Month: January 2007

WTSC/NTSA Training Seminar

So the first training event of the run to the GB Juniors, and it was a doozey. Tony Ward, a paralympic runner, spoke for the morning session, mostly on what the level of committment was for training at that level. There’s always a price for such training; that’s what we were trying to convey to the shooters, and I think it was heard. It’s a lesson that the old hands have learned the hard way over the years, but perhaps telling the Juniors up front is a better road. After all, we lost more old hands to plinking than I can count because they ran into the demands of high level competition without any forewarning or chance to prepare. That’s about as stressful as it gets.

After lunch, there was a physical fitness session with one of the National Aquatic Centre’s fitness instructors, a chap who knew his stuff forwards and backwards, which was very helpful, even for those of us who don’t get to train these days. A lot of the core strength and the flexibility stuff is precisely the area we need work in, and we got it, along with myself and Geoff suffering through the gym session with all the other shooters!

Six weeks or so, and we’ll be bringing people back for a further fitness evaluation…

WTSC 10m Airgun Open

A quiet little disaster of a match this weekend.

You know, most of the time, you find that matches are pretty okay. One or two people might not show up for various reasons, or might not shoot as well as they’d hoped and their training would have let you to think they would, but this time out, noone did well and half the field didn’t make it. Okay, it’s the first match of the year, but this close to Bisley, you’d think everyone would have been entering two and three times to get as much match time on the range as you could, as a kind of stress test before the championships.

Nothing.

The scores were in the toilet as well. 561 to win? Feck’s sake lads, we were better than this five years ago, let alone last year! 561 shouldn’t be getting you into a finals, let alone winning the match! And 384 for the AR40? C’mon girls, I’ve seen you shoot high 390’s for crying out loud!

*sigh*

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that it’s obvious that we’re not ready for Bisley. Or anything else for that matter. Matt thinks we should pull the match and the following matches and restart our training cycle with the GB Juniors as a goal. I have to say I agree with him. We go over like this, we’d be crucified.

edit:  Two days later, Matt did pull the matches. So onwards to the GB Juniors!

WTSC Open January 2007

With all the work being done for the NTSA, some stuff is falling through the cracks. For example, there was very little notice for this weekend’s Open in Wilkinstown. Not enough to get the DURC Novice squad out, though they’ll be coming to competitions soon enough. Twenty-plus novices all showing up and shooting, that’ll be something to see (and loads of fun to organise the logistics for 😀 )

Anyway, I’m in the stats office for most of this match. Can’t make the sunday, and I did get to shoot today in Air Pistol, but I’m just plinking right now so I’m not even worried that I didn’t break 500. With all the NTSA and WTSC admin work, not to mention coaching the DURC squad, I have no time at all to train myself, so I’m not even thinking about it. It’s going to be depressing watching them all head off for Bisley in five weeks time, but they’ve been training for months for this.  The team heading over is sorted now and it’s less than last year (only 13 this year), but it may be better for that – without a full management team, 24 is just too many people, especially with the restrictions the law puts on junior athletes 🙁

I also noted today that the Atkins diet and Target Shooting don’t really go well together. Lots of shaking of hands and having to sit down because I had no energy. And not having an isotonic drink didn’t do me many favours either. No, I think the best idea is to lose the weight on the diet and with some exercise, and then go back to technical training afterwards, but keep up the exercise to maintain the weight so it doesn’t become a problem again. And I did find a gym within a few seconds walk from my office, so I might get to use that during lunch when I get to that stage. Nearly €300 to join and €80 a month for membership though. Hmmm. Not this month anyway, especially with the NTSA, NSRA and WTSC memberships all coming up! 😀

249.4

 Well, the diet progresses, and I’m through the 250lb line in the good direction.

Weight graph

What’s not on that graph was that at one point after New Year’s I weighed in at 264lb. Eugh. The diet started soon afterwards, and so far I’m down just shy of 15lb from that point, so I’m happy enough with it so far. It’s a bit challanging to find more than a small range of meals to eat on Atkins and it’s wholly impossible to not cook for yourself, practically at any rate, so I’m spending more time in the kitchen but also less money, which is welcome. This phase of the diet continues to Jan 31, at which point it eases off a bit, but I don’t see myself coming off it fully for quite a while yet.

On the upside, herself and myself found this weekend that Boots sell those Atkins bar thingies, and I also had time to cook some Atkins coconut macaroons, so we now have something to eat with coffee, which eases the cravings of habit.

The downside is that the diet is doing a good job of supressing hunger – in fact, a nearly complete job. That’s a downside because you don’t notice that your blood sugar level’s dropped because you don’t get hungry, so out of nowhere you start feeling very tired and lethargic and cranky with the world. Not the best thing ever, but it’s astonishing how fast a very small amount of food fixes that. Literally one rasher/macaroon/whatever later, and you’re back to normal.

Not the best thing to do while training for a match though, so I guess it’s a good thing I’m not in training right now!

NTSA Committee Meeting #5

Traffic getting to this meeting was a pain in the backside. Typical really, with that barrier in the middle of UCD.

The meeting was a bit fustrating, in that we’ve got a ton of stuff sitting over our heads, and we can’t just dive right in and get started. The whole consultation process setup is the best way for us to improve the NTSA, but if you were to just take whatever submissions you had and start acting on them, not everyone’s had a voice into it. At the same time, you have to start at some point. We’re not quite there yet, but you can see it from here.

The really fustrating thing though, is that we are making progress. In the past ten years, I don’t remember seeing this much push from the top, not once. But it’s not immediately visible from the ground, both because we’ve not solved our communications problems and because there’s a lot of inertia to cope with. At least I have an idea on how to solve the former problem!

Sadly, the NTSA website is in a bad state of disrepair. It’s going to be a major job to fix it, and with the colours coaching swiping all my time, I don’t know if I can fix it before then. I should have it sorted before the Nationals though.

Saw RRPC’s new electronic targets tonight as well. Lovely looking things, like a mechanical engineer tried his hand at computer engineering 🙂 Can’t wait to shoot on them, but I have no idea when that’ll be 🙁

Atkins, week one…

Ugh. Fatigue, aches, headaches, cravings for some sort of biscuit to eat with my cup of decaf coffee… this is all terribly familiar.

Oh well. Also familiar was the weight loss. That’ll be worth this.  Not to mention how much better my shooting will get as a result.