I’ve had a hard time writing blog posts lately, for a whole variety of reasons. In the end, I won’t bore you with all of my excuses, instead I will attempt to move forward and try to do better. 2015 ended with a new bow, placing 3rd in Bangkok and winning the US World Team Trials.
Unlike the past two indoor seasons where I did almost every tournament available to me, this year I was forced to take a step back and pick only those tournaments that were most important to me and my goals. This meant I missed the Iowa ProAm, the Nimes World Cup, and the Italian Challenge. For all of these tournaments, I followed scores from home and cheered on those who had success, but man was it tough to not be there competing. I also wasn’t able to attend the annual ATA show in Louisville this year. Watching your friends and rivals competing while you are sitting at home is not easy, but feeling like you are letting people that support you down is even worse!
I decided to use the time I had at home wisely. I continued to play with my new bow, making changes and tweaking things almost every time I went to the range. I headed to the annual Lancaster Classic in the middle of January with mixed feelings. I was so excited to be competing, but I knew I wasn’t yet at 100% with my setup…and I HATE losing, as much as I do sitting at home.
I’ve qualified well at this tournament the last two years, only to never make the final 4 shoot-up, so I went in with the attitude I didn’t care where I qualified. I knew it was anyone’s game come the matches, and I would be ready for that. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t cooperative this year, and the organizers were left with the difficult decision to cancel all the matches (once qualification was complete), and just move directly into the shoot-ups with those that qualified in the top 4 spots (8 for men).
I wish things were different, but they weren’t, meaning my 7th place in qualification would be my final position. It was hard knowing I was ready for the matches, and I knew I could do better than I had in qualification. The lesson I took from this is to treat every part of a tournament like it’s the finals. You never know when a tournament could be canceled in its tracks.
The bright side of the cancellation of matches, was I was able to hit the road Friday night just as the storm was hitting. We drove through the night and got home around 4am, before the snow even started in CT. Instead of being stranded in PA for who knows how many days, I was home in my own bed, made it to work on Monday, and had plenty of time to recover from the trip before heading to Vegas the next week.