Preparing for the travel

and Polish Horseback Archery National Championships

This week is tough.

We came back from Naturalne Siedlisko last Friday evening, so we even had 3 days off last week, but the vision of going for the main horseback archery championship this week all while hitting the new low in my form is not something I look forward to.

Two competitions ago, I absolutely crushed it. 3Out of tracks, I made a personal record on 2. And then the next competition, with 2 Hunt (Polish) tracks my favorite, was supposed to be a continuation of the form.

The only good thing during the competition was the cake I made. It’s a play on the words Tor Polski (Polish track) and Tort Polski (Polish cake). Photo by me.

During the first round, my horse felt sick (she’s fine) and I needed to switch horses. It was a very hot day, and Granda doesn’t like it when it’s too warm. The next round with another horse, Boston, was horrible — I was completely lost and couldn’t shoot where I wanted to — but the next one was nice.

Little did I know that the 2nd track in the evening would be so horrible. Boston seemed tired and I struggled to ask him to canter, and by the rules, you cannot shoot when trotting on this track. So I scored an absolute nightmare of 10 points. For comparison, during the last competition, I scored 110 points.

Sylwina and I. Photo by Kawalkada Horseback Archery.

So with that crushed spirit, we’re heading into the championships. For the first time in a different place than usual, with additional stress coming from hosting people from all over the country, with all of the expectations and organizational burdens that go with it.

And just after the championships, the holidays come. Even though 2 weeks in Pomerania are nice, they are overshadowed by the archery-related stress and being anxious about not being able to work on non-9–5-topics (I don’t have a laptop, just a PC) for two weeks.

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