131st U.S. National Target Championships
The 4th of July weekend of 2015 was the 131st U.S. National Target Championships held in Decatur, Alabama. Outdoor Nationals is a must for any archer working towards a USAT ranking. Arizona Cup I finished 15th in my division. Gator Cup I finished 8th in my division. I was in hopes of continuing the climbing trend at Outdoor Nationals, but in the end it was not to be. In fact, Outdoor Nationals was my worst tournament of the year. I packed and prepared for extreme heat and humidity, but what we all experienced was storms after storms after storms. Everyday there were weather delays. Now don’t get me wrong. USA Archery did a great job of watching the weather and worked hard to keep all us archers safe. No one can control Mother Nature, but whomever ticked her off can you please not do that again.... She rolled thunderstorms through the area like a freight train and as everyone knows, when you have thunderstorms you have lightning and it was because of these lightning strikes that we had so many delays.
On Wednesday, I arrived at the field after my 4+ hour drive from Georgia to be immediately told to get back in my car because the field was closed due to thunderstorms. Well, there went getting any practice in. I didn’t even get to check in or my equipment inspected. I did get lucky in that I found a judge that was polite enough to talk to me. I explained that all I wanted to do was get checked in and my equipment inspected because I was scheduled to shoot first thing Thursday morning. He said not to worry. To get to the field at about 6:30 in the morning and to come see him and he’d get me checked in and get my equipment inspected before official practice started.
Out of the entire weekend, Thursday was the best run day. I got up, had my breakfast and headed to the field to find the judge I had talked to the day before. He and others got me checked in and my equipment checked so I was now official and ready to participate in the tournament. Now that that weight had been lifted all I had to do now was shoot. I shot ok. My average. Since my dad and my uncle made the trip with me, when I was done shooting for the day we went and got some lunch, back to the hotel to clean up and then used one of the perks in the tournament goody bag - a coupon for the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL. I love doing things like this. Experiencing something of the local area. All three of us were like little kids. Playing and experiencing everything from the blending wall to the throwing suction balls to the climbing wall. Ok, I experienced the climbing wall while my dad and uncle watched from the bench. It was a blast.
Thursday was the worst day. Weather delays abound. I was slated to shoot the afternoon line, but the morning line had so many delays I was beginning to wonder. They finally called a break for lunch and said they would plan for the morning line to start at 1pm with a hard stop of 4pm and the afternoon line would plan to start at 4:30pm with a hard stop on 9pm. The irony in this is when everyone scattered for lunch, the weather was actually pretty nice. Not blue sky nice, but not thundering and lightning. When 1pm rolled around and the morning line started shooting it also started raining. Mather Nature!! What are you going to do with her... Luckily for everyone, the weather didn’t do much more that rain the rest of the day. The morning line had to use their hard stop of 4pm and most of the archers only got to 42 or 48 arrows depending on which field they were on. Us on the afternoon line did get all of our 72 arrows in, but me personally, I would have rather not shot at all. I did horrible. Of course, the rain makes your arrows shoot lower than where you were aiming - but the wind. Boy, the wind was really tough to gauge. I found that the wind strength was different at the the target than it was on us at the the line. I was even tougher given that the wind didn’t change from end to end - it would often change from arrow to arrow. You’d line up a shot thinking the wind would push the arrow only to find out the arrow didn’t drift at all and would in fact land exactly where you aimed it. The next shot total opposite. Then it got dark and they turned the lights for the field on. This put the targets in a bit of a shadow for the lights were trained to shine on the field not the edge where our targets were. By this time, I admit, all I wanted was food, shower and my bed. I have a sneaking suspicion I wasn’t alone. I had shot so poorly and was so tired I was truly happy when we scored our last arrows and we could all leave the field. I do have to say that us compound women did do a great job of entertaining each other and doing our best to keep smiles on our faces in spite of all the weather delays and other problems of the day. It was really great spending two days shooting with old friends and making new ones.
Saturday dawns a new day. Today are ORs. I get to the field and to find out my first match in the 1/16th round is against one of my closest friend in the circuit. I started out strong with a 29, but then 26, 26, 26, 27 and thought for sure I was going to be packing up and heading home. But as it turned out I won by 2 points. So now I’m on to my nemesis round - the 1/8th. I have yet to find a way to get past this round. Usually in this round I’m up against Danielle Reynolds, but this time I’m up against Paige Pearce. We were both shooting strong. I even had a 30 on one end, but when things were all tallied up - the dreaded 1/8 round had gotten me again. I will beat this round one day, but this Independence Day was not going to be that day. Paige beat me by 2 points. Congratulations Paige, good luck in the next round!! My first Outdoor Nationals has come to an end. Now all is left is the drive home, but first a shower....
The drive home was actually kind of nice. We took the northerly route up through Chattanooga, TN and down into Georgia. Then took the back roads of the North Georgia Mountains. And what a drive that was. Windy, curvy roads. Windows rolled down. Country music cranked up. The cool, post rain air rushing in the open windows. As far as I’m concerned - the best way to rejuvenate the soul......