Glorious summer's afternoon in Wiltshire. I was persuaded to take the afternoon off by Richard Kerr and we shot a York round at the field. In almost ideal conditions with a slight breeze I shot a pb to finish with 1266 and match the GWAS record - just need to do it in a competition now! Got home and went for a 3 mile run as it was such a nice evening. Alll in all a good very good afternoon's training.
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Spent the weekend at Rivernook Bowmen in Surrey. Took the opportunity to visit Hampton Court on Friday - quite a Tudorfest. It was fascinating to literally walk through the depths of English history.
Shot a double 50m on Saturday. A really gusty day so I was really pleased to end up 1st on the day with 668 in the morning and 692 in the afternoon which, given the conditions, is probably the best 50m round I've shot to date. Sunday consisted of a 50m qualifying round and then head to heads. I qualified 1st with 682 on a better day than Saturday but couldn't quite get going properly which meant I'd shot a better score Saturday in much tougher conditions. I had a bye in the first leg and shot 2 practise 15 arrow passes (148 & 146). I then won my first match with a 143 and my second with 145. This got me to the gold/silver medal match and the first time I've shot an alternate arrow match and in front of an audience! It's quite an eye-opener and with only 20 seconds per arrow a tough thing to judge. I struggled to follow my normal shot routine and entered the last end 1 point down but ended up losing by 4 points to finish 2nd overall and silver medallist. They say you learn more from losing than winning! I now know I need to train to shoot my normal shot under alternate arrow match conditions and hopefully feel more confident and relaxed the next time I have to compete under such conditions. Also just received delivery of some English Archery Federation cross badges I've qualified for - turns out I'm the first archer to ever claim the purple cross for a 1375 FITA (1380) - I believe the purple cross has only recently been introduced to the range, as a number of the top guys in the UK will have shot greater than 1375 this year but I guess they aren't aware of the award yet - so I become the first ever owner of a purple EAF cross - Cool! A very tricky weekend at the UK Masters which also served as Stage 1 of the Archery GB National Series. The wind was gusty and difficult to predict with constant changes of direction. Everyone's scores suffered over the two days. I qualified in 12th place after the 50m 720 round which gave me a bye in the first head to head round. I then won my first head to head match but lost the next, meaning a 9th place finish in the head to head stage. Again, the FITA on the Sunday was shot in blustery conditions but with more sunshine which helps the spirits! I wasn't feeling I was shooting particularly well but was around 6th position at lunch. I shot a strong 50m (343) and a decent 30m (357) to end on 1354 - a GMB score by 2. This, rather surprisingly, put me in 3rd place for the FITA round. Combined with my positions on day 1 I finished in 6th place overall which I'm more than happy with considering this is probably the highest standard domestic UK competition on the calendar. Also nice to have a decent start to the National Series. Overall a tiring, stressful but ultimately very rewarding weekend's shooting. |
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September 2017
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