PNAA Championships
by Chris on Sep.10, 2012, under Archery, Main Page
I competed in the Pacific Northwest Archery Association Championship this weekend, up in Seattle at the WCW.
The shoot has been happening more or less annually since at least 1927. (It has skipped a few years here and there.) The tournament moves around the NW States: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah (perhaps a bit of a stretch), and British Columbia as well. Last year the tournament was held in Burnaby, BC and Mom and I were asked to make arrangements for the shoot to be in Oregon next year.
I had made some changes to my bow last week which had the result of relieving some strain on my shoulder and had translated into my shoulder feeling really good all week. That had me feeling pretty confident. However, when I got up to Seattle on Friday to practice, right from the first shot my shoulder just felt exhausted and started hurting much worse than usual right away. That had me nervous, and in fact I was prepared to skip the whole thing and go home. Mom convinced me that I should stay and I (very) reluctantly decided to stick it out and see how things went.
As you may remember, this field has not been kind to me in the past. I have turned in all of my worst scores on that range, and with my shoulder and sore as it was, I didn’t have high hopes. However, I managed to put together a pretty decent first day – including my first ever perfect 40 meter score – and built a 15-16 point lead.
The second day was only 90 arrows, which was good cause my shoulder was really tired at that point and I was struggling to aim all day. I shot acceptably at 70 meters on Sunday, pretty good at 60 (adding a couple more points to the lead), and then pretty much fell apart at the last – and closest – distance of the day, dropping nearly half my points in those last 30 arrows. By that time my shoulder was just about wiped, I was having a lot of trouble aiming, and my form was definitely suffering. Fortunately, I had that cushion which allowed me to lose some ground at the last distance, but still hold on for an 11 point win.
I also discovered that this shoot as a very neat tradition: The winners of each division put an arrow into a wooden box, and then they get to keep that box until the next year’s tournament. So, by winning this years event, I get to keep the box for the next year.
