GREEN LANE ARCHERS OPEN (WORCESTER)
19th January 2020, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea
An excellent venue & a few friendly familiar faces to welcome me proved to be just the appetiser for what turned out to be not only my best archery day so far, but my best day of any kind for quite a few years
I didn't shoot my
absolute best, but close enough to be totally satisfied with my overall performance. I was only 5 points below my PB, and am aware of exactly what the issues that prevented a new PB were. Notably my one miss, which landed about two feet below my white, a 3 on the lower target exactly on the 6 o'clock line.
- That's what happens when your conscious brain tells you to come down at exactly the same time as your unconscious brain is giving the 'let it fly' instruction i.e. such a violent collapse that the tab slammed painfully into my chin!
That's not a mistake I wish to repeat!
The other issue, pointed out by my boss-mate Adam - who went on to take the bronze medal for Gents' recurve - was a slight tendency to weakness/early collapse of the bow hand, which explains the 2's, especially (it seems) for the 'middle' arrow(s) of the end. Something to work on in the (maximum) 5 sessions at the club before the next compo on 9th Feb. Eliminate those 2's (& the painful miss) and I'm looking at close to 250.
Here's the card...
OK, acceptable but nothing to inspire the joy I felt driving home, you'd be right in thinking.
What made that difference was the fact that
Green Lane Disabled & Able-Bodied Archers, to give them their full & correct name did indeed have a separate category for Gents' Recurve - Disabled, and guess who blagged the GOLD MEDAL?
Not only the medal, but also a lovely silver plate for the year, which will have my name engraved on the back for perpetuity. It was first awarded in 2008, and if you'll permit, I'd like to take a moment to honour the names of the previous recipients:-
2008 - Brian Lown
2010 - Geoff Harrison
2011 - James Aitchison
2014 - Paul LLoyd
2018 - Connor Rathbone
2019 - Connor Rathbone
(Other years - not awarded)
'Just because' here's one of me wearing the medal & holding the plate - with my ugly mug tastefully cropped out!
My very first gold medal of any kind whatsoever, so I'm making no apologies for being DAMNED proud of it!
- What I'm most looking forward to is seeing the look on mums' face when I show her, she's 92 & very fragile, at a very good care home in Carlisle. Wednesday, I hope.
To add sprinkles to the icing on the cake, with only 2 strips of tickets, the raffle godz smiled on me too, snaffling a very good bottle of Australian Shiraz Cabernet (emptied 'medicinally' last night
), 4 cans of 'the best lager in the world', & a set of England stickers & car flags which I hope to still be displaying proudly after the group stages of Euro 2020.
The only 'negative' for the day was the breaking of the 'strap holders' on the upper part of my Fivics 'rainbow' armguard, I'll need to bodge a fix for now as I need every penny for my car MOT next week.
Happy, happy Lion