Mexico!!

3 weeks in Denmark and I still haven't had time to unpack. The Damsbo boys wrestled an enormous wardrobe up 5 flights of stairs so that I had somewhere to store my one suitcase of stuff... It probably says something about Danes vs Aussies... I'm pretty sure the average Aussie would have taken one look at the wardrobe and decided it looked great on the ground floor... I know I would have :D Totally love my new wardrobe and owe the boys cake for finding it, hauling it up 5 flights of stairs and then putting it back together :)

On to Vejle - read royal clusterf#$k. So jumpy I couldn't hit the target by the last end. Indoor 50m and I couldn't hit the barn door, standing inside, with the doors shut. Soooo depressing. And we spent 3hrs standing in the cold to be told that the matchplay was cancelled...which I was happy about so you can see I was not having a good day. The only highlight was going home to drown my sorrows in left over Thomas' birthday cake (my first attempt at lagkage using Mormor Edel's recipe) and spending the evening in the indoor range trying to fix what broke.

So a few hundred arrows and a few days with the Carter Honey 2 later...and we still know it isn't Target panic. I can shoot with a hinge just fine (just doesn't group as well as my trigger -when it's working). And a few hours shooting with a hinge seems to help with the trigger. You can see how maybe my knees were somewhat weak at the prospect of getting on a plane to Versus Mexico with the worlds crappiest score behind me and zero confidence in my shooting. But I was flying with my guy and we made it to Guadalajara with our bows in one piece and it was about 25C when we landed after sun down. What's not to like?

I spent the practice day shooting hinge only, catching up with the other internationals and had tacos for lunch at the local hole in the wall. Good food, good company and good shooting. But a day or two of panic free shooting does not a cure all make. On the day of ranking I shot the practice ends with the hinge until the last end. The wind decided to pick up and my completely untested hinge shooting hit a snag....35 seconds an arrow and a hinge in the wind are not always your friend. Shot the last end with the trigger and had no obvious problems...yay me :) My ranking round was nothing to write about (no pun intended) beyond the achievement of all arrows on target and only one flinch. I ranked 20th with a 656 (if you had seen the shooting 5 days prior you would be more impressed) and enjoyed the day.

Next day we were sorted into groups of 6 for match play. We shot 5 matches and each match was worth 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. I had 6 points and made the cut in the top 24. But my smile was for the score of 690 (5x15 arrow matches) which was an average of 9.2 per arrow and an improvement on the 9.1 average from the day before. When you're happy to just be hitting the target it is a great thing to improve your average from the ranking, and in the matchplay. Ruben Ochoa arranged a Mexican feast for us that night and we all went to bed fat and happy :)

Second round of matchplay I maintained my strategy of shooting all practice with the Honey 2 hinge and all scoring with the Target 3 trigger. I shot 704 for 5 matches with a 9.4 average. I only won two matches, but I was pretty happy with the score and made it through the cut to the top 12. Didn't win a single match in the next round, it was a tough draw and I would say it's been a long time since we shot 200 arrows on the competition field (including practice) so I was not disappointed with my day. It was a big turn around in 5 days from missing to 9.4/arrow average. Some battles are bigger wins than others.

Erika Jones and Linda Ochoa fought it out for Gold the next day and Linda took the match with in shoot off with closest to the centre. Mike Schloesser also won Gold on a shoot off with a closest to the centre call. I'll admit to eating some very tasty tacos while we watched :)

Versus Results

And now home again. Jet lagged as all get out and freezing my butt off, but happy to be home. Time to finally unpack :)