Long nap, big dinner, squirly shooting, fencing parries, short run

I was feeling a little cold coming on throughout the morning and was really tired from staying up late fencing the night before, so I decided to take a short nap. Well, it turned into a three hour nap. But boy did it feel good. I ended up missing both an option to ride and an option to swim in the afternoon, but I figured I must have needed the rest. To follow up on the nap I had a big dinner for once. Went down to the local pub, Grady's, for a guacamole burger. Taaasty! With the cold and amount of training I'm doing, a big meal is probably a good idea once in a while to keep my winter immune system hardy. During dinner, I read a little more of Pam's (Pam is another pentathlete training in the area) Total Immersion book. The current chapter was discussing how power really comes form the torso, especially the hips. The author used several metaphors from baseball and tennis, but I also noticed how much some of the sports I've been training in both have to offer and learn from what I'm learning from this book. Rowing, boxing, fencing, jumping, etc. all seem to have similar applications of how performing an action, muscle memory, etc. have much more to do with your performance than what one might think.

After the big dinner I went down to my basement and started in on shooting. It was pretty cold down there, which I think made my eyes a bit watery (the excuse I'm using for poor shooting). I got a couple good shots in, but most were not all that good. Dropping to the lower right hand side again, which usually means I'm gripping the handle to hard or with too much of my hand. For the first time I wished I had the adjustable/molded grip that I will eventually get when I purchase my Steyr. Got 40 shots off, which is good enough to keep my shooting arm in practice.

Then it was off to my fencing lesson. Tonight we worked on parries: counter six, eight, eight with counter six and four. My problem is still that I am reacting rather than responding, although I'm getting much better at responding to what really is or isn't coming at me. Practice, practice, practice...although its really brain practice more than anything. Muscle memory certainly comes into play, but not like other sports. You have to think quickly between the muscle memory to get the right motion into gear. I will the Wednesday open fencing, but will plan on attending the Sunday session instead.

Weekend report

It was a busy weekend for administrative pentathlon kind of stuff. A lecture on Crane conservation at the zoo on interrupted my evening training on Friday. I spent Saturday morning trying to organize my office at home and hoping that my Daisy airgun would arrive in time for a 2:00pm shoot time...it didn't. I did go to the range to meet up with Pam though. Turns out she was just doing a drive by as well as she and her husband were waiting for a tractor to be delivered at home. But I did get some pictures to post of Pam on our NW Pentathlon website.

We had a dinner/annual meeting/awards ceremony at Laura's house in Monroe. It was really great to finally gather all of Hilltop's students together. Rather than her usual beef bonanza, Laura put on a Pennsylvania Dutch dinner (the parents did most of the cooking this time). The dinner was fantastic! After dinner we talked about what was going on at the barn and Laura handed out her "awards" which were more gag gifts than awards, but it was fun. I also got a chance to meet up with Josh, a Pony Club member interested in pentathlon. I showed him my Australia pictures, talked about getting started up and made plans for me to hand off some of my old fencing equipment to him on Sunday.

I did my best to catch up with Salmon Bay swim club on Sunday, but neglected to read their website. Apparently there was a pool change and I was at a loss to find them. I tried Queen Anne pool, Ballard pool and Madison pool, their usual haunts. No luck. Found out the next day they were at the Metger Evans pool at Seattle University. I need to be more diligent about checking the site.

Met up with Josh at Hilltop to hand off my old fencing helmet and foils to get him started. I'm pretty excited to get him up and running, the more juniors the better.

The Vesty challenge, more cross country and busy feet fencing

I had the usual problems riding Vesty this afternoon. He's a stinker at the start...he likes to over react to my commands and balance and just is an all around pill for the first 5-10 minutes or our ride. But with some confidence and a whip I think Vesty and I are starting to come to a better understanding. Generally, a tap with the whip will give him a little surge and get him out of his lazy funk. This time, I gave him a little more whip and from that point on he was perfect and I didn't have to use the whip again. Not only did the canter feel awesome, the canter transitions were the best I've had on Vesty.

I did pretty well at the cross country tonight. My times weren't all that incredible (my fastest mile being a 6:16) but I was pleased that I did do almost all of the workout that the full group did. That practice was 4 x 800 at tempo pace, 2 x 800 at 5k race pace and then 4 x 200 'strides' (building up to a full sprint over the distance). I did all but the two 800s at the 5k pace. Watching the other runners in the group fly by is inspiration for me to try harder and gives me constant visuals for where I need to get to.

Humbled again at fencing lessons. My main problem in these lessons continue to be that I'm doing too much. I want to keep moving my feet and arms and shoulders when it is not required of me. These things are great in bouts, but in the lessons, they are baggage. Its kind of like a horse doing dressage, you only need and should do what the coach asks of you. It took me a while to really focus enough to get rid of the extraneous motions, but I eventually did and seemed to break through a wall as far as finding, giving and taking openings. Alan's doing a great job of breaking down my bad habits and really making me focus at the task at hand.

Pam, another prospective pentathlete in training was there taking here fist foil lessons. We chatted a bit and made plans to meet up on Saturday to shoot new Daisy air pistols that will hopefully arrive in time.