Inaugural East River High Showdown

 The East River High Showdown consisted of a 36 arrow qualification round followed by a double elimination match. In theory, this sounded pretty easy, but in practice, it was pretty brutal courtesy of the Florida heat and humidity. 

I qualified in women's barebow in second and overall third in the 50 meter barebow class (senior men, senior women, and masters). There was also a little kid shooting in barebow as well, but she was shooting at 30 meters because of her age. I finished double eliminations in 4th, having lost my first round to the eventual first place winner, who got seeded second because he got stuck shooting on an 80 cm compound target instead of the 122 cm barebow and recurve target the rest of us shoot. My second match was against the other longbow archer, and I got to advance, while he got to go home and cool off. My final match was against my fellow barebow recurve female, who FINALLY beat me after a very close battle, courtesy of an uncharacteristic miss on my part and a perfect spider on her end. 

I knew I was going to be at a massive disadvantage going into the event, but I needed something lower demand, and I found out ahead of time that another "primitive" was going to be there, so I wanted to provide him with some company. Now we're going to both go "primitive" at the state 720 just because we can. Originally, I was going to shoot Olympic recurve at 70 meters, but courtesy of a critical fumble and both Sekhmet and Anduril acting up, I decided to just take Xibalba with me to simplify things, and it paid off!

Spider Cup 2: 720 + Individual Elimination

 I had a "dress rehearsal" for Gator Cup yesterday despite dealing with a mix of allergies and a random pinched nerve flare-up. Shooting with limited range of motion and a tingling left hand was challenging, but nothing I couldn't adjust around once I realized what I had to do to get the arrows where they belonged.

I shot a pretty poor qualifying score while figuring out which adjustments I needed to make, but I was able to claw my way back up to the gold medal match against the leader in women's barebow, where I took first. It was a pretty long and messy battle, where it came down to experience and endurance to give me the advantage at the very end, leading me to finally take the gold. 

Brick City Open 3 2/n

 The photos from Isabelle Victoria Photography are finally here!

Squat Attempt 1: 87.5 kg

Squat attempt 2: 92.5 kg (my previous maximum squat)

Squat attempt #3: 95 kg (competition maximum and lifetime PR)... or as coach R. Allen and handler E. Valentin would say, easy, and I could've done more if I really wanted to, although they both understood and supported my decision to go conservatively! I also had quite a bit of cheering from the head Viking himself, T. Dreaver, as well as from friend and fellow archer, S. Fullwood!

Bench attempt #1: 50 kg

Bench attempt #2: 55 kg

Bench attempt #3: 57.5 kg (miss)

Deadlift attempt 1: 130 kg. For some reason, things are out of sequence.

Deadlift attempt 2: 137.5 kg (previous 1RM and competition best)

Deadlift final attempt: 142.5 kg (competition and lifetime personal best)

Celebrating with my handler and team-mate, E. Valentin, who has proven to be an amazing source of wisdom, insights, and unfiltered advice. He is honestly second to none for keeping me on track, taking care of me, and making sure I got to the platform on time! I've even had some amazing handlers, including the likes of my own coach, R. Allen, and my fellow mischief-maker T. Harris!

Finished in second in the open raw 76 kg women's division!