Today was my first inter-club competition and surprisingly, especially for me, I was REALLY excited. I got my new bow on Wednesday night but had only shot it a few times to practice with, so I had the dilemma of whether to use the club bow where I knew what my sight needed to be set to more or less or my new bow that I had absolutely no idea of where to set the sight. After a long chat with my coach yesterday, he worked out some rough sight marks for me to start with so I could use my new bow!
Sadly, this morning dawned grey and miserable and VERY wet as predicted by the weather people. Typical! It's the one day they actually get it right! We set up all the range and inside and had to wait about an hour or so for the starting time. By then it was raining harder!
It then rained and rained and rained! Then it stopped raining...yay!!!!!!
The competition should have been a Western which is 48 arrows at 60yds, 48 at 50yds. I was to shoot the 'short' version of it which was the same number of arrows but at 50yds/40yds. I couldn't get my sight down low enough to actually use it properly so spent the first half of the competition aiming for the top left hand corner of the boss (straw thing that the target is put on).
After a break for lunch, which was very tasty, we ventured out again to shoot the second half of the competition. The rain had started again, although lightly and the wind had started to get up too. IT WAS COLD! I was only shooting in a T shirt and a sweatshirty type thing as my coat is too bulky to wear and shoot, however I put in some good scores once I had got my sight sorted out. The good news was...it stopped raining, the bad news was that it was now chucking it down with a howling gale (for non UK readers, chucking it down means that it was raining VERY, VERY heavily! For my last arrow, the rain was nearly horizontal with the wind. The field captain called us together and asked if we wanted to call it a National instead of a Western, which was less arrows and basically meant that we had finished! Now, call me a numpty, but I would really have liked to have finished even in those conditions, just to see how close to last week's score I could get with the dramatic change in the weather. I was a big chicken and didn't have the nerve to put my hand up and say so though!!!
Anyway, I have just got off the phone to my coach and he is really proud of me, as I am of myself, especially as some people either didn't come at all or gave up at one point or another apparently!
Sadly, this morning dawned grey and miserable and VERY wet as predicted by the weather people. Typical! It's the one day they actually get it right! We set up all the range and inside and had to wait about an hour or so for the starting time. By then it was raining harder!
It then rained and rained and rained! Then it stopped raining...yay!!!!!!
The competition should have been a Western which is 48 arrows at 60yds, 48 at 50yds. I was to shoot the 'short' version of it which was the same number of arrows but at 50yds/40yds. I couldn't get my sight down low enough to actually use it properly so spent the first half of the competition aiming for the top left hand corner of the boss (straw thing that the target is put on).
After a break for lunch, which was very tasty, we ventured out again to shoot the second half of the competition. The rain had started again, although lightly and the wind had started to get up too. IT WAS COLD! I was only shooting in a T shirt and a sweatshirty type thing as my coat is too bulky to wear and shoot, however I put in some good scores once I had got my sight sorted out. The good news was...it stopped raining, the bad news was that it was now chucking it down with a howling gale (for non UK readers, chucking it down means that it was raining VERY, VERY heavily! For my last arrow, the rain was nearly horizontal with the wind. The field captain called us together and asked if we wanted to call it a National instead of a Western, which was less arrows and basically meant that we had finished! Now, call me a numpty, but I would really have liked to have finished even in those conditions, just to see how close to last week's score I could get with the dramatic change in the weather. I was a big chicken and didn't have the nerve to put my hand up and say so though!!!
Anyway, I have just got off the phone to my coach and he is really proud of me, as I am of myself, especially as some people either didn't come at all or gave up at one point or another apparently!
