Since I've more or less announced that I'm officially coming back to target shooting, I may as well make my excuses/offer some sort of explanation as to what happened over the past year (or two). Basically, a bad combination of feeling out of place with not speaking German (or not speaking it well enough), moving around the place, culture shock, laziness meant that I had little to no motivation to go shooting. It wasn't until a colleague at work mentioned that he'd like to try pistol shooting that my thoughts stirred again and I suggested the range that I'd been to at the end of 2010.
It took another month or so before we got around to going, him never having shot before, and me with my custom jacket and shiny new rifle. The one that I had only fired test shots in the shop with. You know the one. Two posts down. I've had it a while, and really made good use of the dry firing mechanism on it. It may be wearing out at this point :D The back wall of my apartment has probably thousands of imaginary holes in it at this stage.
Actually getting to shoot the thing was great. The first shot had a stupid grin plastered all over my face and that more or less continued for the next hour or however long we were there. Since I don't have pants, my back was wrecked after it, so baby steps while I get used to the position again. The shooting itself wasn't great, but I wasn't expecting much better (and I'm still not, for the record. I'm happy to give myself a bit of time to get used to this whole thing again).
That said, there has been continuous week on week improvement in my shooting. Working out what's not consistent, fixing it. Getting rid of stress points in the position, muscle tension, etc. A chat with Aisling highlighted something useful I could try, which worked. Making sure I roll my head forward, rather than to the side and then forward will probably save me 5 points a string, nevermind over the course of a match. Keeping the rifle close, the left arm vertical, all those little things that you kinda forget over time, those are all coming back to me rapidly so my progression should be pretty fast for the first while. Got back into the 90s the last time I shot, should improve on that again the next time with a few other bits and pieces.
Of course, you may be thinking that this is all well and good, but what's the next step? Well, I don't know. I know what the next step would be if I were shooting 560+. But I'm not. So there's no point in explaining that. I'm going to take this one step at a time and work on my shooting for now. Maybe see if I can squeeze in some prone during the week. Start training twice a week, once I can stomach the trip from work to home to range and back home again. If the scores pick up, I'll hopefully be able to get in some more range time. The range is currently only open Tuesdays and Thursdays, which limits my range time, understandably. I need to pick up on the dry firing at home from twice a week to 3-4, certainly. Once the ice clears, I'll start cycling to work again, get the physical side of things going again.
This time, I have a lot of time to plan. Or rather, I've planned for a lot of time to plan. I've stopped rushing to get to an international match, just for the sake of it. If anything, I've learned a bit of patience over the past while. So I shall wait. Improve. Shoot more shots per night. Consider getting measured for shooting pants (to save my back, if nothing else) and buying shooting boots. Converse shoes are all well and good, but some sort of ankle support would be nice :D We'll see how it goes. I'll try to put pictures and videos up here of my position and shooting technique as it gets a little better.
Also, if you'd be more interested in checking out somebody who's shooting well at the moment, I have a new blogroll on the right. Some of the Danish national team have blogs which read very well through google translate (to English anyway. YMMV). If anybody has any more blogs to hand, please do let me know. So long for now.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Guess who's back.... again.....
*cough* Eh-hem. */dusts away cobwebs* Right. Well, it's, eh, been a while then? Like, a year? More you say? Hrm. Let's just ignore that fact for now shall we? And the rats over there who seem to have made themselves at home. I'll get around to negotiating with them presently. Anyway, no point in dwelling on the past, time to look to the future. Or something.
I'm going to skip over why I haven't posted in a year (many reasons, including laziness and more laziness) and just cut right to the chase. I'm actually back training in a range again, I'm still cycling and building up a lot of kilometers, and I'm also running. Still working full time on my PhD in Munich, of course, I've just gotten a little better at time management. I'll stick up some more detailed posts in the coming days/weeks, but suffice to say I'm back. And that I have a lot of work to do, most, if not all, of which I'll be sharing here :) Stay tuned!
I'm going to skip over why I haven't posted in a year (many reasons, including laziness and more laziness) and just cut right to the chase. I'm actually back training in a range again, I'm still cycling and building up a lot of kilometers, and I'm also running. Still working full time on my PhD in Munich, of course, I've just gotten a little better at time management. I'll stick up some more detailed posts in the coming days/weeks, but suffice to say I'm back. And that I have a lot of work to do, most, if not all, of which I'll be sharing here :) Stay tuned!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Unboxing Feinwerkbau P700
Sometimes I absolutely love Germany. A wide variety of tasty meats, punctual public transport, lots of beautiful scenery, etc. At the moment, I'm really loving their attitude to air rifles. I had a firearms cert for an air rifle in Ireland up until recently. It took three months for that cert to come through, and it could have taken longer. The story is somewhat different here.
I walked into Frankonia, a large chain of shops which cater to the shooting community in Germany, last weekend to start the process of buying an air rifle. Had I the money then and there I could have walked out that day. As it was, I didn't, and their credit office was closed at the weekend. I did however get the chance to test fire the rifle, which they had in stock, with my size grip and preferred colour. We agreed a price, and I was to come back today to finalise the purchase.
Which leads me to:
It can also shoot pretty well:
...and looks something like this when all set up:
I've pushed the sights up as far as they'll go, which is to the maximum 60 mm allowed by ISSF. I'll need to measure it to make sure, but I trust FWB for now. As a side note, it's amazing to have that height in the sights. My neck no longer feels incredibly uncomfortable when in position. I still have a lot of drop to the cheekpiece, but that's always going to be an issue for me! I have about another 5 mm upwards adjustment in the cheekpiece before it just falls out:
Many of you are no doubt aware of my total and utter hatred of the FWB buttplates, so the first major thing to do was toss their piece of crap out and replace it with my own:
Which leaves me finally with something that looks a little like this;
There is one issue. And it was so massive that a very nice price was negotiated for the rifle. if you look rather closely at the following photograph, you might notice some slight surface scratches along it. I am more than prepared to live with those, especially since I didn't notice it until it was pointed out.
I'm very happy. It fits. It's new. The trigger is a little heavy atm, but that can be easily fixed. It's the nicest set up that I've ever had with an air rifle and it shows. The thing just sits steady in position. I'll be trying it out on the range soon, hopefully this week or the week after. Then we'll see how bad I really am.
Some more gratuitous shots:
I walked into Frankonia, a large chain of shops which cater to the shooting community in Germany, last weekend to start the process of buying an air rifle. Had I the money then and there I could have walked out that day. As it was, I didn't, and their credit office was closed at the weekend. I did however get the chance to test fire the rifle, which they had in stock, with my size grip and preferred colour. We agreed a price, and I was to come back today to finalise the purchase.
Which leads me to:
It can also shoot pretty well:
...and looks something like this when all set up:
I've pushed the sights up as far as they'll go, which is to the maximum 60 mm allowed by ISSF. I'll need to measure it to make sure, but I trust FWB for now. As a side note, it's amazing to have that height in the sights. My neck no longer feels incredibly uncomfortable when in position. I still have a lot of drop to the cheekpiece, but that's always going to be an issue for me! I have about another 5 mm upwards adjustment in the cheekpiece before it just falls out:
Many of you are no doubt aware of my total and utter hatred of the FWB buttplates, so the first major thing to do was toss their piece of crap out and replace it with my own:
Which leaves me finally with something that looks a little like this;
There is one issue. And it was so massive that a very nice price was negotiated for the rifle. if you look rather closely at the following photograph, you might notice some slight surface scratches along it. I am more than prepared to live with those, especially since I didn't notice it until it was pointed out.
I'm very happy. It fits. It's new. The trigger is a little heavy atm, but that can be easily fixed. It's the nicest set up that I've ever had with an air rifle and it shows. The thing just sits steady in position. I'll be trying it out on the range soon, hopefully this week or the week after. Then we'll see how bad I really am.
Some more gratuitous shots:
Monday, January 3, 2011
New Year Resolutions
By that I mean goals for the year. Cycling, running, and, most importantly, shooting should all come along nicely this year, now that I'm settled a little bit in Germany. With that in mind, it's time to work out what I want to hit at some point in the year.
Piecing it all together in one giant calendar is actually kinda fun. I was originally thinking of splitting it all apart, having one calendar each for shooting, cycling and running, but I think this is better. Also, it should help me to not schedule things on top of each other.
After a pitiful year of shooting, it's time to make this priority one again. Unfortunately, there aren't a huge number of goals in late summer/early autumn time that I can aim for. The European smallbore championships are on at a really nice time, but they require qualification. I need a 587 in prone, or 1135 in 3p to make it there. Now, both of these are eminently doable, given good quality training. at 1033 in my last 3x40 match 2.5 years ago, I think this is where I could make up some good ground. Standing alone has the potential to raise about 15 points a string, if I get a decent set up. So that's 1100, with the balance to be made up with prone and kneeling. Doable, but not easy. The prone, OTOH, could either be reasonably handy, or incredibly difficult.
I've done some playing around with a pretend prone position at home, trying different right arm positions, and I think I've found something decent. It should allow good shoulder pressure as well as tucking the rifle in close to me. This will all be greatly facilitated by having the air rifle at home for training. Imitating my prone set up on that will allow training to be done at any time at home, which will be totally cool :)
For running, I'm going to attempt a marathon. I said I'd do it last year, and I just failed. I have two options later in the year, which is what I want. There's the Munich Marathon, on the 9th of October, and the Dublin City Marathon, on the 31st of October. There's nothing much in the way of shooting or cycling around these times, so that works out rather well. I'll probably enter one or the other pretty soon, so I have the time set in stone and I can update my calendar around that.
In the case of cycling, I have Operation M to worry about. This is a one- or two-week tour, planning to take in at least one epic climb. At the moment I'm leaning towards a one week tour, starting in central France in July. From there, head south and then loop into Switzerland, taking in the Col d'Isaren along the way. This is a 33 km monster of a climb, which will require much training. To the Alps!
I have a lot of plans for the summer, so I'm going to be looking for some things to round off the year towards the end. I've already said that I would like to do some time trialling, so I may have a look at that once the tour is over; change the road bike set up to a more aerodynamic position, with tri bars. Or I may be bold and look at building something up from scratch, depending on how serious I want to go with it. Ideally, I'd want to look at racing for that kind of investment.
Those are the rough plans for 2011. I'll be updating as I go, with only a few things that are set in stone. As I said, shooting is taking priority from now on, which means time and money. It may come to pass that nothing really comes of this year, but it should give me an excellent base for the following year in any case :)
Piecing it all together in one giant calendar is actually kinda fun. I was originally thinking of splitting it all apart, having one calendar each for shooting, cycling and running, but I think this is better. Also, it should help me to not schedule things on top of each other.
After a pitiful year of shooting, it's time to make this priority one again. Unfortunately, there aren't a huge number of goals in late summer/early autumn time that I can aim for. The European smallbore championships are on at a really nice time, but they require qualification. I need a 587 in prone, or 1135 in 3p to make it there. Now, both of these are eminently doable, given good quality training. at 1033 in my last 3x40 match 2.5 years ago, I think this is where I could make up some good ground. Standing alone has the potential to raise about 15 points a string, if I get a decent set up. So that's 1100, with the balance to be made up with prone and kneeling. Doable, but not easy. The prone, OTOH, could either be reasonably handy, or incredibly difficult.
I've done some playing around with a pretend prone position at home, trying different right arm positions, and I think I've found something decent. It should allow good shoulder pressure as well as tucking the rifle in close to me. This will all be greatly facilitated by having the air rifle at home for training. Imitating my prone set up on that will allow training to be done at any time at home, which will be totally cool :)
For running, I'm going to attempt a marathon. I said I'd do it last year, and I just failed. I have two options later in the year, which is what I want. There's the Munich Marathon, on the 9th of October, and the Dublin City Marathon, on the 31st of October. There's nothing much in the way of shooting or cycling around these times, so that works out rather well. I'll probably enter one or the other pretty soon, so I have the time set in stone and I can update my calendar around that.
In the case of cycling, I have Operation M to worry about. This is a one- or two-week tour, planning to take in at least one epic climb. At the moment I'm leaning towards a one week tour, starting in central France in July. From there, head south and then loop into Switzerland, taking in the Col d'Isaren along the way. This is a 33 km monster of a climb, which will require much training. To the Alps!
I have a lot of plans for the summer, so I'm going to be looking for some things to round off the year towards the end. I've already said that I would like to do some time trialling, so I may have a look at that once the tour is over; change the road bike set up to a more aerodynamic position, with tri bars. Or I may be bold and look at building something up from scratch, depending on how serious I want to go with it. Ideally, I'd want to look at racing for that kind of investment.
Those are the rough plans for 2011. I'll be updating as I go, with only a few things that are set in stone. As I said, shooting is taking priority from now on, which means time and money. It may come to pass that nothing really comes of this year, but it should give me an excellent base for the following year in any case :)
Monday, December 27, 2010
Things what I has learned this year
Since the year is drawing to a close, I thought I'd do a quick wrap up of things that I learned or found useful over the course of the past year. Many things have changed, but it's all starting to settle back down now. So, for cycling, running and shooting, here we go.
#1 Shooting ability doesn't really seem to decline over time. OTOH, it also doesn't improve, so time not training is still time lost, but it's not counter productive as such.
#2 Running fitness comes and goes rather quickly. However, it is possible to shorten the come-back time through keeping a high training level when I do train. Keeping up cycling at the same time also keeps my base fitness high, so returning to running isn't so bad.
#3 Stretching is the most amazing thing in the world to do regularly. It keeps away injury, and, well, mostly that. This then allows for a high training load.
#4 I need to eat a lot of food when I do regular training. With around 200 km a week, I more or less couldn't get enough food into me to maintain weight. Diet will need to be addressed next year.
#5 I have a pretty measly power output. However, my low weight means I can climb reasonably well. I'd like to focus more on this. Also, my small size may be of some benefit in time trialling, though my power is quite low for that. This is also something I'd like to do a bit more of.
#6 Touring is a lot of fun. I've only done a short bit, but long distance is what I like. The easiest way to do that is with some luggage strapped on!
#7 Shooting is still my favourite sport. Even after a year of not really shooting, I still loved getting back into it. Making plans for next year has been a lot of fun recently.
#8 Proper kit and a good bike set up are incredibly important for long days in the saddle. Anything else leads to pain, which could end up costing a lot more money and time to sort out.
#9 Planning and goals are rather important. I had nothing to focus on for the year, due to work plans being all over the place, so I wasn't particularly driven to do anything. That's already changed for next year. Planning week by week and month by month should yield good results, especially as I've never done this properly before.
#10 Some things are more important than sport. It's a hard one to take, but sometimes it just doesn't quite work out. Really, it has to be pretty low on the priority list. Which leads us back to the planning. A session without a goal is wasted, as far as training is concerned. Making the most of what time you know you have is incredibly important.
So that's about it. Ten things I've learned this year. There may have been some more specific stuff, but I'm sure it's not that important :P It's been a rather relaxed year for me, certainly in terms of shooting. Next year, I hope will be rather different, now that I've found my feet somewhat. Hopefully this post will have some less basic lessons when I write it again in a year!
#1 Shooting ability doesn't really seem to decline over time. OTOH, it also doesn't improve, so time not training is still time lost, but it's not counter productive as such.
#2 Running fitness comes and goes rather quickly. However, it is possible to shorten the come-back time through keeping a high training level when I do train. Keeping up cycling at the same time also keeps my base fitness high, so returning to running isn't so bad.
#3 Stretching is the most amazing thing in the world to do regularly. It keeps away injury, and, well, mostly that. This then allows for a high training load.
#4 I need to eat a lot of food when I do regular training. With around 200 km a week, I more or less couldn't get enough food into me to maintain weight. Diet will need to be addressed next year.
#5 I have a pretty measly power output. However, my low weight means I can climb reasonably well. I'd like to focus more on this. Also, my small size may be of some benefit in time trialling, though my power is quite low for that. This is also something I'd like to do a bit more of.
#6 Touring is a lot of fun. I've only done a short bit, but long distance is what I like. The easiest way to do that is with some luggage strapped on!
#7 Shooting is still my favourite sport. Even after a year of not really shooting, I still loved getting back into it. Making plans for next year has been a lot of fun recently.
#8 Proper kit and a good bike set up are incredibly important for long days in the saddle. Anything else leads to pain, which could end up costing a lot more money and time to sort out.
#9 Planning and goals are rather important. I had nothing to focus on for the year, due to work plans being all over the place, so I wasn't particularly driven to do anything. That's already changed for next year. Planning week by week and month by month should yield good results, especially as I've never done this properly before.
#10 Some things are more important than sport. It's a hard one to take, but sometimes it just doesn't quite work out. Really, it has to be pretty low on the priority list. Which leads us back to the planning. A session without a goal is wasted, as far as training is concerned. Making the most of what time you know you have is incredibly important.
So that's about it. Ten things I've learned this year. There may have been some more specific stuff, but I'm sure it's not that important :P It's been a rather relaxed year for me, certainly in terms of shooting. Next year, I hope will be rather different, now that I've found my feet somewhat. Hopefully this post will have some less basic lessons when I write it again in a year!
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Party Time
I've been musing a lot lately about shooting in Germany. I have come across this place, which I already knew about, but wasn't aware that it was in the middle of the city!
So, after some brief looks, I have come to the following conlcusions;
Giggidy
Giggidy
Giggidy
Ouch.
75% giggidy is pretty good. The rifles appear to more or less be factory prices, which I can well live with. Also, since air rifles are unrestricted, I can walk in and take one home once I get back over there. Which will greatly bolster efforts. Ammo seems to be rather pricey, but I can probably source that from somewhere else.
Let's roll.
So, after some brief looks, I have come to the following conlcusions;
Giggidy
Giggidy
Giggidy
Ouch.
75% giggidy is pretty good. The rifles appear to more or less be factory prices, which I can well live with. Also, since air rifles are unrestricted, I can walk in and take one home once I get back over there. Which will greatly bolster efforts. Ammo seems to be rather pricey, but I can probably source that from somewhere else.
Let's roll.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Salzburg trip
I've been meaning to write this since I got back, but haven't really been bothered :D I've been working rather late these past few weeks so it's been home, food, vegitate, food, sleep. A little training, no writing, nothing :( OK, so there was a trip back to Ireland thrown in there, that was kinda fun :D
This trip was something that I'd been meaning to do all Summer, but just never got around to for several reasons, the main one being lack of a touring bag. It only arrived at the start of September and I've actually been somewhat booked out on my weekends since then. I was originally going to make it a three day trip; down Friday, cycle around the mountains Saturday and head back on the Sunday. With that in mind and most of my time off for the year taken, I decided to leave it til next year.
Of course, I got bored. I have terrible problems sticking to plans, as I'm sure you're all aware, so I said fcuk it on the Wednesday, booked the hostel on the Thursday, plotted the route on the Friday and spent the weekend cycling :)
I plotted two pretty easy routes. I was kinda half thinking of some proper climbs, but they all involved a trip length of 180 or so km, so that was out. I didn't fancy 11 hours or so on the bike on either day! Looking back, I'm damn glad I went with what I did 'cos it was tough enough as it was! A few of the hills on the way back were over 10% in sections, and when one is a few kilos heavier than normal, with a few more hanging off the back, this becomes something of an issue.
I'm feeling too lazy to post up photos here, but they're already on my facebook page here (public access). Some are rather nice, some are just my crap sense of humor :D This post was originally intended to be a lot longer, but it's been ages since I started it and I can't remember most of it...
Anyway, figures from the weekend, to distract from my lazyness;
Total Distance; 293 km
Time; 13 hrs, 10 mins
Average HR; 163 bpm
Max HR; 201 bpm
Average Speed; 22.3 km/hr
Max Speed; 64.7 km/hr (new record)
Average Cadence; 84 rpm
Height Gained; 2687 m *this is as measured by the Garmin, it may or may not be that accurate...
So, I've gotten my touring off to a good start. This is the base from which I will plan Operation M, starting next year. I will detail more of this in time to come :)
Later!
This trip was something that I'd been meaning to do all Summer, but just never got around to for several reasons, the main one being lack of a touring bag. It only arrived at the start of September and I've actually been somewhat booked out on my weekends since then. I was originally going to make it a three day trip; down Friday, cycle around the mountains Saturday and head back on the Sunday. With that in mind and most of my time off for the year taken, I decided to leave it til next year.
Of course, I got bored. I have terrible problems sticking to plans, as I'm sure you're all aware, so I said fcuk it on the Wednesday, booked the hostel on the Thursday, plotted the route on the Friday and spent the weekend cycling :)
I plotted two pretty easy routes. I was kinda half thinking of some proper climbs, but they all involved a trip length of 180 or so km, so that was out. I didn't fancy 11 hours or so on the bike on either day! Looking back, I'm damn glad I went with what I did 'cos it was tough enough as it was! A few of the hills on the way back were over 10% in sections, and when one is a few kilos heavier than normal, with a few more hanging off the back, this becomes something of an issue.
I'm feeling too lazy to post up photos here, but they're already on my facebook page here (public access). Some are rather nice, some are just my crap sense of humor :D This post was originally intended to be a lot longer, but it's been ages since I started it and I can't remember most of it...
Anyway, figures from the weekend, to distract from my lazyness;
Total Distance; 293 km
Time; 13 hrs, 10 mins
Average HR; 163 bpm
Max HR; 201 bpm
Average Speed; 22.3 km/hr
Max Speed; 64.7 km/hr (new record)
Average Cadence; 84 rpm
Height Gained; 2687 m *this is as measured by the Garmin, it may or may not be that accurate...
So, I've gotten my touring off to a good start. This is the base from which I will plan Operation M, starting next year. I will detail more of this in time to come :)
Later!
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