Our Texas Adventure ~part 3~

God was in control and we were going to need His help to do what we had train months in advance to do. So here we are, the first day of competition. We wake up really early, get ready, and eat breakfast. I look at my food going, there is no way I'm going to be able to eat this. The butterflies in my stomache take up a lot of room. However, I was able to force down enough food to keep me sustained until lunch......maybe.

By the time we get to the FITA field there are already quite a few people there. Thankfully the guys had already brought over our gear so we didn't have to carry it from the car to the tent. Once everyone got there and got gear put together the range official started stating the rules. Now, since this "wasn't a sanctioned FITA event, they didn't have to follow FITA rules." Therefore, you could go up to the line whenever you felt like it, there was no verbal 30 second warning, and you didn't score the 10x's, just the 10's. Now, this didn't affect us, but the compounds only scored inner 10s. So basically what was normally a 10x for them was a 1o and what was normally a 10 was a 9. It was strange. We also only had two practice rounds from 60 meters and that was it. Normally you have two practice arrows from each distance. Nope, the only practice you got was from 60 meters, so you better had every other distance down-pat or you were in a lot of trouble.

So, the first two practice rounds weren't great, and the next round after that wasn't either. But, my second round of three from 60 was AMAZING. God was really looking out for me on that round. I got three tens, two of which would have been "X's" if I had been allowed to score them. It pretty much went downhill from there, which is strange. The closer I got to the target, the worse I got. Now, it was only by about one point each round, but it was still one point worse. When we finially got to 30 meters my score improved. Overall as a team we did really well. I was so proud to be apart of this team. I had pride saying that I came from Georgia (especially to the Texas guys since we were beating them pretty good).

The awards ceremony that night was pretty good. It took them a while to get to recurve archery, but when they did, you could feel the nerves tighten in our section. We were all shaking with butterflies. How did we measure up compared to every other recurve archer in the nation?

They started calling out placing and scores for individuals and it was looking pretty good. The only male on our team got sixth and our top shooter got third individually. That was good. We had two in the top ten. Then they started calling out teams. Fifth and then Fourth. We beat both of those team's scores. WE PLACED!!!! We got third that night as a team. We were so excited! We couldn't believe that we had placed third out of 16 teams in the nation! Because God loved us so much he allowed us to place as high as we did that night. And He had so many more blessings to offer us!

Our Texas Adventure ~part 2~

........but we were excited to be able to see what our competition looked like the next day. We got up really early that morning to see how long it would take four archers and four adults to get up, eat breakfast, and get to the shooting site. After we did that, we had a whole morning to kill. Our coach didn't have to be at the coaches meeting until 1100 Texas time (1000 Georgia time) and it was only like 0800. It seemed like all day before 1000 came around. My dad took us girls to visit a local jewelry store. I've never seen jewelry that expensive before. They were selling one necklace for $4,000 (though, it was all pretty much pure gold and silver jewelry) After that, three of us went to the fitness center for a while and came back and took a nap. Now, this is all before lunch. When our coach FINALLY got back from the meeting we went to lunch and then went to practice.

If you want to meet some picky line officials, go to Texas. There was a certain line that the coaches couldn't cross and there was another line that the archers who weren't shooting couldn't cross. Boy, if you crossed one of those lines you heard it from the line officials.

We had a pleasant encounter with a lady who thought she owned the world and then some. She comes up to the practice range and, before the official blew the whistle, started moving targets. Ummmm, not good. The targets they happened to be moving were the targets we needed to use. When we asked her if she could just leave one target up she said that we weren't even supposed to be there. She told us that we were supposed to be gone by like 3:30 and that she had the range from then till 6:00. Not true, but she ended up moving some different targets that other people weren't using. After we were done practicing we went back to the hotel to drop off our gear and went to the opening ceremony.

Now, when you put a bunch of teenagers in a hot room with nothing to do while the adults try to get everything in order, you get chaos. The Louisana kids started throwing Mardi Gras beads around, and then everyone joined in. A couple of fights almost ensued when a couple of our archers were pelted in the head. The ceremony itself was pretty cool. The speechs afterward, not so much. One old guy talked for at least 45 minutes. We were bored to tears, and you could tell NO ONE in the audience was listening. You couldn't hear him anyway. When the guy FINALLY finished his speech, he got a standing ovation. When we got back to the hotel we mentally prepared ourselves for whatever tomorrow was going to bring. God was in control and we were going to need His help to do what we had trained months in advance to do.