Shooting Qualifications

Yesterday started off as per usual.  Thanks to NyQuil, I actually slept sort of decently the night before.  I slept straight and heavy for the first 5-ish hours, then woke up around 2am and slept like crap until my alarm went off at 6.  I then got up, started  my coffee and then ate my oatmeal and a banana.  I made my way to the training gun range with a quick stop off at Starbuck’s for my trenta skinny iced coffee. 

I felt really good yesterday.  And it showed.  And it continued as the day went on.  We had 2 practice runs, but I should note that these practice runs were NOT the same course of fire as the actual qualification course of fire, but they did score them for us like they were.  The first one, I scored 62.  Eeek!  Not even good enough for a same day reshoot (I would’ve needed 65 for that to happen).  The second one I scored 72 (whew…not great but definitely headed in the right direction).  By this time I know exactly what I’m doing wrong and I have discovered a method to help me overcome it.  It has to do with how I hold my trigger finger to keep me from pulling/jerking it and making me press/squeeze it instead.  I applied this [mostly] to the actual qualification course of fire and guess what!  It worked!  I scored 86!!!  Now THAT is more like it!  I knew I could do this, and when I started getting a little flustered while shooting the qualification course, I would just breathe in and breathe out and tell myself “you can do this.”  And I did it.

For our lunch break, we went to a Mexican restaurant that was close to the range.  We got a newbie waiter.  Hooray.  He was shaking when he was setting our drinks and the chips and salsa on our table.  We thought he was writing down what we were ordering as we were ordering it because that’s what it looked like he was doing.  20 plus minutes later, we’re still waiting for our food and have eaten a boat load of chips and salsa…it’s getting down to about 10 minutes before we have to leave to make it back to the range.  We tell this to the waiter who says not to worry our food is about to come out.  And it does.  Sort of.  Out of 5 of us, my food was the only food that was correct.  But, I mean, how do you screw up beef fajitas?  (Don’t answer that, I’m sure there’s a way)  So the manager comes over and tells us that we’re going to be getting a discount and they’re going to remake our food.  I tell them to just bring me a to-go container and the others say to just put theirs in to-go containers and one of us just canceled her order completely.  While we’re waiting some more, our waiter comes over and tells us that our food is going to be free and that he’s sooooo sorry.  I understand this guy was new and not very confident, but seriously…if you didn’t understand what I said when I was ordering, please ask me to repeat myself…also, repeat my order back to me to make sure you heard me correctly.  So, I didn’t eat anything for lunch other than chips and salsa and 2 iced teas.  Oh yea, I specifically told him UNsweet tea when we first sat down, so when he brought us our drinks I just dumped in 2 sweet’n’lows and then took a drink.  GROSS!!!  So I asked him what he brought me and told me it was sweet tea.  I corrected him.  I do feel sorry for him, but if you’re going to be in a fast paced business, you NEED to be fast paced!!!  I sucked as a waitress and that was part of the reason.

So, since I didn’t have time to eat my lunch at lunch, I took it to-go and ate it when I got home…along with a serving of eggplant parmesan with quinoa noodles for some extra carbs for fuel for tonight’s run and workout and tomorrow’s run.  However, I didn’t run and do the gym last night.  I was so tired and exhausted from almost an entire week of sleeping horribly.  So, I went to bed early last night and slept in this morning.  Then, I procrastinated about getting myself to the gym to do a quick 2 miles and then hit the weights.  Around 11:15am, I checked the weather:

Very nice.  It’ll be nice for my gym and run and it will be nice when I go back out at around 3:30 this afternoon for my 4.5 mile run.  Then, after that, I have my friend Dawn’s birthday party.