Last weekend was a Bank Holiday in the UK so I had an extra day off work! With EA jnr off at scout camp and his sister busy revising for GCSEs, Mrs EA and I could have a guilt-free weekend of archery. I managed to shoot on Saturday, Sunday and Monday but Mrs EA had a well deserved lie-in on Sunday.
This really was a weekend of firsts for me. Saturday's scored round on the short range was an American which, confusingly, is a GNAS Imperial round: 5 ends of 6 arrows at each of 60yds, 50yds and 40yds on 122cm faces. At 90 arrows this was to be the longest round I have yet attempted and weather was sunny and warm so it was nice to shoot in a t-shirt for a change. Throughout the round I tried to put into practice the techniques that coach Andy had explained a couple of weeks earlier, so that I could use my clicker correctly and avoid clicker-angst. There were a couple of dodgy ends at 60yds, but my scores were fairly consistent at the shorter distances. With a final score of 497, this not only produced my best round handicap of 57 (5 below my running handicap) but was my first third-class score. Very happy!
Sunday morning was a little cooler but still t-shirt weather. The round was a Short Metric (6 ends of 6 arrows at each of 50m and 30m on 80cm faces), which I have shot three times before. Again, my emphasis was on technique and the first four ends at 50m were fairly consistent, but the final two were a relative disaster. The 30m ends were mor consistent and I finished with a total of 298, which was a PB for this round and only just above my running handicap, but not a classification score this time.
Bank Holiday Monday was a bit of an adventure, being my first twelve-dozen round, with the first two distances in the morning and the other two after lunch. I was the most inexperienced archer on the field and the furthest I had shot was 60yds, so I decided to attempt a Metric II round (3 dozen arrows at each of 60m and 50m on 122cm faces,and 3 dozen arrows at each of 40m and 30m on 80cm faces) . The day started with a stiff breeze, which increased throughout the day, becoming strong and gusty by the end of the round. It was quite a novelty to shooting the club's long range and I was pleased to score with most arrows fairly quickly, although there were a couple that went very much astray. By the end of the morning, I was starting to get a little fatigued so the break for lunch was very welcome, although there was some moving of bosses and target faces to be done first. The afternoon session was timed to start at 2pm, so we had a leisurely 90 minute break, during which we went hunting for lost arrows. The first round of the the afternoon session was shot with 6-arrow ends, but the move to 30m meant that we shot 3-arrow ends, which significantly extended the time taken (and the distance walked!). My final score was 651, which is big on my running handicap. I think I can be proud of that, considering the windy conditions and that I was just about fit to drop by the end of the round.
That got me thinking about how far I had walked shooting the three rounds over the weekend, so I did a few sums, remembering that you walk twice the distance of the end when collecting arrows. These are the numbers:
American
2x5x60yds=600yds
2x5x50yds=500yds
2x5x40yds=400yds
Total 1500yds
Short metric
2x6x50m=600m
2x6x30m=360m
Total 960m=1050yds
Metric II
2x6x60m=720m
2x6x50m=600m
2x6x40m=480m
2x12x30m=720m (3 arrow ends)
Total 2520m=2756yds
This gives a total over the three rounds of 5306yds, or a fraction over 3 miles; not a marathon but not insignificant, either.
Over the weekend a couple of the senior members had noticed that I had become shaky at full draw and advised that moving my clicker forward slightly would probably reduce the shake. I will give this a try next time out.
When shooting on the long range, you may need to add some extra for the time spent searching behind the boss for your arrows - particularly if you're using a longbow :)
ReplyDelete