At the suggestion of good friend Julie Golob, I moved my blogging to wordpress.com instead of blogger. WordPress will give me a lot flexibilty and functionalty for the same cost… nothing! Please be patient as I work out the bugs and learn the system.
The new address will be bjnorris.wordpress.com and my domain, bjnorrisblog.com will now forward to that address.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Tony Cruz and XTC
I credit a big part of my success over 3 long days of competition and practice to my trainer and friend Tony Cruz of XTC. In the past 8 weeks, I have dropped 12 pounds of weight and have gone from not being able to run for a mile straight to being able to run a mile in about 9 minutes. Tony has worked with names like Adriano Moraes and
Robson Palermo of PBR fame. Already it has made a huge difference in my shooting and I'm looking forward to shooting an IPSC match carrying less poundage and having a lot of strength in my legs.
Check out his website at www.xtremetc.com
Robson Palermo of PBR fame. Already it has made a huge difference in my shooting and I'm looking forward to shooting an IPSC match carrying less poundage and having a lot of strength in my legs.
Check out his website at www.xtremetc.com
Steel Nationals Recap
What a week! 3 days of neck and neck competition with a great bunch of guys. I couldn't ask for better sportsman to compete with than Max, Dave, Jerry and the rest.
Big thanks to Derek and Mike and all the RO's that ran the match. With the exception of the stop plates, which were thrown out early in favor of using the shot timers and adding the flight time in, everything ran extremely smoothly and way ahead of schedule. Big plans are already in the works for next years match, and I'm very much looking forward to it. If you were on the fence about shooting the match this year, don't miss next year's match!
So, down to my performance... Two National titles and two 2nd place finishes. The interesting the exciting thing, if you add the time that I lost by from both Rimfire Optic and Open, it totals .15 seconds. I thought it was a close finish when I lost last year's match by .15! For comparison purposes, a blink of an eye is usually around .15-.20 seconds depending on the person. That's two National titles that were decided in a single blink of an eye. Can't get much more stressful competition than that! As far as my feeling of how I truly shot, I'd say overall that it was pretty good. Dave and I both broke the previous Rimfire total time record by a fairly large margin, and neither of us had what I would call a really great match, just consistent and solid.
The Limited match went very well for me, even though I still struggle at times with iron sights. I basically shot consistent and tried not to pay attention to what the other guys were doing and it worked out. Feel's very good to win my first centerfire Steel Challenge match and I'm looking forward to getting more comfortable with iron sights so I can try and push the times down some.
Open was a nail-biter the whole way through. Max and I battled back and forth the entire day and Dave was hanging with us for a good part of the match. The big turning point in Max's favor was Roundabout which he shot very well by shooting 4,3,1,2 stop. After that, he had about a second of time on me with only two stages left. He left the door open on Pendulum, but I couldn't quite get through, leaving about .9 seconds of is lead intact as we went into Outer Limits. I shot before him, and turned in a good time that I knew he would have to push to beat. He had several extra shots on his first two runs, shot well on his third run. I already had the calculator out and was running the numbers while he shot. As he walked back to the box for his fourth run, I wasn't able to stay still. He shot the plates well, but had a pick-up on the stop plate and at that point I knew I had won. However, just a few seconds after I had run the numbers, they looked at the stop plate and saw that he had edged it on his first shot and ran the timer back and it ended up with him winning by 8 hundredths of a second. Although disappointing for me, I congratulate Max on doing what he needed to hold on to the match, and winning his last match as a member of the AMU.
I've already started to develop a training plan for the World Championships in August, so we will battle it out again in just a few months. My main focus and goal is to win all 3 events on the way to the Steel Master award. Less than 1/4 of a second kept me from reaching that goal last weekend, and I believe it is possible in a few months. Until then, Max, Dave, ya'll shot good matches and I always enjoy your company and competition.
Big thanks to Derek and Mike and all the RO's that ran the match. With the exception of the stop plates, which were thrown out early in favor of using the shot timers and adding the flight time in, everything ran extremely smoothly and way ahead of schedule. Big plans are already in the works for next years match, and I'm very much looking forward to it. If you were on the fence about shooting the match this year, don't miss next year's match!
So, down to my performance... Two National titles and two 2nd place finishes. The interesting the exciting thing, if you add the time that I lost by from both Rimfire Optic and Open, it totals .15 seconds. I thought it was a close finish when I lost last year's match by .15! For comparison purposes, a blink of an eye is usually around .15-.20 seconds depending on the person. That's two National titles that were decided in a single blink of an eye. Can't get much more stressful competition than that! As far as my feeling of how I truly shot, I'd say overall that it was pretty good. Dave and I both broke the previous Rimfire total time record by a fairly large margin, and neither of us had what I would call a really great match, just consistent and solid.
The Limited match went very well for me, even though I still struggle at times with iron sights. I basically shot consistent and tried not to pay attention to what the other guys were doing and it worked out. Feel's very good to win my first centerfire Steel Challenge match and I'm looking forward to getting more comfortable with iron sights so I can try and push the times down some.
Open was a nail-biter the whole way through. Max and I battled back and forth the entire day and Dave was hanging with us for a good part of the match. The big turning point in Max's favor was Roundabout which he shot very well by shooting 4,3,1,2 stop. After that, he had about a second of time on me with only two stages left. He left the door open on Pendulum, but I couldn't quite get through, leaving about .9 seconds of is lead intact as we went into Outer Limits. I shot before him, and turned in a good time that I knew he would have to push to beat. He had several extra shots on his first two runs, shot well on his third run. I already had the calculator out and was running the numbers while he shot. As he walked back to the box for his fourth run, I wasn't able to stay still. He shot the plates well, but had a pick-up on the stop plate and at that point I knew I had won. However, just a few seconds after I had run the numbers, they looked at the stop plate and saw that he had edged it on his first shot and ran the timer back and it ended up with him winning by 8 hundredths of a second. Although disappointing for me, I congratulate Max on doing what he needed to hold on to the match, and winning his last match as a member of the AMU.
I've already started to develop a training plan for the World Championships in August, so we will battle it out again in just a few months. My main focus and goal is to win all 3 events on the way to the Steel Master award. Less than 1/4 of a second kept me from reaching that goal last weekend, and I believe it is possible in a few months. Until then, Max, Dave, ya'll shot good matches and I always enjoy your company and competition.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Max Michel Takes the match
Will post more when I get home (leaving at 5 AM in the morning, so not a lot of time to post). But I just wanted to say congrats to Max for just barely getting an edger on the stop plate on Outer Limits to take the win by .08 seconds.
Lunch break
At our short lunch break, the standings look like this.
BJ
Max
Dave
There's less than 1.5 seconds between us, so plenty of room to move around on these last three stages. I'm up first on Roundabout after lunch, so let's see what happens
BJ
Max
Dave
There's less than 1.5 seconds between us, so plenty of room to move around on these last three stages. I'm up first on Roundabout after lunch, so let's see what happens
First 3
Max is in the lead with myself and Dave right behind him. The spread us less than a second between us. But watch out for Shannon Smith, he's shooting very steady...
Friday, March 27, 2009
Limited results
Dave had to push on Outer Limits to try and catch me and couldn't quite pull it off, I won the limited match with a 91.81. It feels good to win a centerfire match at Steel Challenge, let alone the Limited! Thanks to all those who gave helped and supported me and I plan on making a longer post later.
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