Jumping Journal: March 06, 2010

What a stretch, almost one entire month without ski jumping during the winter months, WOW!!

 

Yes, it's been a while.  Between hurting my arm on the last jump back in February and Mother Nature here the past two or three weeks there hasn't been much of a decent chance for flying.  It took a week plus for the arm to come back around to normal and then the weather decided to start acting VERY strange.  While Washington D.C. was getting two or three times their annual snowfall per storm I wasn't getting much of anything around here except for VERY sunny skies.  Once the sunny started to disappear then the temperatures rose to very strange/unseasonal levels.  Right now since the first of March the 20 day average temperature in Lebanon has been above the freezing mark.  I figure this by taking the hourly record temperature in Lebanon and adding them up each day for 20 days.  It sits roughly at around 35 degrees right now.  Most of the past week, until last night hadn't seen temperature get below freezing anytime, day or night.  This on top of VERY wet heavy snow for this part of the country and a nice wind storm that swept through the area a week or so ago and left many in the area without electricity.  I was without power for at least 12 hours and some were without power for a couple of days.  The weather just hasn't been cooperative at all and the forecast for the next week is sounding the same, no snow/precipitation and 40+ degrees everyday and lows  in the mid and upper 20s if not warmer.  One night MAY drop down into the teens.

 

I woke up this morning to the coldest morning in...it seemed, a month.  The overnight low was 21 degrees.  I knew Mud Meet was going to be interesting.  It was going to come down to getting on the alpine and xc courses early before they got to rutted up by the other competitors and then the jumping was going to be REAL interesting given the forecast high in the upper 40s.  It actually ended up reaching 53 for a high today in Lebanon.

 

I made my way up to Storrs Hill for the end of season tradition that normally wouldn't be held for another week or two but due to a conflicting event at the hill on the day it was originally scheduled the comp got moved to today.  I was helping with the scoring and registration for the event so it kinda kept me tied up for a while.  I finally did get around to heading out and do the xc courses in my alpine gear as I always do and saw while doing the xc course just how soft the conditions were.  I can't ever remember in the past decade having Mud Meet be that soft, not even in mid March.

 

Watching some of the practice jumps on the 25 in between the morning alpine/xc and the afternoon jumping competition I was questioning if I was even going to bother jumping or not.  Seeing one kid do a beautiful butt bump, err agony of defeat, off the 25 and watching a few of the other kids having trouble stopping made me a bit leery given all the trouble I've had this year jumping.

 

After finishin off the computer work and getting the morning scores posted and the sheets printed out for the jumping I suited up and headed out to get ready for the competition on the K25.  It wasn't going to be the usual competition for me.  No practice whatsoever.  The competition had been cut back from trial and two to count to just two to count to try and save the inrun for the hoop of fire.

 

I joined the rest of the gang up on the inrun after rubbing some wax on the skis to see if that might help keep me from sticking.  As it came my turn I headed down the inrun and jumped rather cautiously at the takeoff.  The first nice thing was I didnt stick.  I was a bit surprised.  Just like the last jumps I took back a month ago I noticed it seemed like I was awfully darn high in the air.  I backed out of the jump and still went 18 meters.

 

I walked up for the second jump and when I got the signal I started down the inrun.  I didn't get into my inrun position quite a quickly as normal.  I finally got myself settled in a jumped at the takeoff and managed to hold the position pretty well into the hill.  My mind was still trying to fight back and tell me to pull out but I was trying my darnedest to fight the mindset.  I landed at 20 meters and ended up falling over after I crossed the fall line.

 

After the competition was over I got some of the scoring work for the jumping done while Cannonball and the boys set up the Hoop of Fire.  I heard the call from everyone that the hoop was ready.  I pulled myself away from the computer and headed up the hill with the hoop already on fire.  After waiting in line I got my skis on behind Todd and we ended up doing a rapid fire through the Hoop of Fire.  The jump wasn't all that bad but once again I did manage to lose it after I landed down near the transition.

 

I called it quits and finished up the calculations that saw Bill finish first and Cannonball finish second.  I was, quite naturally, WAY down the list thanks to my alpine and xc times as well as my jumping.

 

With the current weather forecast I don't if I'll get anymore jumping in before spring gets here or not.  This is going to be my smallest winter of ski jumping no matter how you look at it.  I don't think I have ever had a summer where I have had this few of jumps.  It's just been a luck of enthusiasm, the weather...pretty much everything combined together into one has taken the steam right out of the ship.  I guess my main goal anymore is to see if I can still pull off 120 consecutive months.  I've got to get through December of this year without missing a month to accomplish it.  Under the circumstances that could get VERY interesting by the time late fall into December gets here.

 

Keep the ski tips up,

Crash