Welcome to Trentham

The title of the post comes from the phrase that I probably heard repeated the most during my week down at the Kiwi Nationals in Upper Hutt at the start of January. The wind during the week ranged from benign through moderately difficult to utterly fearsome. Whenever I came off the firing point with a shellshocked look, having been freshly mullered by the ever-shifting, swirling airflow out it came, 'Welcome to Trentham!'

From the sublime... (I won this 500x shoot)

Possibly the only thing worse than starting a shoot with a hit scoring 1 to count is starting and finishing with bullseyes only to get a succession of four consecutive outers alternating either side of the aiming mark only just shy of the magpie line somewhere in between. I managed both of these during the week! Suffice it to say that as I didn't pick up any misses, I would have been in for a shout at the late, great John Lord Swansea's Corporation Insurance. By way of contrast, the only thing that made it bearable was the fact the everyone else got theirs at some point too (my score of 32ish was "surpassed" by one Kiwi multiple Commonwealth Games medallist.)

...to the ridiculous. I wasn't the only one who got creamed.

All in all, I actually shot reasonably well with the exception of one 600x shoot in tricky winds where a couple of loose shots turned what would have been a creditable (given the conditions) 48 or 49 into a rather lacklustre 46. I also made some good decisions, including one 900x shoot where I got up after my third to count - before I made a total Horlicks of the whole thing - and completely reset my position, getting a significantly higher score than I suspect I would have done otherwise. There are some positives to take away from my week down there, but it's clear that not putting in the hours that I have done over the past few years prevented me from making more of an impact. Once I've got my upcoming ultramarathon - The Hillary Trail Run - out of the way, I'll get back to the SCATT and the visualisation. Aerobic fitness really is not a problem at the moment.