A great day and a great result at the new Oxford Archers Mixed Team Challenge. Pauline Burfitt and myself entered as Team 'Young Ones' with Dave Jones as coach. We qualified 2nd in the 50m qualifying round and proceeded to win every match after our first bye to take the gold medal. Such a different experience shooting as a team and fun but stressful as the clock ticks down to zero with that last arrow still to shoot. A very enjoyable day and a great new format to be added to the calendar. Many thanks for Oxford Archers for organising such a fun event and we are all looking forward to the next.
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Hi-Yo Silver! Well, gold actually. 1st men's compound at the Salisbury Double 50M on Sunday. A tad blowy and shot 684 & 670 which I'm very pleased with for the conditions, Won a nice white horse. Who was that masked man?
Great weekend at the always excellent Andoba double FITA at Andover, Hampshire. Shot really well Saturday to lie in 2nd place at day end just 5 points behind Chris White. This was despite messing up my sight mark calculations the day before by taking 30 metre and 50 metre sight marks to then calculate my 70 metre and 90 metre marks. I couldn't understand Saturday why all these marks except 50 metres were a country mile out each time...until it dawned on me that the day before I'd mistakenly taken my 30 metre mark off my 25 metre marker. Doh! Anyway, still bagged a pb of 339 for 90 metres and 2nd place sin't too shabby, and I think I lost the point difference to Chris on these incorrect sight marks. Sunday was a less successful day score wise, but then that seemed to be the case for everyone else too. Nothing special at any distance and a really troublesome gusty wind picked up for 30 metres which got the heart palpitations going as a miss was never too far away. I was so relieved to get through the distance without mishap and to secure 2nd place behind Chris and ahead of Adam Shaw in 3rd. All in all a very enjoyable and successful event and things keep improving for me at the moment. Wow, really awsome weekend had at Cleve. Shot a competition pb Saturday in the 720 with 694 and took silver in the gold medal match after a 145/145 single arrow shoot off with Adam Shaw in the h2h with two back to back pb matching 147 preceding matches. Then a blisteringly hot & humid day Sunday for the 1440. Shot a pb for the 70m with 351 and another for the 50m with another 351 giving me a pb for the long metric and a pb for the FITA of 1392 (could have been a lot better if I'd not wobbled at 30m and reduced it from a possible 1398 argh! Know better next time!). Finally, after a rather pb dry period, started to climb another rung on the endless archery ladder with 5 pbs - and some well entrenched 3 year old ones to boot. 4 DWAA records too. On top of shooting entertainment, the pleasure of the company of my archery mates was yet again top drawer, although there was a detectable sense of humour failure around the 30m mark as the sun and humidity got to us all and a general atmosphere of beaten up archery bods prevailed. Excited for the remainder of the season...
Great thanks as always to my supportive sponsors: Hoyt Archery: Target Wales Archery Specialists Custom Bow Equipment Easton Archery Optical Hardware Ltd, ( Visionary, Ostara and Olivon binoculars and telescopes ) Very gusty wind over this weekend at the Surrey leg of the National Series. Ouch, tough day at the office. Made the quarters Saturday to finish 6th, but missed a medal match with a weak last end...hey ho. Struggled most of Sunday (like most guys) until it really started to blow and then started to find my form again with the 4th highest final 36 arrows to finish 9th. A tough but fun weekend and a couple of good evenings by the Thames sharing a cold beer and fine food with the guys. Did I mention it was gusty?
A 'challenging' weekend at the County Team event at Lilleshall. Shot badly Saturday, but reverted to a promising recently trialled technique (using the bow arm to trigger the release) Sunday and got things heading in the right direction again. Great fun but an endurance test Sunday in the afternoon monsoon. Finished 3rd by 1 point individually Sunday with 1373 after losing 3 points in an arrow calling error - hey ho, live & learn. Great company again with the usual suspects. Many thanks too to the organisers & field party for keeping things moving in the most trying of conditions. Day 1: Lots to be pleased with after this weekend. Shot 693 in the 50m qualifier to finish 1st qualifier. My score consisted of a 352 first half and 341 second - need to pick up the 2nd half performance if I'm to break the magical 700. Won my first match with a 144 pass but then lost the next match with a disappointing 139. Day 2: Yesterday was warm and calm, today was drizzle most of the day and a variable breeze. Didn't feel like I has holding very steady. Shot a 1365 which isn't too shabby, but given I didn't feel I shot very well I think there's a lot more in the tank and hopefully I can better this in the coming months. Congratulations to Daniel Tompkins for winning both days and to Richard Kerr for his bronze Saturday and his 3rd MB score Sunday. Thanks guys for the company too - fun (but exhausting!) weekend. Had a great weekend at the UK Masters held at the National Sports Centre at Lilleshall in Shropshire. Both days of the weekend were a bit breezy and it was especially hot on the second day. Day 1 was a 50m qualification followed by head to head knockout matches. I shot a very decent first half of qualifying with 348, but something went a little bit awry for the second half and I finished with 685 and 9th place. I had a bye for the first head to head round, then won my next two matches 139 & 144. My next match was against the first ranked archer whom I took to a shoot off with us both scoring 144. On the single arrow shoot off I shot a 10 to his X. He then went on to win the gold medal (and eventually become UK Masters champion). Day 2 was the 1440 round. I shot pretty well considering the breeze and the temperature as the day wore on, eventually finishing in 3rd place and setting a new regional record for the 30m distance with 360 (20x). Overall, I placed 5th for the weekend which I was really pleased with and being confident I have better performances ahead things are looking bright. I've recently changed the balance of my bow and settled on a slightly different release technique. Both seem to be working out and with further training in the new approach I'm really hoping I can make some substantial improvement in scores and results. Finally, I have to say the company this weekend was great and we had many a laugh at all of our expense at sometime or another. Great banter made it a thoroughly enjoyable social and archery experience. A mixed bag of performance over this weekend. Unfortunately I couldn't train for a week due to a back injury and was unable to get out of a chair unaided until Tuesday, so I guess things went pretty much as I could have expected. Didn't shoot too well in qualifying day 1, but picked things up for the head to heads, winning my first two matches and only losing my third on a single arrow shoot off when we both shot tens but mine was about 5mm further out. Day 2 qualifying went a little better score wise. I won my first match but lost my second. Currently lying in joint 16th place in the National Series rankings, so need to start grabbing more points in the stages to come. Hopefully back to proper training this week and a chance to consider whether some form changes may improve things... |
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September 2017
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