Tags
70m, Archery, Arrow Volume, Outdoor, Peterborough Archers, Peterborough Fish and Game Club, Summer Solstice, The Archers of Caledon, Tournament
We have had some rather consistently inconsistent weather this week, with lots of sun and frequent “popup” thunderstorms. But I still was able to shoot 485 arrows outside this week.
Now that Summer has officially arrived, it’s almost a guarantee that it will at least be reasonably warm out. But this week, most of those calm and warm sunny mornings have turned into quick torrential downpours, followed by more sun. On a couple days, it even switched back and both several times throughout the day!
Early in the week, I shot my first Canadian 900 round at The Archers of Caledon. Every year on the Summer Solstice, they host a fun 900 round that starts at about 7pm and runs until about dusk. The timing works out really well, being the longest day of the year, we can usually finish the full round just before it’s too dark. Afterward, we celebrate with pizza and mingling (or more shooting inside)! I had a really good time, and can’t wait to do it again next year! The weather was absolutely perfect, too. Calm, warm and for some reason, the bugs left us alone!
On Sunday, Norm and I headed out to Peterborough to shoot a tournament at the Peterborough Fish and Game Club hosted by Peterborough Archers. We had a really good time, and the volunteers did a wonderful job organizing the event and making lunch. I started off the round a little rough, but finished really strong to manage a non-training personal best score. After lunch, as we were about to start the second round, a series of intense storm cells moved though and the round had to be cancelled. It was pretty fun waiting for one of the cells to pass before we could pack up without everything getting soaked or blowing away.
Here’s a short video that Norm took as it started to hail:
On the way home, we drove through another one of these storms, with even more hail. The entire road was covered in a thick layer of hail and water that only lasted no more than a few minutes before it was sunny again.
Before arriving at home, we took a detour to have ice cream on the patio at Dairy Queen. Even though half of the tournament was cancelled, it was still a pretty great day.
Norm and I have been continuing our early morning (6:00a – 7:00a start times) training sessions, and with this recent heat wave, the mornings have been fantastic! I have found training in different lighting conditions to be very challenging, yet also very rewarding. On the Archers of Caledon practice range, the early morning sun is fully in my left eye, while my right eye, the one that I aim with, is in full shade looking at a target that is also in full shade. It’s a very odd sensation and a difficult situation to adapt to. Additionally, the tournament range is at about a 90° offset, meaning sun is fully in my right eye, a little in my left eye, and the target is backlit. These lighting issues really only exist early in the morning though, after about 9:00a the sun is high enough that it doesn’t make too much of a difference any more. Still, it’s great to have the opportunity to train in a variety of conditions.
The first day of the tournament was pretty windy, and the second day was raining. We had a great time and learned a lot from the experience. I, unfortunately, had problems with my sight on both days, entirely because of my lack of experience . On the first day I had accidentally adjusted my sight in the wrong direction. So, while I was still shooting good groups, the groups kept getting further away from the center. On the second day, I just didn’t adjust the sight enough, so by the time I finally figured it out, the round was nearly complete. I did manage to keep shooting good strong shots for the most part, and finished the tournament with a solid two ends averaging 50 points each. I didn’t score as well as I had expected to, but I learned so much and had a great time! Thank you so much to April and her amazing team of volunteers and judges who make these things happen!
Earlier this week, the weather was really warm early enough in the morning that we could get out and do some training before work. We even convinced Shannon to join us on our early morning training excursions. We’re hoping that we can get out two or three times a week before work and then again after work, in addition to our usual evening training sessions and trips to the gym.
