A new year.. a new start

First of all
Happy new year to you all!

As some of you will have noticed i have changed my user name - i was bored with UV and it had served it's time. I thought my real name would be more fitting now.

As it’s the start of a new year I thought I should do some blogging!! After reading through the original Switzerland World and European championship thread only a few weeks ago it made me realise that it’s worth blogging about. At the time when writing it I was just updating the information and my progress for you guys but when I read back though it, it was so much more than that - it was actually interesting!

So hopefully I can make this one just as interesting…

So... Here we are 2008.
What’s the plan?
Well first of all I must tell you that I have been approached by Merlin about sponsorship which is great news for me. I have had help and advice from people in the past and that has been great and often priceless but to have a bow manufacturer asking you to shoot their equipment is something else. You know you’re good enough when they want you to take their bow and make a difference with it!
The bow I will be shooting isn’t quite ready yet but I’m assured by early spring it will be. It’s a new X range design with some slight adjustments and improvements from previous X range bows and that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.

I did my first sort of target shoot on the 29th Dec, it was the Ironman frostbite AIUK shoot! I did enjoy it very much even though the weather was desperate and made a challenge in getting scores that should be easy enough with our eyes shut!
However I got 1st (ladies) in our region (Leicestershire) and I also beat the ratfighter but he’s sore about that so we won’t mention it too much!! He claims he got 1 more gold than me so it makes him the winner…. Apparently!
Ben Jones won our group with a cracking score considering we were being blown all over the place which put the ratfighter in 2nd place (in the gents) we’re still waiting for all the other regions to add their scores and we’ll know then were we came overall!

We have a lot on this year. The wall planner is looking very healthy with lots of gaps filled in already it all looks quite daunting at the moment but once I have my 1st major shoot out the way I will feel fine – that’s how it always works for me! Get the 1st one out the way and then I can settle down.

I will be practising more this year – yes even more than last year! I have a commitment to Merlin now so I need to prove to them that I am worthy of their equipment. I’m not a quitter and like to see things through to the bitter end. I generally perform better when there’s a bit of healthy pressure about.
I will be practising more at 70 meters this year rather than the short metric that I did in 07. this should improve my technique further also I will be practising with Ben and he has already bet me 50p an end that he’ll beat me so it’ll be ‘game on’ at practise times…

The Ratfighter is looking good for 2008 he’s been tuning and tweaking in all of 07 and he has finally learnt how to do it properly. He’ll be able to feel more confident with what he’s doing with his bows (which ever one he chooses to play with) and that should bring in those scores that he deserves. Although he still won’t beat me!! So no more Mr Paranoia and Mr Obsessive! However he’s still undecided as to which bow he will be shooting in 08 will it be the Hoyt? The Matthews LX? The other Matthews?? Or dare I say it A Merlin??? One thing for sure it won’t be the Martin - that’s gone now!

Not much in the way of holidays for us this year with Estonia taking up 10 days (end of July beginning of August) and 2 weekends in Holland one of them being only 2 weeks away! And the other one in mid August and other invitations we have from our foreign friends to shoot their local competitions and then with the Worlds and European being held in South Dakota in 2009 which if at all possible we would love to go so I think we’ll be trying to save for that along with a big sponsorship push to help finance the trip. Maybe a cheapo week in Torremolinos late September could be possible as a ‘get away’ break. Other than that it’s just weekend trips out in Billie posh car and a slim chance we may get over on the train to see our dear friends we made in Switzerland, Chris and Anita they are the owners of The lazy Cat B&B we stayed in - a truly fabulous couple who made us feel right at home. According to Chris who rang this morning to wish us a happy new year it’s a very good season for skiing in Switzerland with plenty of snow and there homely B&B is fully booked! This is always good news.

Anyway I think that’s me up to speed for now! I could get used to this blogging malarkey !

Liam · Admin

Looking forward to reading yours and Ratty's blog's throughout 2008 and beyond, will make interesting and hopefully inspiring reading

_________________
Why not?

Ruthy's Blog