i like to tell stories : NYS Championships 1.

August 5th, 2008

NYS Championships 1.

Day 1.

mid-county rod and gun club, my 26th club. i had only been here once before, 2 years ago, it rained that day too. i wasn’t mentally ready, hadn’t practiced enough or even shot a tournament in 4 months, but i just had to go, it was the new york state championship.

it’s about a mile course, maybe a little more. i was walking it. i started at station #4. i shot a 0, i hadn’t had a zero station in over a year. it wasn’t even a hard station, couple quartering targets, nothing special, yet i just shot it all wrong. not a good way to start. i could hear thunder in the distance, then the rain started and then the lighting. the next few stations went just as poorly. i couldn’t get my brain around it, i shot the warm up perfect, not a miss, and the warm up wasn’t easy, yet now that it mattered, i couldn’t hit a thing. when we got to station #9, the furthest away from the start, the entire shoot was postponed due to lightning. great, i had to walk all the way back to the clubhouse, sit there for almost 2h, then walk all the way back to station #9, again, to start the tournament, again.

i had dropped 18 targets in the first 5 stations, abysmal. damn. when it started again, i would only drop 16 targets in 12 stands, twice as many stands, for less targets dropped, thank goodness for that storm.

and so it went, rain, lightning, fogged glasses, lost nose piece = crooked glasses, dark glasses in the shaded dark woods, too much hiking, too much to carry, too much humidity, too much waiting between stands, yet none of that mattered, i just didn’t shoot well, if only my brain didn’t get in my way, i would shoot respectably. it isn’t a public club, but if it was, i would love to shoot here more often…