As I mentioned last week in my archery training diary, just shooting every single day is not enough if you want to become a world class archer. Of course shooting is necessary, but it’s not enough. You also need to undergo strength training and you also need to train your heart.
If you’ve ever competed in a one-on-one event, you probably know that stress and excitement can affect your performance in a negative way. One of the ways to deal with this is to do cardio training which enable you – after plenty of practice — to control the beat of your heart. Hopefully, on day of the competition, you would be able slow down your heart, have a steady arm, and perform better.
So, yesterday, as soon as I got to the archery field I joined the Thai national archery team on their 4km jog. We all started at the same time but, it goes without saying, we finished at different times. As I was pushing hard to complete the final 4 laps I kept wondering where were the days when I could run 7km just for fun, where were the days when running was something I could easily do at any time of the day.
But, the important part is that I did finish the 4km, even if I was the last one to cross “the finish line.” On my last two laps I could hear my friends cheering me up and encouraging me to keep on fighting and not give up. Some of them were three to nine years older than me…
The first archer to finish the 4km run was Denchai Thepna (the man who won two medals at the recent Thailand Open in both the recurve (2nd place) and compound (1st place) divisions!) who, although is 37 years old, finished first. When he crossed the finish line, I was 8 laps behind him.
Exhausted and dehydrated I cooled down and went with the team to an early dinner. I returned to the archery field at about 7pm but I didn’t shoot much as it started to rain the there was lighting in the sky. The last thing an archer wants to do is shoot during lighting: the stabilizer acts like a perfect lighting rod.
65 more days to go!
