First Competition After 2nd COVID19 Lockdown

At last. After many months of waiting I got to go to a range to participate in a competition. In this post I detail the highlights, results, and training insight leading up to the competition.

I did overdo it

After last week’s progress report, I did experience some pangs of pain that signaled overwork in two areas: calves and hand flexors.

My guess is that I acutely overdid it right after coming back in terms of intensity. I worked the calves with explosive single leg raises plus slow extensions after a run, which felt challenging but enjoyable. This plus all the calve training I did during vacation plus the impact that all my running and walking ended up meaning a three days of pain and worsening of the stiff morning Achilles. All is good now, but I cut down a lot (maybe too much) in terms of running and exercise.

Same thing for the hand, with a couple consecutive days of long and strong training with the rubber ring. Luckily I did not feel more pain while shooting. All gone now and I’ve decided to move down to a softer ball to train the flexors of the hand and to get my thumb in shape.

Stacking

It was a challenging week trying to get back to the family and work rythm, but I manage to add some workouts for my hands and squeeze some running. When I go pick up the kids or come back from dropping them I can just run, however I’m dressed. This adds 7′ to 10′ that I would not have otherwise and pumps up my heart. While running or walking I can do the extensor and flexor exercises too.

Scheduling

What is clear for me is that leaving training to after taking the kids to bed is just too hard. I have to schedule it in working hours and fit in all my other trainings, learning, and working on olympicpistol.com. It is just much harder to set everything up for training, so I ease myself into it by just starting doing milk bottle holds or, when I’m a bit more awake and motivated, pistol holds against a wall. Whenever I feel that I don’t have the energy to train I just try to do one thing that is less demanding (like taking the pistol out and practicing my trigger dry firing on the couch), which many times ends up getting me worked up to do some more training. Even if I only do that one thing it is a win, as I’ve managed to do something. I’m trying to not punish myself with training and guilt and it seems to be working well.

Online match

Last week I only had two days at the range, and in the first- right after vacation and a couple days of dry firing at home- I shot the first of the qualification trainings for the pistolentraininig.de league where my team won silver. It was not an easy match but I’m happy with the result.

This together with my shooting on Friday (no printout because of lights going out well advanced into training, but I quickly finished my 15*9 and 15*9.4 contracts) got me in a good state of mind for the competition. I felt less balanced that before the break, but I thought I was in good shape.

Competition at a range!

I finally got to shoot at a range and it was great just to be there. 28 lanes, good lightning, comfortable table… Sighters started well, but when the competition started I started loosing confidence in my trigger, waiting too long. I managed to pick things up in the third series, but it could have been a better result. Still, if this is my new bad things are looking good.

Positive takeouts of the match

• I felt again the sensation of having a line that does not break going from the fingers to the arm, with some great trigger executions in combination with it.
• I did manage to get some good strings of shots.
• I took breaks and worked my way out of the darkest thoughts (which were lighter than a year ago), which helped to keep a constructive mood throughout the match.
• Good series in the match are a positive sign of my potential, they are me.

Nothing has magically changed since I took my break: I have to keep on working on my trigger execution and decisiveness.