Socks up and Focus
Hinckley was a learning agility weekend for me. As expected it was a well organised and extremely efficiently run show. The show committee did a great job of moving venues at the last minute due to the wet ground conditions; I actually preferred that venue although appreciate good venues are hard to come by so sometimes we have to go with what's available.
On Saturday I was just not 'getting it' I couldn't put my finger on whether it was because we were late arriving, if it was the weather, I was feeling a bit tired or what but I couldn't get into the flow of the day.
For the first time in a long time I forgot one of the courses I had wanted to work hard at. The course I ran was so convincing the judge even came up to me and said I got her worried that she'd missed judging a whole section! I then ran another course incorrectly on Sunday...what was going on.
I did manage to pull my socks up and qualify for the Championship final which was an exciting end to the day. One of the early competitors to run put up a very good time which set the standard for the rest of us. Running 14th (out of 20) I knew there were some quick dogs to go after me too so it was an all or nothing run. We ended up with nothing...
....Except I learnt a lot from the day mostly topics that I should know but I'd slipped into bad practice:
On Saturday I was just not 'getting it' I couldn't put my finger on whether it was because we were late arriving, if it was the weather, I was feeling a bit tired or what but I couldn't get into the flow of the day.
For the first time in a long time I forgot one of the courses I had wanted to work hard at. The course I ran was so convincing the judge even came up to me and said I got her worried that she'd missed judging a whole section! I then ran another course incorrectly on Sunday...what was going on.
I did manage to pull my socks up and qualify for the Championship final which was an exciting end to the day. One of the early competitors to run put up a very good time which set the standard for the rest of us. Running 14th (out of 20) I knew there were some quick dogs to go after me too so it was an all or nothing run. We ended up with nothing...
....Except I learnt a lot from the day mostly topics that I should know but I'd slipped into bad practice:
- Do proper thorough prep the night before
- Have a good nights sleep and proper rest the night before
- Get to the competition with time to spare
- Walk courses thoroughly not just 'walk them'
- Never skimp on my mental rehearsal
- Go with my gut instinct
On the plus side this has made me review these items and pull my socks up for the rest of the season.
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