San Diego has always been my favorite travel spot in the US. The weather is always perfect; not too hot, not too cold, but just right. I expected the same this year and never even checked the forecast before heading to California for this year’s SoCal Showdown, as well as the 2nd leg of the compound World Team Trials.
Day 1: Friday was practice day. It was sunny and HOT, which I was not expecting. This was also my first tournament with a new rest, so I used official practice to make a game time decision on if I was sticking with it or switching back to the tried and true (I did leave the new one on). Overall, I don’t get too worked up about how things feel on practice day, I just like to check all my equipment after flying and loosen up.
Day 2: Saturday was qualification day for the adults. It was nice to shoot first thing in the am and have the rest of the day off. The first half it was dead calm, and I struggled to hit the middle. I kept shooting left or right and couldn’t find the center! This was very frustrating, but I knew it would get windier as the morning progressed, so I just had to hope it came sooner rather than later. Right around the half way point the wind did begin to pickup. I was shooting better and feeling good about things. However, my first arrow kept being a right 8 which was making me mad. I still managed good end scores until the final end of the day. I shot a 51! I thought right then and there I had blown my ranking (as qualification counted for the tournament, for world trials AND our national ranking). I was pretty mad at myself until I found out I had still qualified in 4th (3rd American). Whew!
Day 3: Sunday was head to heads and the final day of the SoCal tournament. Last year I took 2nd year, so I was itching to win this year and get the belt buckle. After some long delays early on, we moved pretty quickly through the rounds, and just like the day before the wind picked up as we continued on. I was scoring decent and reading the wind well, however, my shots felt like garbage. For some reason I couldn’t get my normal timing and shot sequence. Unfortunately, this cost me in the semis and I lost my match, meaning I would be shooting for bronze this year instead of gold.
Day 4: Monday was the final day for compound world team trials. I was sitting in first place going into the day, so I knew I just had to be smart and not doing anything stupid. If I did that I would maintain my spot on the team. In the end I tied with Jaime for highest arrow average of the day, lost one match in a shootoff (with an X!), lost a second match after shooting a 6 (whoops!), but I shot a 142 or higher in all my matches, which I was happy with under the somewhat tricky conditions. Overall, I had some great ends and some not so great ends, but I managed to stay focused and do what I needed to do to keep myself in first for the entire trials, and securing my spot on the team for Copenhagen in July!
And just some random fun…
