US field nationals were held in Darrington, WA this year. This is a course I have heard tons about, and I’ve always wanted to shoot. Once I arrived, I realized it was even prettier in person than I realized from all the pictures I’d seen.
-Practice Day: Time to dial in the sight marks. Man, is it beautiful in Darrington, WA. I remember why (and how much) I love field archery! There really is nothing like it, and I’ve definitely missed this since switching to recurve. I’m really happy R talked me into participating this year. After making sure I have solid marks, it’s into the woods to shoot a mini practice course with some friends. 
We treat it like an unmarked course, ranging after we all have shot the target to see how close we were. I didn’t have all my sight marks (just enough to plug into Perfect Markings and make educated guesses). Through the first 5 targets or so, I had won the closest to center every target. We only shot one arrow at each to keep things moving, so that was our way of keeping it fun and exciting.
-Day 1: Unmarked Day.
I arrived with my complete set of sight marks and the first target I shot on the practice field that morning was a 50M target and I hit above the target (on the bale) high. I then shot 20, which was perfect. I realized I had messed something up and my marks were all off. With not much time (and no computer) before heading out, I quickly did some math in my head and came up with a solution that would get me close. 20 and under marks were fine. Anything above 25, I would subtract 10%. I just hoped that would be good enough. I also had two simple goals: don’t miss the bail (and lose/break a tournament arrow) and second to not misface any targets when judging (60 vs 80). Goal #1 was achieved, but I did overthink things and misface a target (I convinced myself a 60 couldn’t possibly be a 60, even though that was my gut instinct). I did miss 3 targets (including the one misface), but they all hit the bale, so I wasn’t too upset. The biggest regret of the entire day was my last target of the day. A simple bunny target. I was up first on right hand side, meaning I should have shot the C targets. I unfortunately was already mentally checked out at this point, so I wasn’t paying attention enough and shot into the D targets. Lesson learned: the round isn’t over until you are walking off the course.
Day 2: Marked Day.
This means no more guessing on yardage, but there are still angles and the shots are longer 5M longer at each target size. I was sitting in 3rd thanks to my stupid mistakes the day before, so I knew I had ground to make up to make sure I got a podium spot for Nationals. The top 4 girls shot all together as the lead bale, and I struggled early on trying to find my groove. Finally with about 5 targets to go I told myself to pull it together and stop trying to be so perfect. Just shoot! That worked, as I closed a 7 point gap to 2nd and took the lead on 3rd by 3 points. This earned me my one millionth National Championship Silver Medal, but my first with a recurve, so it definitely meant more.
Day 3: Today is team trials day, and the top 8 in each division get to battle it out for the coveted 3 spot to head to Italy this fall to represent Team USA at Worlds.
THIS was the entire reason I had gone to this tournament this year since the timing wasn’t great, and I wasn’t about to let myself drop from 2nd to 4th. My strategy for the day was just to shoot and not do anything stupid (miss-set sight, shoot wrong target, etc). I knew as long as I could do that, I would hold on to a top 3 finish. I shot straight 4s for the first 2 targets and then on the 3rd target of the day I ruined my streak by shooting a 6…bummer 😉 I did lose some points during the 8 targets, but I was sitting in solid shape. We then cut to the top 4 and had to shoot 4 more targets. Again, looking at the point spread, I knew I just had to avoid huge mistakes, and I would be fine. I ended up shooting very well on these 4 (highest score out of the 4 of us!), including getting a perfect 18 on the bunny. This solidified my spot on the World Champs team, and I ended up with another 2nd place finish.
*Special thanks to Sarah at USA Archery for the photos out on the course since all phones and cameras are banned for competitors!