Woke up with the sniffles and a cold. Dammit. Went back to bed for two or three hours. Then went to WTSC to train. Got there around 1630. Shot 20-odd shots to warm up, then a 20-shot match. 91,95. Felt pretty sick while shooting. All the 9’s were high though (9.7+) so it’s more a loosening of the hold than it is a technical flaw. If I can kick this cold in time, it shouldn’t be a problem. Lots of fluids, vitamin C and Neurofen Cold&Flu for the next few days!
Spoke with Matt and Geoff for a while about match plans and general mental preperation. Next few days will be nothing more than rest and building up energy levels for me. Maybe 10-15 minutes of balance exercises during lunch, and there will be some mental drills, but that’s it. Got an interesting mental drill from Matt – visualise the shot, as per usual (for those non-shooters; a key mental training exercise for shooters is to mentally rehearse and visualise their shot plan from the very first movement to the very last, in as much detail as is possible), but time it with a stopwatch. Do this repeatedly and check the consistency of the timings. That’s definitely one for the next few days.
Took the shoulder strap for the prone sling off my jacket, removed the nonessential crap (spare glove, socks, .22 stuff, etc) from the equipment bag. Come wednesday evening, I just drop out the rifle, pack one or two last things (the sights box, for example), drop off the overnight bags for myself and herself, and that’s it – off to Bisley the next morning, to stay in the St.George’s Lodge (don’t you love organising accomodation months in advance? 😀 ). I’m not quite “looking forward to it”, but I’m definitely anticipating it in a positive sense – it’s going to be an excellent challange and I’m going to feel good about it, but it’s definitely got a sense about it of being hard work!
And I love my new sights box. Keeps everything I need with the rifle safe and secure and lets me set the rifle up in no time flat:
Also, I’ve managed to set up my laptop and my mobile phone so I can use a bluetooth link to make the phone act as a broadband modem for the laptop in Bisley, so I can post photos and entries while there. So there should be some neat photos and stuff on here during the weekend!