This week has been an off one. I have felt stressed and anxious for no reason. I try to do work and can't seem to get motivated. I think I am struggling with not having enough to do. A weird problem, I know, but I really do enjoy being very very busy. As a result, I felt a bit down for most of the week and I couldn't bring life to role playing society either. But like always, archery came in to fill that void and now I am more than anything excited for this next week which includes both Sara and My birthdays! Our 21st of course...Details in the next blog.
This weekend I had two archery competitions, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. We drove up to knutsford in north Cheshire on Friday evening, a 3 hours drive. We stayed at one of the experienced archer's homes for the weekend. Between the six of us attending, we had an entire minibus (15 seater). The evening was filled with fletching for the next morning and pizza in town. We needed to get up quite early the next morning for competition, so we quickly retired around midnight.
The 6 am alarm brought with it mixed emotions, excitement and dread. We all got ready and drove to the shoot which was about an hour away. The sky was already rumbling with rain and the forecast didn't provide much optimism. Prepared, I wore leggings and trousers (could not be jeans), one of my OUCofA stash shirts and a rain jacket. We arrived at the field about half past eight and set up tents and our bows. It was clear from the get go that the competition was poorly organized. The field wasn't set up yet and the registration hadn't even gotten going. At 9:15, they ran inspections on our equipment as this particular event had world record status and a strict set of rules regarding equipment and field needed to be followed. At just past 9:30 we managed to start shooting. There were three shoots going on that day, a Men's 1440, a Woman's 1440 and a Metric 2 or Cadet 1440. The rounds consisted of 4 distances of 3 dozen arrows each. The two longest distances had the largest faces and then smaller faces were used for the two shorter distances. I shot at 60m, 50m, 40m and 30m. I was largely on my own as the experienced archers were shooting the longer distances and the only other novice, Jack, was shooting one distances higher than mine. I was surrounded by novices who were either from the BUCS league or Northern England University Archery League (NEUAL). It quickly became clear how much Oxford had prepared me compared to those in NEUAL. At the two longest distances, most people couldn't even hit the target.
The thing about archery is that you shoot in any weather and I mean ANY weather. The day continued and with it came rain and wind. The field was already wet from the night before, but as the rain continued, mud and pools formed all over. My black trousers were covered in mud splatters from the first moment. Additionally, my trainers were soaked and muddy from the start. I was really thankful for my rain jacket and I was sure to keep moving to keep myself warm. With so many archers (easily a 100), there were a lot of delays. Every time an arrow bounced or equipment malfunctioned, we had a good 10-30 minute delay. Additionally, as the day wore on, the faces became so wet that they began to fall off. Which extended to further delays. The first 6 dozen lasted until 2pm and by then we had experienced off and on rain and plenty of mud. We had a quick lunch in our tent before starting back up again around 3pm. I was still pretty cheery and I had a goal in mind to score at least 1000. It required consistently good shooting and I was optimistic. Which each distance change closer, I continued to outclass my competitors. A girl on my boss didn't score more than 10 points until the closest distance. She hit the target face 3 times.
To stay cheerful during the rain and cold, I would sing and dance with fellow archers and constantly move. It kept me remotely warm and optimistic. Unfortunately the rain and wind persisted throughout the afternoon. One of the major downers was the end in which I aimed at the wrong face, losing 2 high scoring arrows on that target. Resolved never to do it again, I kept on. The 30m distance was going fairly well, but knowing how much I needed, I misjudged the scores I needed to get. In the end I came up 9 points shy of the 1000 mark. We completed shooting at half past 7 and by then, the chill had really set it. I found it difficult to keep warm, despite my best efforts to add layers. The rain had also picked up in the end. As a result, we left everything up and shoved it into the minibus (of which we had plenty of room). It took another hour for the award ceremony to get going but with it came good news. Coming nearly 150-200 points ahead of the second place novice lady, I took home the gold and likewise Jack also came home with the novice gents gold medal. Our experienced archers expressed frustration at shooting poorly, but given the weather situation it wasn't entirely disappointing. Our compound archer came in second despite it all, losing only to a world record holder and high ranking opponent.
We piled into the bus and made it back to Alex's home. We ordered Chinese and did our best to stay warm for another day of shooting. Despite changing my clothing which was muddy and a bit wet, and still wearing multiple layers, I found it difficult to stay warm. I was also exhausted and crashed as soon as my head hit the pillow. The next day, we did not have to wake up as early, but my sleep was intermittent and included a nice wake up call to strong calf muscle spasms (these very same muscle spasms would wake me up this morning as well). I also had a caffeine headache to the start of my day, as I had had no caffeine in the last 48 hours. I know, I'm such an addict. Additionally, my trainers which had been soaked the night before were not unexpectedly still wet the next morning. Given that they were my only shoes, I got to enjoy nice damp shoes to start my day.
Despite all of this, we trudged on to the second archery competition this weekend at a nearby club to which Alex was a member. Today, I would be shooting a Ladies 1440, which meant I would shoot at 70m, 60m, 50m and 30m with smaller faces on the 50m and 30m distances. We had practice from 9am-10am and then began shooting at 10am. I will admit to being a bit reluctant to shoot and there were points in the middle where I wondered if retiring might be the right decision. I was vaguely sore already and quickly growing cold. It didn't help that it was raining most of the morning and my spot on the shooting line happened to involve being submerged in a puddle. As expected in such weather, I was not shooting particularly well at the farther distances. I did my best to stay cheery though and keep shooting. It helped that the shoot was much faster than it had been the day before. There were fewer archers (30-50) and most were fairly experienced. We had two delays the entire day. As a result, we finished the first 6 dozen at 1pm and had an hour for lunch.
My persistence in shooting paid off. Around this time, the sun came out and decided to grace us with its presence for the rest of the afternoon. The only down side was that it was quite windy. While this was better for my person, I was less cold and enjoyed just standing in the sun, it was not necessarily better for my archery. Gusty wind likes to blow arrows off target. Despite this, I managed to shoot better in the afternoon than the morning and my score at 30 m was miles above the day before. With such nice weather, I found that I acquired a second wind around the last 3 dozen. I really relished each end of shooting and found myself vaguely sad that there were so few ends left. I remarked at how I would have been happy to shoot more, despite each shot getting more difficult as my muscles fatigued and still being quite muddy and wet. Archery really does provide a stress relief and there are wonderful moments where I just enjoy shooting.
The shooting finished at half past five and the award ceremony was quick to pass. It was a two day shoot of which we were only participating in the second day and as a result, none of us were really eligible to win any of the awards. We were all quite cheerful in the end and happily packed up everything and made the long journey home. During that journey, I began to have trouble regulating my temperature again, but I made sure to keep warm with hot chocolate. There was a lot of comradary and I enjoyed the opportunity to grow closer to the wonderful archers and people that I have gotten to know at these shoots. We got back to Oxford around 11pm and I quickly took a shower and got warm.
I skyped my family with the hopes of wishing my mother a happy mothers day, but she wasn't there (out celebrating at her favourite place). So in this blog I would like to shout out to my wonderful mother. She has loved and supported me all of my life and been an amazing mentor to me. She works hard every day to provide for me and I love her so much. We may have fought as all mothers and daughters do, but I am proud to say that we have become the best of friends. I love you mom and thanks for everything. I hope you managed to have a good mothers day.
So, after a week of feeling down due to lack of activity, I had a weekend of non-stop activity. I feel recharged from it, despite feeling very fatigued and I am so glad I went. It was good experience and I look forward to many more shoots this term. Thus begins the week of my 21st birthday. I hope it is a good one! Until Next Time,
Adventures Await!
KH
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