13
October, 2012.
.jpg)
The day
began as many others before, with the alarm blaring DaRude's
"Sandstorm" at 4:30am. I leapt
out of bed, hopped in the shower, and waited for my friend Sara "The
Greek" to arrive. Today was
actually NOT like many other days; today was the day of my very first Highland
Games competition. To say my nerves were
a wreck would be an understatement. Sara
and I made our way to Ft. Worth, unsure of what to expect... unsure if we had
gotten ourselves involved with competition too early in our training (after
all, we had only attended four practices).
Once we arrived, time seemed to pass in hyper speed – people welcoming
us left and right – people telling us to go here and there for photos with
sponsor advertisements – people overloading us with helpful information. It was a whirlwind, but a fun one at that.
As I
stepped into the trig for my first braemer stone throw, I glanced quickly at
Britt (my awesome coach) and Sara for confirmation that, well, I wasn't going
to make an absolute fool of myself.
Then, I felt this rush and made my first throw... it barely flew...I
think the distance was 18 feet.
Disappointed in myself, I walked back to the girls to continue watching
the others throw and observe their throwing forms. I was welcomed with several people high
fiving me and telling me each throw on this first day was a PR... this is how I
tried to think of my first Games. I
still had moments where I was down on myself because I do not like to be the
worst at events, but I had a BLAST and learned so much! I tried out varying techniques from different
girls to see what worked best for me and sought to improve each throw.
My
favorite event of the day was definitely the hammer throw. As of this point, I am only able to spin
once; however, I think I will be able to throw it very far by working on my
fitness and technique more. Caber... oh,
the dreaded caber... this beast of an event was held after lunch. I looked at the qualification caber... stared
at it long and hard... and internally hoped I would pass the qualification
round. I did not. As upset as I was, everything turned out fine
and I was able to watch the experienced ladies and fully cheer them on! Let me just say, the wind was brutal, the sky
was grey, it was raining, and I am amazed at every single lady who was able to
flip the caber.
NOTE: Our original caber broke (it was around 15
feet high and 65 pounds) so the qualifiers opted to throw the next highest
caber (around 17 feet high and 80 pounds).
The day,
as a whole, is classified as WINNING in my book. I met a lot of fabulous people. I discovered Highland Games to be a sport I'd
like to continue with for as long as possible; everyone is truly like a member
of the family. It motivates me. I want to better myself in order to be better
with competitions. I played basketball
(6 years), soccer (9 years), participated in swim team, and have a red belt in
taekwondo... I most recently played rugby for a few years. The last time I felt such a drive to do well
was playing rugby in 2010. Although I am
extremely overweight now, my inner athlete that I have buried for 10 years is
struggling to get out. I was nominated
for a month's worth of training through James Bullock and I am anxious to start
his program. Keep watch for me... the Games
season is trickling off but come February my scores will be much improved. It is my goal to become one of the leading
ladies in Highland Games.
Go get em Brandy!!!
ReplyDelete