Chasing a World Record

By Lisa Briggs

Chasing a World Record is the story of an average skydiver who decides to become a world record holder, participating in Jump For The Cause 2002, a female world record attempt series & benefit for the City of Hope. Told through postings to an internet forum, the story follows the author from flat on her back after back surgery to world record holder. 25% of sales to be donated to cancer research.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lisa Briggs
• Release date: Mar 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476357850

Lisa Briggs

Middle aged single mom of a grown son, skydiver, backpacker and novice hockey player who always wanted to be a writer. After being told numerous times by numerous people "You ought to write a book", I finally did. "Chasing a World Record" is my first ebook and the first time any of my writing has been published in book form. And there's more to come. I also hate cancer. 25% of my proceeds from ebooks that I sell here will be donated to cancer related charities.

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Chasing A World Record

By Lisa Briggs

Published by Lisa Briggs at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 by Lisa Briggs

Cover Photo Copyright Keith Wyatt 2010

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional coopy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Beginnings

Raised in a nice, normal middle class family, growing up in small towns on the California coast, I wasn't expecting to become a single mother at age 18. Nor did I ever think that I'd jump out of an airplane. I expected a life much like that of my parents - I'd graduate from high school, get married, maybe have a kid or two, have a great career or own my own business, buy a nice house and that would be my life. Things rarely turn out as one expects.

I graduated from high school in June, 1982, one month after turning 17. My son was born on Christmas Day, 1983. Raising a child on my own at that age, even with a lot of help from my family, was a huge challenge and one that I didn't always do so well at.

He was 6 years old when I made my first skydive on February 4, 1990. I was addicted to the sport immediately. Skydiving was the mental and physical challenge that I didn't even know I was looking for.

In 1996, I moved to southern California to take a job with a major skydiving equipment retailer. The company owners were also well-known skydiving big way organizers (a big way is a large freefall formation skydive; most consist of 100+ participants). One of the events they organized was a series of women's world record attempts. I watched from a desk as my boss and several co-workers set records in 1997 and 1999. I decided that the next time they did a women's world record attempt, I would be on it, despite the fact that the only long term goal I had accomplished up to this point was graduating from high school, and that my total jump numbers were somewhat low for that type of skydive.

It was mid-2000 when screaming sciatica pain grounded me. The surgeon was only expecting to have to clean things up when he opened up my lower back on January 4, 2001. Three fused vertebrae later and I was waking up in the recovery room, first wiggling my toes to be sure they still worked and then wondering why my back hurt so bad..

As I laid around the house recovering from surgery, I found a newly started skydiving related website - Dropzone.com - and became a part of a small but growing community of skydivers who spent too much time online, talking to each other via the website forum software. Eventually I was made a moderator for three of the forums, a voluntary position that I held until 2004.

It was when I was allowed to go back to full time work that this story really begins, and the Dropzone.com community in 2002 is a huge part of that story, so it will be told through a series of my posts to those forums.

Note that these posts were intended for an audience of skydivers; skydiving jargon is used throughout and there may be many terms that a non-skydiving reader will not be familiar with. If this is you, you can find a glossary of common skydiving terms at http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/safety/detail_page.cgi?ID=35 Also, the majority of