Saturday, November 7, 2020

2 years ago in Guadalajara!

2 years ago I was in Guadalajara, Mexico for the 2018 Championships of the Americas. I secured Canada's first shooting quota spot for the 2019 Pan American Games. My teammate Lynda Kiejko won gold in her event and locked in a quota spot for the 2020/1 Olympic Games being held next summer in Tokyo.

This is what we did afterwards to celebrate her win... 


Sunday, September 6, 2020

I'll be in Ottawa Sept 11-13 to support the CCFR

The Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights is organizing the Integrity March on Sept 12th. I'll be there... come say hello!

 

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Throwback photo and SFC website update

 Here's an awesome photo from what looks like the 1994 Canadian Nationals!

JP, Stan Wills, John Rochon on the far left. Me on the far right.


Also, the Shooting Federation of Canada website has gone through a major update in design, content, and membership database and tools.

Stay healthy. Stay safe. Be kind.


Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Excellent training resources from OlympicPistol.com

Hopefully you're all staying healthy during this time. It's difficult training with limited or no access to ranges, gyms, fitness centres etc.

My friend Ramon over at OlympicPistol.com has a great article on home training exercises specific to pistol shooting. Go check it out!

Stay healthy, stay positive, stay productive, and wash those hands! :)

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Stay healthy everyone!

What a difference a month makes. I hope you're all staying healthy and staying optimistic about things. Keep washing your hands, social distancing, and staying home but also staying active!

I've found myself refocusing my time differently the last while. With my competition / travel calendar being postponed and cancelled I'm at home a lot more. Since returning from Europe I have been at home for more days in a row than anytime in the last 9 years or so. It's good. Good to get into some routines and developing better habits.

Also, doing things like this one colour puzzle:


And finishing a Rubik's cube while planking:



Stay focused, stay optimistic, get in touch with friends and family and check-in on how they're doing.

Stay healthy!

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Intershoot recap and what's coming up next

I'm back home now and somewhat adjusted back to Pacific time zone. Those quick trips to Europe always feel too short and definitely take some adjusting. There and back. Plus training and competing 4 days of the week while I was away is a lot. Typically going to an ISSF World Cup you would do pre-event training 1 day and competition the next day for a single event.

My first day went well with the 565/600 and missing Finals by only a few points. The following days were more of a challenge. I shot a lot of 9.9's which in 10m pistol and the integer scoring they're counted as "9" even if they are a hair width away from scoring "10".

It was great to catch up with old friends from around the world there and to meet some new ones as well!

Me and Ramon Suarez (@olympicpistol)
Me and Ramon Suarez (@olympicpistol)

Me, Nikhil Kumar, and Saurabh Chaudhary
Me, Nikhil Kumar, and Saurabh Chaudhary (@SChaudhary2002)

The Netherlands is beautiful, I'll aim to be back for Intershoot 2021 next year! Hopefully I can stay a few more extra days!

Sun setting outside the Sherlock Holmes pub
Sun setting outside the Sherlock Holmes pub

Packed and ready to fly home!
Packed and ready to fly home!

Up next will be:
Then in June I'll be back in Europe for the ISSF World Cup Series stages in Munich, Germany and Baku, Azerbaijan.

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Intershoot has started!

Inrtershoot is officially under way. 270 competitors at Intershoot across men's pistol & rifle and women's pistol & rifle disciplines. 3 days of competition has begun!

Open training at Intershoot

All setup for some precision shooting!

Today I shot a 565 with 22 x's. My 'x' count was the second highest out of the male pistol shooters so I'm pretty happy about that. I did have a few flyers though which dropped my score from where I should have been given the volume of 10s I was shooting. Lots of good deep 10's but have some flyers I need to work on also. The area where those two 7's landed mean I was anticipating the shot.

My 565 from the first competition complete with 22 x's
Complete scores can be found here but if the link doesn't work I have a screenshot of them from the first match below (open to make larger):

Day 1 results for men's 10m pistol
My teammate Stuart Burns finished 29th and Robert Katz finished 33rd.

Tomorrow's match starts at 4pm CET, which is late in the day so my team and I will just be taking it easy before the competition. Tomorrow's scores will also be used for the team score. Go Canada! On Saturday we shoot at 8am CET and then will do a little sightseeing before our flight Sunday morning



Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Arrived in the Netherlands

I arrived in the Netherlands! It was a bit hectic just getting to Amsterdam. My original flight plan was to fly at noon Sunday from Vancouver and arrive to Amsterdam Monday morning and meetup with my teammates Stuart Burns and Bob Katz. That flight got delayed however so I needed to take an earlier flight from Vancouver to Toronto to make my connection.

Outside of the Rijksmuseum
In the library at Rijksmuseum

Ship!

Plane!

Beer!

me and Stuart Burns

Standing in front of cool light up bottle display

Nice ice cold Heineken at the end of the tour

We got to Amsterdam early to be able to get adjusted for the time difference... +9 hours difference for me! Powered through most of the first day and today is our only full free day so we went and did a bit of sightseeing! Rijksmuseum, wandered around a bit, and the Heineken Experience!

Tomorrow we will check-in at the Intershoot competition and get our equipment checked, fees paid, and get some pre event training in. We compete Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week, then fly home Sunday morning.

As always, you can follow along @alharding on Twitter and Instagram!

Stay tuned for more ...and thank you for the awesome emails!

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Happy New Year!

I'm definitely late getting this post from drafts to published! ;)

Happy New Year all! I was rather quiet this past Fall due to focus on work related projects and less about shooting training. It's been a hectic year with getting let go from my job and figuring out my next chapter.

Highlights from 2019 in my Instagram best nine. Ask me about anything in the comments below!

Highlights from 2019!

It's now 2020 and lots of "stuff" is in the works. Some I can talk about now and some I will later on.

For now...  shooting!

Upcoming competitions I'll be competing and representing Canada at:

Busy schedule filled with lots of travel. The one I am still figuring out schedule for is the Grand Prix in May as it conflicts with the BC Provincials but is also very close to the ISSF World Cup dates. Main issue is it's a lot of travel between Vancouver and Toronto. I'll connect to Munich via Toronto airport.

I'll be doing at least one blog post a month this year so stay tuned for more updates from Europe next week!

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Double Gold - 50m and 10m National Pistol Champion!

Today was pretty awesome! I defended my title and took the gold in the men's 10m pistol AND 50m pistol ISSF events. Double gold at the 2019 Canadian National Pistol Championships!

I won the 50m event back in 2016 and then shifted focus away from that and back to 10m. This is my third year in a row winning the 10m event! 2017, 2018, and now 2019! Yes!

Outside the Pan Am Shooting Centre after winning the 10m event!

What it looks like before I start my 60 shot competition!
Thank you to ELEY tenex! I had this barrel tested in Munich when I was there for the ISSF World Cup.

25m event tomorrow and Tuesday and then flying home!







Thursday, August 22, 2019

Arrived in Toronto for 2019 Canadian National Pistol Championships!

I got in late last night after a delayed flight. Made it to hotel around 1am. Always nice to get in a couple days early when dealing with timezone changes. It's only 3 hours from what I'm used to but it makes a difference.

Night before travel getting my equipment organized
The competition starts tomorrow so expect more updates soon!


PS: I added a form on my website also if you want to contact me. Awesome.

Monday, July 8, 2019

Spring 2019 Updates

It's been a busy couple months with training and travel. May and June I was away quite a bit with multiple stops to Toronto. The Shooting Federation of Canada's high performance team trials for the 2020 team were in May, then the ISSF World Cup stage in Munich end of May then a team training camp early June at the Pan Am Games legacy range in Cookstown, ON.

My competitor number for the 2019 HPTT

Lynda Kiejko, Allan Harding, Kim Britton, Liz Gustafson

Mark Hynes and Allan Harding

Do it!
After the high performance team trials I stopped in and shot at Target Sports Canada with Nicolas from TheGunBlog.ca. Fun times! Noisy club but great to see how many people were out and interested in target sports.

Visiting Target Sports Canada range with Nic from TheGunBlog.ca

On my way to Munich, Germany! Thanks for the upgrade Air Canada!

Competitor number for ISSF Munich World Cup stage

Lynda, Lea, Lisa, me

Team Canada out for food and drinks

The busy indoor 10m range in Munich

I stopped in to visit ELEY to test out their tenex air pellets for my Steyr evo10e air pistol.

Barrel testing ELEY tenex air in my Steyr evo10e

ELEY tenex air acquired! Let's do this!

After getting back from Munich I had a few days at home before flying back out to Toronto for a training camp. I stopped in and visited a couple ranges while there. I stopped in and met with members of Toronto Revolver Club and also stopped in and visited Silverdale Gun Club.

Visiting Toronto Revolver Club!

Shooting 25m distance at Silverdale. Beautiful day!

Then back at the high performance team training camp to train with my Team Canada teammates on their way to the 2019 Pan Am Games in Lima, Peru.

Stuart Burns and Mark Hynes shooting 10m at training camp 

I'm currently in Whitehorse, Yukon and back to training soon to get ready for the 2019 Canadian National Pistol Championships. Stay tuned!

Also find me on Twitter and Instagram as @alharding!