumping more out than I typically do.

 

I decided long before hand that I was only going to take five jumps tonight and call it quits.  I had thought about taking a couple of extra jumps but I decided to be smart and stop while I was still ahead.

 

Crash