70 Meter Practice

70 meters, 122 cm target face, 42 lb walnut longbow, Carbon Express Predator 700 arrows. I'm the large arrows, by the way. The little arrows belong to a friend of mine who's practicing for the Gator Cup. I really want to shoot it but unfortunately *someone* pre-empted that weekend from me. When will certain people get it that I actually want to shoot something besides short, trashy 3D shots?

By-Products

Looks like things are starting to stabilize on the little by-product of the stuff I do. Tentatively this by-product or side-reaction is under the code-name of "The Archer and the Swordsman" but the title is bound to change as things get shifted and jiggled around.

Let's just say as of now, I'm standing alongside an extremely confused archer who's trying to figure out if there's any truth to some semi-coherent ramblings from one of my all-time favorite D&D characters and a mysterious, gigantic black wolf that constantly haunts her dreams...

In the Name of Self-Amusement

Sometimes, I just gotta shoot something different. I couldn't believe that I actually took 2nd place in the women's compound record high score at the Newberry Indoor league on Thursday.

Basically I had wiped out my upper body on Thursday and knew I wasn't going to be holding back 34-35 lbs at full draw long enough to make a good shot. But I could still pull back a good amount of weight, so I opted for the compound, which has let-off... allowing me to hold back about 10 lbs instead of 34-35. Next thing I knew after a little fidgeting with the sight, I'm generally hitting the gold aside from two fumble shots where the release went off before I was ready. And I was just behind the #1 record high score and the guy running the shoot. I think I'd rather shoot my longbow or recurve though... but the compound certainly caused a lot of laughter and gasps of amazement!

Long Hammock delight! Sometimes the labels just crack me up too much to not photograph...

Robert shot a Robin Hood on one of the targets and lookin' proud!

I still feel extremely puny in the arms and not particularly powerful. Then again, I generally feel like I don't carry nearly enough muscle mass and way too much adipose tissue!

Nearly Forgot

28/30 on this end! I've yet to get a 30/30 but I don't think it'll be *too* far off! This was with the Chek-Mate Hunter I recurve, by the way. Any of my 40-something lb bows have an existent chance of pulling this off but the Hunter I and the walnut longbow seem to have higher probabilities than the Crusader.

FYI -- "Recurve" division at Newberry includes Olympic recurve (with sights), other recurves with sights, traditional recurves, and longbows. We may start a Barebow division but I don't think I'm really helping out my fellow barebow folks by staying just a shot ahead of an Olympic recurve! We'll see what happens though once she gets into full practice.

Belated TBoF Pictures

Belated awards for the women's longbow division from the Charity shoot back in January.

Where am I?

Get the red shirt!!

Robert in men's open championship round.

I wanna be like the fellow in the green shirt and white pants if I reach his age! Shot with him at the FITA field back in November and he gave me a good challenge as far as physical fitness went once temperatures rose above about 55 degrees!

Belated Five Points of Life 5k Pictures

TBoF Spring 2011

As always, click on the title for the full suite of pictures. I took 3rd in the women's longbow division after shooting as best as I could given that my training is now very heavily biased towards long-distance precision shoots where all my shots are clear and I have plenty of room to set up my shots.

Indoor Action

Crunch went the nock! Shot a surprisingly good FITA 300 round (18 meters) given that I've been up since 0400 hrs and do feel a bit sore from this morning's training (courtesy of my favorite trainer at the gym). I honestly didn't think I'd even break 180 tonight after the first few ends but I finished with a 204/300, so that was pretty good for shooting wood arrows. And yes, that's a very easy repair!

I was extremely surprised to get these today given what shape I was in while I was shooting that round back in January. Boogers everywhere and more! I think just finishing that shoot was extremely impressive on my part but yeah, this was an added bonus. I guess either nobody challenged me (most likely) or someone did and had a rough day too, maybe also waging the war on boogers!

It FINALLY Happened

I bench pressed 105 lbs unassisted with full range of motion. Granted, it was only 5 reps but I finally did it!

In other news... it's amazing what writing on pen & paper for 10-15 minutes before going to sleep (and during random dead-time) can produce. Apparently high concentrations of academic stress make for ideal conditions for side-reactions and high yields of strange by-products. It's actually a story concept I've been tinkering with for almost as long as I've been wielding a bow in my hand but it's only begun to materialize perhaps only this past year. Suffice to say, it's the story of a scholar who gets stuck with a curse that'll eventually kill her unless she can figure out how to break the curse and she realizes that she's not at all who she was brought up to think she was.

Five Points of Life 5k

I almost didn't run this one today because I had a bit of tightness in my calf muscles for about 2 days prior to the race but it went away with help from Robert and ran it in 25:34.5, netting me a 2nd in the 30-34 female division and an 8th in overall female and a 51st in overall of all runners. It was a beautiful run on the nice side of the UF campus and I couldn't have asked for a nicer day... even if I did get stuck looking at some funny-looking rear ends for the first mile or so :) As before, I started off fairly slow but once everything fell into place, I just kept going and going and going until I saw the end of the course and picked it back up. I didn't realize how fast I went until I looked up my time -- I honestly thought I was somewhere in the 27-28 range but I guess a vivid imagination and that sprint at the very end were very helpful!

More Hoggetowne Pics

Mostly courtesy of Aesa.

Hoggetowne 2011

I didn't really spend very much time there this year but the time I did spent was great aside from being the Ultimate Booger Factory (tm). More details later (maybe) once my brain actually functions. As always, click on the title for the pictures.

Shooting Like a Caffeinated Pomeranian

I've learned a few things this weekend shooting the FAA Indoor Championships.

-- Decongestants to avoid trouble with boogers are NOT worth the jitteriness and shakiness. Not to mention the inability to actually hold and follow-through on the shot.
-- Cold medicine effects can still be felt the next day and make the target dance around.
-- Shooting immediately after severe illness also makes the target move a whole lot more.

Apparently my form generally held throughout the two rounds I shot today though, at least that's what one of the coaches at Newberry told me. Aside from a shaky bow-hand and being a little off-beat in my timing, most of my form was pretty solid as far as setting up the shot, transferring, holding, expanding, and following through went. My biggest problem was the fact that I couldn't hold my hand steady enough... so I usually did hit what I aimed at, just that I wasn't always aiming where I was supposed to.

I still had an awesome time with friends even if I looked (and felt) like roadkill on Friday evening and shot like a caffeinated, doped-up Pomeranian all weekend.

TBoF Charity Shoot 2011

Not a shoot I trained for at all but generally was able to succeed in using a modified version of the B.E.S.T. (Biomechanically Efficient Shooting Technique) designed by Olympic archery coach Kisik Lee. I took 2nd in the women's longbow division with a 280/400 although I did tie with someone who had the same score as I did, just that I had more 10s than she did. If they did it by misses, she would've taken 2nd and I would've taken 3rd but I was just glad that I shot as well as I did given that several of the shots were rather unfriendly to the mostly Olympic style shooter.

Sometimes Cool Stuff Happens With Witnesses

This was done at 18 meters on the 40 cm target, which are the parameters for the NAA portion of the State Indoor shoot coming up at the end of the month. Usually I don't have human witnesses but today I had a few, including someone who wasn't afraid of my purple camera! It's cool knowing that I can have the occasional run of good rounds where I can actually just about keep up with a reasonably good Olympic archer. It was a desperately needed practice session after wiping out my brains on research.

Hammer Curl Still

It's amusing what I'll do when I get bored of waiting for the artificial neural network to get trained on the evapotranspiration data... and my reading comprehension is about par with that of a fermented rutabaga filled with maggots.

Ultra-Rare Event

Nothing quite compares to being rudely awakened by some neighborhood . Not a particularly common occurrence here when it's not football season but when it does, it leaves me more than a bit irked. So while trying to settle back down into sleep, I cleaned out the camera and this is what I found. This was with the 42 lb walnut longbow with my IKAC/TBoF arrows at 18 meters. This is far rarer with wooden arrows than it is with carbons. If this were a regular occurrence, I'd be extremely ecstatic.

And now hopefully I can get back to sleep.

Boom!

Self-explanatory. R took me to the gun range just south of my place and crash-coursed me on the use of hand-guns. I still prefer the quietness and comfort of my bow but I certainly put a good handful of holes through the paper targets!

Wicker-Woman 2010

This year, we had a Wicker Woman instead of a Wicker Man. At first we thought the Wicker Man had an afro but turned out this year we had a female wicker entity. Note to self: loaded utility belt under shirt = unflattering shot.

And now back to work on trying to get myself to be less squishy! Now if I can just train R to actually walk with me continuously at a REASONABLE pace at least 1 km at a time and/or actually spot me while lifting (but first I need to get him to even step into the gym with me). Thank goodness the holiday season is finally over...

And the Camera Gets Cleaned Out Again

River otter. Incredibly cute but definitely in the DO NOT PET category. I've seen their skulls and they have some serious teeth like all mustelids (weasels, skunks, wolverines).

Simulated FITA indoor using an NFAA target face. NFAA indoor round is 5 arrows per end while FITA indoor is 3 arrows per end on a colorful target.

If I can keep up groups like this or better consistently at Southeastern Sectional, I'll be pretty darned happy!