SCAS/Bedford Double FITA Star

A week after shooting a 1361 in practice, I went into this confident, if the weather was good I could shoot a good score. However, again I was faced with very strong winds and things could not have started worse.

The first end at 90m was a 43. This has to be the worst end I have ever shot. A combination of gusts and simply forgetting how to shoot meant I was facing a real battle. However, I dug deep and managed to get to 302 for the 90m distance. Anything over 300 is very important and gets you on your way to at least 1300.

70m started fantastically. I drilled in a 58, including three x's. Each shot was almost perfect, timed wonderfully. The rest of the distance was OK, but I shot a disappointing 51 to bring in a reasonable 328. At this stage, surprisingly I was third.

I shot a competition PB of 328 for the 50m distance, and this was solid but with two very poor 7's.

By the time the 30m distance started the wind was very strong and this started badly, with a 56. I dropped points throughout most of the ends, until the last nine arrows. The second to last end I shot a 10, 9 and 8, and this frankly angered me, and so I really went for it and tried to almost pull the bow in half and smashed in nine consecutive 10's to finish on a below par 347, with an overall score of 1305.

This was a frustrating day. When the wind died down I shot some awesome shots, but as soon as the wind got up I fought it and shot poorly.

To take some positives from this I would say the bad start at 90m could have really killed my confidence. However I dug deep and hauled it back. Also I did shoot some great shots, and the finish at 30m was one of the best I have had in such conditions. I suppose to get over 1300 is good considering the weather.

However, I did get sloppy and could have had more points, and my second MB. I look forward to the day when I actually get to shoot in calm conditions!

I was due to shoot the second day, but after getting up at 5:15am, I really didn't feel that great and so opted to stay in bed and rest. Shame as I was in third but a rest hopefully will set me up for the Andover FITA Star next week.