Paragliding in BC

Paragliding in BC

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Aug 9: 3rd task

Today was not a great one for me.  Last night as I was falling asleep my tummy started grumbling, and I spent all night coping with my dinner trying to escape from my body.  Needless to say I woke up sleepy and "off".  

Hoping that I'd feel better as the day went on, I headed up to launch prepared to fly today.  The weather conditions were perfect - no strong winds predicted and no big cumulous clouds building into thunder clouds like we had before.  My plan was to launch before priority launching started (which is where the top 20 pilots from the day before are allowed to budge in front of the line), get up and glide as far as possible down the course line.  My body had other plans, and after the 10th run to the out house and someone commenting that my skin looked green I had to concede that I'd be lucky just to launch.

The real kicker was the conditions.  I had been joking that if we had really light conditions that I would kick butt since it seems all of my solo flights this year have been like that.  And that's exactly what the sky looked like!  Pilots were scratching away, not getting super high and it even looked smooth for the first time this week.  I couldn't do anything about it though...by the time my body let me launch I was  last of the mountain (so late that the sign-in guy thought I was a volunteer) and although I did catch one decent thermal I couldn't concentrate at all so made the decision to land instead of push on.  

So that's why I left HQ early and hid out in my room all night - I want to be back to normal tomorrow and to fly my best over these last few days.  Here's hoping that the rest of this week goes smoothly!

No comments: