The Think Tank

I went to shoot at Archery World after work on Wednesday evening, the first time I have shot since Maure went to the hospital.  The wheels felt a little spungy, something I have been thinking for a few days now, so after I was done I had Joe check them for me and they were out of time by about 1/4″.  We fixed the wheels, and it felt much, much better.  The wall was very solid.  I shot for a little while after that, but my arm was pretty tired and I made a few mistakes due to fatigue and a sore shoulder.

I also changed the weights on the stabilizers.  I started out with 6oz in the front (including the Doinker) and 15oz in the back.  I changed it to 4oz/12oz (including the Doinker), but after a few ends it felt like the bow was rocking backward so I put another ounce on the front.  (That makes it 5oz/12oz.)  That felt like it was holding very well.

Practice AW Feb 15, 2012
round: 1 20yd

1	2	3	arrows	sum	balance
X(4)	10(6)	9(5)	29	59	59
X(4)	X(5)	10(6)	30
X(4)	10(5)	10(6)	30	60	119
X(4)	X(6)	10(5)	30
X(4)	X(5)	X(6)	30	60	179
X(4)	10(5)	10(6)	30
X(4)	X(5)	X(6)	30	59	238
X(4)	10(6)	9(5)	29
X(5)	10(4)	10(6)	30	60	298
X(4)	X(5)	X(6)	30

nines: 2

tens+X: 28

X: 18

average: 9.93

arrow statistics

arrow	nines	tens+X	X	average
4	0	10	9	10.00
5	2	8	5	9.80
6	0	10	4	10.00

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Sent from my iPhone

Maure is in the hospital with a fairly serious intestinal problem.  She is probably going to need a surgery today or tomorrow.  Please send her your best thoughts and prayers.

She is at Kaiser Sunnyside, room 456 if you want to call and give her your best.

Practice today was nothing special. My chest and shoulders were tired from working out the day before, but all in all I thought I shot pretty well. I upped the weights on the front/back stabilizers as follows: Front = 6oz (including Doinker), Back = 15oz.

I felt that combination held pretty darn well. In fact, it may have been a bit too solid. The arrow that dropped held dead center on the spot, but that sort of lulled me into a sense of security and I wasn’t really thinking about pulling through like I should have been. It went off and missed high-right, the typical spot for a weak shot.

After that I paid better attention to pulling through and everything worked pretty good. The shots at 3 O’clock on target 2 were all three a bit of a surprise, as they felt pretty good and held pretty well. Ditto for the high arrows on number 1, although that target was hanging on the high side the whole day. The first 4-5 arrows (including practice) were all in the same spot, right at the very top of the X line, so the two that went a shaft-width higher were barely in the ten. Both felt like pretty good shots to me.

I worked out at the gym the day before, and my arms and shoulders were very sore to start. That is probably why, but I had a very hard time shooting consistently good shots. I also kept getting an arrow out the left on my number two targets despite changing arrows twice. I’m not sure what this about. At first I thought I was doing something different with the way I held me release, but even when I was paying special attention, I kept popping out to that same whole at 9 O’clock.

 

 

Debbie and I competed in this years Northwest Shootup Tour, a series of tournaments held throughout Oregon and Washington in December and January, culminating in the Final this weekend in Camas.  In order to qualify for the Final, you had to compete in at least three of the first ten legs.

In all there were more than 120 people who competed over the course of the whole Tour, and this years payouts were the largest ever.  All told there was over $3,000 handed out this weekend.

Debbie continued to improve over the course of the whole series, which sort of worked against her in some ways.  She wound up winning the Second Flight back in December, and since then she improved her average score a bit, which stuck her at the bottom of the First Flight instead of the top of the Second.  That is good in that it means she shot better, but it is unfortunate in that it means she would have to shoot through a whole lot of people in the Elimination rounds to get into the money.

She shot really great this weekend, eliminating four people and moving up three places, making the largest jump in placement of anyone in the whole event.  She started out 11th over all, and finished in 8th place in the First Flight.

I shot fairly well in the earlier stages of the Tour, but the last three events were not so good for me.  Still I manged to be ranked 3rd over the course of the entire event, and I moved up enough to compete for the win, but in the end I lost by two X’s and finished second.

It was a very fun experience and I look forward to competing in it again next year.

Full results can be found here.