551 / 600... a good score for my first Nationals in 12 yrs

I finished shooting and finished with a score of 551/600. For my 2nd competition since picking up my gun in May I'm quite pleased. The last time I was at Nationals was in 1995.

I'm happy with this score because it matches my 552/600 I shot in May at Provincials so I'm definitely establishing a solid baseline. Having practiced and trained a couple nights a week for the last couple of months has helped a lot. I know I still need a lot of work to improve on basic fundamentals as that seems to be a key area that will get me more 10's. Working on grip and trigger control will be essential for me to push my scores higher.

One of the key learning's for me at this competition is about all of the rule changes that have occurred since 1995. I had to modify my shooting glasses and reduce my left eye blinder down to 30mm. Also, the range officers here wanted to make sure wrists are always visible and my long sleeves kept sliding down. Time to buy a current rule book! :)

Old left eye blinder and the new smaller left eye blinder

I will be working on getting my gun license so I can shoot other events at these competitions. I'd like to shoot Free Pistol, which is also an Olympic event but it is shot at 50m. I think I'd be more relaxed if I shot a different event before shooting Air Pistol. Air Pistol is my favorite and strongest but having a different event to shoot a day before shooting my Air match will help me get into the right mindset.

I shot on the first Air Pistol relay and most people will be shooting over the next 2 days. I'll post up results as they're made available.

I have some photos I've taken but for some reason my laptop isn't reading my SD card from my camera. I'm here for a few days so hopefully I can get that sorted out.

Time to go explore what this city has to offer... :)

Arrived at Nationals...

This will be a quick update. I've arrived in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and I'm all registered and checked-in for Nationals.

Plane ride to Saskatoon, Canada

There was one issue with my shooting glasses not meeting current rules so I needed to change one of the pieces. Not having shot at Nationals since the mid-90s I should have expected some rules would have changed. ;)

Lucky for me Scott from Illingworth Imports was there to help me out. Thanks Scott!

I had a chance to practice a bit in the indoor range and I'm looking forward to shooting tomorrow.

Taking aim during practice time

I shoot on the first relay tomorrow at noon. Dinner time. :)

Pistol shooting conditioning for peak performance

Going into the final week before I compete at Nationals... it's all about getting all of the training to date to be timed right for a peak performance.

The last few weeks I've been at the gym quite a bit and doing a lot of fast walking between 3.2 - 3.8 mph at a 15.0 incline on the treadmill. This helps for cardiovascular training as well as increasing core strength in leg muscles which will ultimately give you better balance in your shooting stance. I also do a lot of weight training rotating muscle groups to allow for at least 72 hr recovery periods. Every muscle group during a recovery period ends up affecting my shooting performance during practice sessions. This is a result of the muscle building process, extra water in the muscles during this time and overall recovery fatigue. I break up muscle groups into the following categories: chest, back, arms, shoulders, abs, legs.

Heart rate data captured of 20 minutes of cardio,
40 minutes of weights, and another 20 minutes of cardio

If I've had an active week at the gym (like this week) and I go to the shooting range, my shot grouping has a larger spread. It is when I'm fully rested and recovered that I'll get the small tight groups on a practice target. There is a lot more to shooting better than just being well rested though. Training and conditioning for a shooting competition requires a lot of mental conditioning as well as physical. Much like other sports, shooting is probably 95% mental.

In order to get all of the training aligned I need to take into account recovery periods, diet, sleep, travel time, and of course mental preparedness. I'll touch on the mental aspects in another post as there is a lot that you can't calculate as easily as something like physical recovery patterns. Any kind of physical training will result in the body needing to recover. If I work out with weights I will have delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) for about 72 hrs, knowing that, I won't be doing any major physical activity for at least 4 days before the match. Sleep is another one you can calculate to some degree -- though I've read no exact research or science into this, I'm going by my own experience with my own body - I know how much rest and sleep I need. I know this because I've done it daily for a few decades. ;)

As serious as all this talk of training sounds I still consider myself an "unlikely athlete". Competitive pistol shooting may not appear to be a very physical sport -- especially since one of the primary goals is really to minimize movement as much as possible to have the most accurate shot. I'd place it in a similar group to golf and archery. Ultimately all of these sports require physical and mental conditioning in order to create repeatable physical routine.

I say "unlikely athlete" because at first glance I don't think anyone would expect to call me that.

I do know that if I want to make my performance better I will need to make my mind and body better.

When I get back from Nationals I am going to find some time to add to this website so it's not quite so generic. I'll be training for an event in September. During that next month I'd like to provide a more detailed view into my training activities so it is easy to browse and monitor progress.

If you have any specific questions you want me to answer please don't hesitate to send me a comment on http://www.allanharding.com/.

11 days to go... Nationals website updated

11 days remain until I leave for Saskatchewan. I would have liked to have made a few more posts before I left but time is short and well I'm sure you all would rather I was practicing anyway. ;)

What do the next 11 days have in store for me?

• Continuing to practice at the Richmond Rod & Gun club Wednesday and Friday nights.
• Continue cardio and physical training Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights.
• Tighten up my food and beverage consumption. I always shoot better when I've been eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and keeping breads, sugars, and meat down to a minimum. Fish is always good too so I'm going to get some sushi a couple times before I leave. :)
• Cut caffeine out. I'm going to research this some more as I've read caffeine stays in your system for up to 72 hrs. I also don't want a situation where cutting caffeine out completely creates a negative response. I do love my Diet Rockstar sugar free energy drinks. ;)
• Confirm all travel details (again).

Some other news:

The Canadian National Pistol Championships website has been updated with lots of new information. They have also announced that the shooting range will have wireless Internet access so I will definitely be posting updates from there.

Equipment: Shooting Glasses by Knobloch

A few days ago I received the Knobloch Lens Testing kit from Illingworth Imports. here is a photo of the kit along side a pair of Knobloch glasses and my own pair of Knobloch shooting glasses.


The lens kit comes with the test lens holder, 12 test lenses for testing spherical correction, and many accessories such as a centering device, an adjustable iris etc.

Below is what my pair looks like with a left eye side blinder and an adjustable iris.


The left eye blinder lets me keep both eyes open while shooting, the white color helps to control the amount of light going into both eyes. The adjustable iris is just a nice add on, letting me close the amount of area I look through down to the size of a pinhole or as large as 15mm. This lets me control the amount of light I want going into my eye and the amount of sharpness around the gun sights.

Finally, this is what they look like on me. I actually don't see much when I'm shooting. I look at the front and rear sights and don't really focus on the target itself (the target is actually blurry when I shoot at it).


Less than a month until the Canadian National Pistol Championships!

Travel details for Nationals are all set

I have all of my travel details for Nationals in order. I will be flying out of Vancouver on August 10th and arriving in Saskatoon in the morning. Then a short 2 hr drive to Prince Albert.

I compete the following day on Saturday at 12:00 pm on the first Air Pistol relay of the competition. The current match relays and positions is now posted on the Canadian Nationals website. I will then have a couple of days rest before the Finals and National Team Trials match. It has been awhile since I competed at a Nationals event so I'm not sure yet what the rules or qualification are for the National Team Trial. I believe Finals will be the top 8 shooters in any of the Olympic events (Rapid Fire Pistol, Free Pistol, and Air Pistol).

I check out Wednesday morning and will fly out of Saskatoon in the late afternoon and arrive home to Vancouver in the evening.

One month remains before I leave. I've got a very basic training plan I'm following. I avoided making it unnecessarily complicated and just sticking to basics. Spending time conditioning and strengthening core muscles, cardio, and of course actual practice time at the shooting range.

I'm waiting for the Knobloch Lens Testing kit from Illingworth Imports, as soon as I have it I'll post up info about my shooting glasses. I suspect I'll need a new lens cut for my 12 yr old shooting glasses. Too much time in front of a computer! ;)

The importance of a Competition Journal

One of the great things about having taken such a long break away from competition air pistol shooting is that I forgot a lot of things. Specifically, bad habits. A huge portion of this sport, like any sport for that matter, is the mental aspect of it. I used to spend a lot of time training my mind.

When I was regularly competing before, I would get myself into a lot of trouble with a poorly executed mental performance. The problem with this is that I would finish the competition and leave it at that and not do anything to correct a poor performance. This was made worse if I actually shot a decent score and did nothing afterwards.

Shooting a decent score is like going to a match and staying within your comfort zone and being content with that. Boring. If you want to shoot super scores you need to do more than piggyback on a 'decent performance' to get you there.

The goal of a training / competition journal should be to reinforce positives and modify negatives.

When I went to my first competition this past May I made sure that I kept a journal of everything so that I would have notes to work from later. This became especially important to me when I knew it would probably be the only competition I'd be able to attend before going to Nationals in August. Looking back at my notes now, I know I will always do it for every single competition I attend from now on.


What do I keep track of in my Competition Journal?

• Event name, location, results


• Overall thoughts: Were there any themes to how I felt I did?


• Time leading up to match: Travel details... any problems with accommodations? car rental? What went right? Did I forgot to pack anything? Should I have brought anything differently? What did I eat? How did I sleep? Etc.


• During competition: How many sighter targets did I take? What was I wearing? Any problems with my equipment? Any possible improvements to equipment? Range lighting? Other range notables? Competition pace? Mental routine? Physical routine?


• After competition: Immediate thoughts after competition? Who shot next to me? Scoring accuracy by officials and scorers?


• Other thoughts?

I kept track of a LOT of details. The photo above shows some of the details of what I wrote down after Provincials. I find it useful to separate a training journal from a competition journal.

My biggest takeaways from that competition were equipment related and in reinforcing the positive benefits of a training AND competition journal.

At Provincials I had 3 key areas all related to equipment that I wanted to improve:

• Sight blackener. When I competed before I used to always take a carbide lighter to my gun sights to make them super black.


• C02 - The precious gas which powers my pellets 10 meters to the target. I had one empty cylinder and another which was nearly empty after having been shipped via air from Cibles Targets. The range was out of C02 and most of the other competitors were either using Compressed Air or a different brand of gun. Knowing that after any shot you might be out of air isn't healthy for your mental program.


• Shooting glasses. The lens in my shooting glasses is 10 yrs old... it was OK but I knew for Nationals I would be better off if I went and got my eyes tested and possibly even got a new lens cut for my glasses. At the very least I would be able to rule out my eyes as any kind of an excuse. ;)

All of these points are actual notes in my competition journal. With 6 weeks to go I've ordered sight blackener from my friend Scott at Illingworth Imports as well as a Knobloch Lens Testing Kit. Knobloch is the make of shooting glasses I compete with, I'll be covering those in my next blog posting.

As always... any feedback and comments are hugely appreciated. If you like this blog please tell a friend, let me know, or let's exchange links. Cheers.

Back from a mini vacation

I returned home last Monday after taking a few days off to go to Las Vegas. It was a pretty random trip to say the least. That's what birthday celebrations are all about though right? ;)


Las Vegas is going through another huge construction boom again. This is the new $7.4B City Center project by the MGM Mirage.... Basically, a city-within-a-city.

This upcoming week I'll be working a LOT and then next week I am back on my regular '7 week' training ramp up leading up to Nationals.

During those 7 weeks I'm going to cover a variety of topics:

• Equipment overview (I'll cover all the major equipment I use during training and competitions)


• Weekly check-in's during the final 7 weeks running up to Nationals


• Training activities


• Physical and mental training and conditioning

I'm also going to try and post up more photos... maybe some videos If I can find enough time. :)

Registered for Nationals

I just got my confirmation and I'm now registered to compete at the 2007 Canadian National Pistol Championships!

I have about 10 weeks to train and get ready for Nationals. I wish there were a few more BC area matches where I could compete in my discipline, but there aren't any.

I've decided to try out for the National Team as well. I figure I need to go into the event aiming high... plus it's only an extra $25 to declare for National Team Trials. :)

This will be my first time going to Saskatchewan!

More details soon...

Back from the Island and online again

I checked out of the hotel Sunday morning and headed back out to the shooting range to see the overall results. I finished in 2nd place with a 552/600.

How does scoring work? You have 1 hour and 45 minutes to take 60 shots. The highest point value for each shot is a 10, so 60 shots = 600 maximum score. The ISSF website lists the World Record at 593/600 by Sergei Pyzhianov and the Olympic Record at 591 shot by Mikhail Nestruev.

The number of competitors attending Provincials was definitely lower than what I've seen in the past when I was competing before. It would be nice to see more people out at these events.

Yesterday was fun, some friends of mine were staying at a cabin near Prospect Lake. It's a beautiful area around there. Canoeing. BBQ. Fishing. Nice way to finish up the weekend.

Nationals are in August so there are over 10 weeks of training time before then. I'm going to review my notes from this past weekend and get a training plan developed which I'll write more about later.

552 / 600... my result for my 1st competition back

It was good to be in competition mode again... all the little things I'd run through in my head started coming back to me. It really is almost entirely mental.

The air pistol range at the NSRG is indoors but has some vinyl walls which allow for a certain amount of sunlight and shadows to be cast inside. The changes and lighting as the sun moves behind clouds don't factor too much on the one side of the air range I shot at.


I was shooting in position #5 (That isn't me :))

552/600... I'm pretty happy with this score. 92%. For not having practiced more than 3 times in the last 4 years and shooting with a gun that had just been serviced last week and hasn't yet been tuned for me... it's a good score.

I need to get back into the 560s+ for Nationals in August.

This Provincial event is a 5 gun match where shooters compete in Centre Fire, Standard Pistol, Rapid Fire, Free Pistol, and Air Pistol. The last 3 are Olympic events. I only came to shoot Air Pistol as you need special licenses etc to carry and compete with the other guns. I will need to get my permits etc so I can compete in other events... I'd like to compete in Free Pistol again.

There are a few shooters left to shoot their Air match today so I won't know how I did overall until tomorrow.

Heading back for the BBQ... tomorrow I think I'll go see what's happening in Victoria. There are Titanic artifacts on display at the Museum which would be pretty cool to see.

Feel free to leave any comments on here! :)

Good morning Sidney!

I arrived in Sidney, BC last night coming over on the ferry from Tsawassen, BC. I think that was the first time I've made that particular ferry ride, it is pretty neat going in and out of the Gulf Islands.

Once on the Schwartz Bay side I figured I would just hop in a cab waiting there and get a ride in to Sidney. Hmm... Apparently 15 other people had similar thoughts and there was a single cab there. Everyone was trying to figure out what to do after learning the next cab would be 30 minutes, and eventually everyone ran over to a bus that was about to leave. Another couple and myself stayed behind and a cab arrived within 5 minutes. :) We shared it and I was in Sidney a few minutes later... I wonder if that bus had even left the terminal yet. ;)

I fell sleep around 10 just before Horatio and his team of CSI's would have solved the crime on CSI Miami... I'm certain they got their guy.

Zzzzzzz. *sleep*

It's the morning of the competition (technically, the event began yesterday) and I'll get to the shooting range in about an hour. I'll take some photos and blog in a bit later.

I just opened my camera and realized I left my 2GB SD memory card in my computer after taking the photos when my gun arrived back from Quebec. Awesome :). It's stuff like that you can't let bother you on competition day. In fact, as soon as my camera display flashed "NO MEMORY CARD" I let out a good laugh as my mind raced in reverse to realize it was left in one of the slots on my computer at home. Anyhow, I have a 32 MB card with me, it just means I'll have to dump the photos to my laptop frequently.

Anyhow... the sun is trying to drive solar nails through the clouds here and looks like it may turn out to be a partially sunny day here.

More shortly... stay tuned.