Welcome to Season 3 of Gun & Run!

It has been a while; and it has been great to have a break; but after three months off, it's time to saddle up and get training and shooting again.

I have already talked about the importance of taking a break in Training Cycle 4 - Rest and Recovery but taking a little time away from shooting (although this is largely enforced by the winter weather we get here in Waitakere) gives me time to get out on the roads and get fit for the start of the shooting and trail running seasons. It also gives me the opportunity to post a little less for a while, and refresh the creative juices a little. I try hard to write thoughtful and interesting pieces on shooting, but I need inspiration to do this and not a little cognitive space. A busy schedule of work and travel for shooting last year wrung me out a little, but what a season it was.

The 2016/2017 season is looking like it's going to be a big one: I've got work trips to North America on the cards, as well as at least one trip (probably two) to the UK planned, as well as at least one (possibly as many as three) trips over the ditch to New Zealand's West Island* in the coming 18 months.

The handloading bench is going to get a lot of use in the next couple of months. The hammer is purely for emergency use.

Having taken three months off sport-specific training and live fire, I'm going to have to get off my backside and prepare for the coming season ahead. In no particular order, I have to:

• Give my rifle a thorough check over and clean;
• Load a shitload of ammunition for training and competition;
• Dig out the SCATT and do some training;
• Sort through my kit to see if I need to replace anything;
• Think about what aspects of my position and technique I'm going to need to work on; and
• Get out on the range and do some live fire.

 All of this renewed and reinvigorated interest in shooting, competing and qualifying for the most exclusive club shoot in the world is going to stimulate me to do a bit more writing too, I hope. I've already had a few ideas and started to mull over them while running. Future topics are likely to include: Wind reading, electronic targets, handloading, rule making and its consequences, volume versus quality in training, performance enhancing drugs in shooting (and sport in general), and possibly a book review or two.

I'm looking forward to it. I hope you are too.

* Also known to some people as "Australia".

Exercise. Because.

Do some cardio and maybe some light weights*.

As well as being good for your general health there's a fair chance that it'll do your shooting some good. If you look at some of the very best shooters you'll see that they often do other sports or take regular exercise also.

By my reckoning, there are three main benefits from doing exercise that relate to shooting; although I admit that evidence for these is secondary and not direct:

1) Hold the rifle more still because of a lower resting heart rate
2) Maintain your position for longer and reduce group size increase in longer shoots
3) Handle a long competition period better

Really? Yup, I reckon so. Exercise on its own isn't going to make you Robin Fulton you understand, but it is another marginal gain.


I quite like running, but I have taken it a bit to extremes.

That said, what you shouldn't do is what I did. I started doing a bit of running, which was fine. I quite enjoyed it, even; however I am capable of anything except moderation. In short form, my friend Jenny asked me if I wanted do the Cambridge Half, I downloaded a training plan off the internet and lost over a stone in weight quite by accident. This meant that my shooting kit no longer fitted, but as this crept up on me (you don't lose a rifle's worth of weight in a week or two) it rather shagged my 2014 season.

That was just the first of my mistakes.

Probably the main one I have made is that I let my ego get the better of me and trained too hard. Like about 95% of people who take up running, I started off by running waaaaay too fast and probably built up my mileage too quickly, with the result that I most likely limited the rate of my improvement and nearly injured myself several times. If you're going to take up running, or indeed any form of cardiovascular exercise you're going to need to take it very slowly and gently.

While I'd rather be a good shooter than a very mediocre marathon runner, I do not believe them to be mutually exclusive. I think I've sorted out my kit problems and will keep up with the exercise.

* I'll cough to being useless at keeping up with my plan to do some light bodyweight phys several times a week. I'm trying to get there though.

Run, not gun!

Dear readers, please excuse the lack of a shooting-related post last weekend. I was busy running a marathon down in Queenstown. I finished in 3:25:41 chip time, which I'm quite chuffed about.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Put one foot in front of the other. Alternate. Stop when you've crossed the finish line.

A Tale of Shooting and Obsession

In his utterly compelling book Feet in the Clouds* the author and fellrunner Richard Askwith puts down in words the love of his sport and obsession with completing the 24 hour Bob Graham Round**. Driven beyond all reason and sane counsel to run approximately 66 miles up and down 42 peaks, with over 8100 metres of ascent and descent in the Lake District over some of the most rugged terrain in the UK, the books relates the utterly ludicrous lengths to which this otherwise unremarkable man went to achieve his goal.

In parallel with his multiple attempts at completing the challenge, the author relates an abridged history of the sport through which it is possible to chart the evolution of modern training techniques. Early exponents of the sport did not train and their knowledge of performance nutrition was somewhat flawed; however more recent athletes, such as the great Kenny Stewart, applied more scientific principles to their efforts.

Much like fellrunning, even as our sport is in decline the sophistication of training techniques has increased. Aside from time spent on the range shooting live rounds, the concept of training for shooting does not seem to have even existed before the 1980s; shooter training systems came on the scene in the early 1990s; similarly, the idea of even the highest level teams training together before competing is a recent concept.

Much like the author, unless you are supremely talented you are going to need to be somewhat obsessed with training to achieve your goals. Just as he "trained like an Olympian for six unbroken months, seven days a week, often twice a day" you're going to need to put some effort into your shooting if you want to achieve an unreasonable goal; and make no mistake here, wanting to win the Grand Aggregate or a Commonwealth Games medal is an unreasonable goal.

Much like some of the fellrunners described in the book, I'm trying to work out how to use the body of research in sports science and other tools to improve my performance in my sport.

* Subtitled A Tale of Fellrunning and Obsession, hence the title of this post. Available at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feet-Clouds-Tale-Fell-Running-Obsession/dp/1781310564/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435951214&sr=8-1&keywords=feet+in+the+clouds It really is a compelling read, I promise you.

** The Bob Graham Round involves traversing 42 peaks in the Lake District within 24 hours, starting and finishing at Keswick's Moot Hall in the marketplace. Anyone who completes the round within the time limit under supervision is eligible to join the Bob Graham 24 Hour Club. People who have failed to complete the round include the late Olympic athlete Chris Brasher and renowned explorer Ranulph Fiennes Vid. http://www.bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=intro