Swim, bike, run and….jump!!

Although I really enjoyed my ironman Brazil experience, I could just not get motivated to keep training. I enjoyed sleeping in, drinking a glass of wine on week nights and just doing…nothing. Under the peer pressure of the team, I signed up for Augusta 70.3 but that still did not get me going.

So what is an ironwoman to do??

How about a skydive jump?

My friend and triathlete Joey Baker, who is an experienced jumper, invited me to Chester SC for my 1^st jump. Scared I would bail out, he made reservations for me and even paid the deposit. Upon arrival Saturday at 10 am, the little plane was already loading up people and before we knew it, parachutes popped up into the sky. WOW, that looks high…..

I convinced my friend VML to come with me since I figured it is always better to have a partner in crime and she is scared of heights like I am.

First we watched the introduction video, which was a lawyer talking to us and telling us that jumping is very dangerous and you can’t sue at all!! Hmmm, should we bail out? It took me over an hour to fill out the paperwork and sign all the waivers but we went ahead and signed up and paid our dues.

Then the waiting started….we were on “load 12”….they were only at load 7 at lunchtime…

Around 3pm they announced who was on “load 12”. Our names were mentioned and so we needed to go and gear up. We put on the suit, the cap, tried the goggles, then they put the whole harness on us and we were ready to go. My instructor was a guy named Joey, who I had eyeballed as we had entered that morning and I secretly was hoping he would be my guy. So I got lucky and the good looking fella with clown pants and rainbow mohawk on his helmet was my jumping buddy. I asked him some typical “airport” questions such as: Who packed your parachute? Did you leave the parachute unattended? To my surprise I got a NO and a YES but hell what was I gonna do about it?

We got into the super small plane and got to sit REALLY close together (most physical contact I had in a while so I was enjoying that! ;-) )

After a 10 minute plane ride with lots of nervous laughter the solo people pulled the plastic door open and just jumped out like they were walking through the door. I stayed calm and kept telling myself to keep my eyes open. We left last and I looked at my friend Joey who was my cameraman as I…..JUMPED! It was not scary at all. But as soon as we jumped we kinda toppled and were on our back instead of on our belly. But Joey (my jump buddy) stabilized us and we were soon on our belly, hands out and I was giving the thumbs up smiling. It was AWESOME!!!! You don’t feel you are falling at 120M/hour at all. 70 sec later, he pulled the parachute and we got yanked upright to enjoy a 4-5 minute glide before we made a perfectly smooth landing. As soon as I got to the ground I knew it, I am an ironman and I wanna train again. So this morning at 5.30 am I woke up and had my 1^st swim session in preparation to Augusta 70.3.

The jump energized and motivated me and I would recommended to everybody!!

BR aka someskydivingchick