Initial JDBC Hits to AS/400 DB using Tomcat is Very Slow?

Does anyone know what would cause initial JDBC hits on an AS/400 DB to
perform slowly using Tomcat?  I have setup Tomcat to use connection pooling
just as David suggests in his article, "Tomcat on iSeries", which is very
good by the way.  I have compiled all the .jar files, but Tomcat still
performs slowly on the first hits.  Our AS/400's shutdown nightly to perform
backups, so I am not sure if this is the cause.  After one hit is made to a
table, all other hits are very fast.  It's just the first hit in the
morning.  My other thought is that we do not have the SQL package on our
AS/400, which allows you to perform the STRSQL command.  Would this be
another reason?  It seems JDBC would be independent of that.  Does anyone
have any suggestions?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Chad