Happy New Year! This is the first E-newsletter of 2005 (or the last of 2004). If you do not want to receive these in the future, please respond to this email with "take me off the newsletter" in the subject line.
2004 YEAR RECAP: Overall, my 2004 season couldn't have been better. Although missing the Olympic team by a mere 40 points, I finished in the top 8 in 7 of the 9 national and international tournaments I attended. To see all the 2004 results click on: http://www.joyfahrenkrog.com/id42.html
NEXT WEEK!! World Indoor Trials, Hillsboro, TX: Next Thursday, I will be leaving for the World Indoor Trials which will be held in Hillsboro, TX. Results will be posted along with a press release on my website on the evening of the 16th. You will also get an email within 24 hours of the tournament stating my result - a feature of the 2005 sponsorship program! Within a week, y! ou will be able to see video of me shooting in the tournament as well as download my scorecard should it be provided - another new feature of the 2005 sponsorship program! The NAA should be updating the results as well... you can check for them on www.usarchery.org.
THREE WEEKS AGO!! Face 2 Face Tournament, Amsterdam: The Face 2 Face tournament finished up December 12th in Amsterdam. I had the third highest score overall on the final day of the tournament but only placed 5th because I didn't not win enough matches to advance to the finals. A full recap of the tournament is below. You can also read the press release at: http://www.joyfahrenkrog.com/id58.html. The pictures of the Americans at the tournament can be found by clicking on: http://www.pixagogo.com/7158835235. My personal photo album from the tournament can be found by clicking on: http://www.pixagogo.com/3152805754. Be sure to enter the password: sponsor.
Face 2 Face Tournament Recap (for the reading hardy):
I arrived in Amsterdam on the 8th after taking an overnight flight from Chicago which connected in Zurich. The airfare for the trip was provided by USA Crossbow president, Bill Pimm. Given that the cost of a week long international tournament without airfare runs around $800, I would not have been able to attend this tournament had it not been for Bill's generosity.
The anticipation of this tournament had been building for some time. Having only shot a couple of local tournaments since the end of the US Nationals in July, I was excited to be in a high profile, high pressure tournament once again. But the real anticipation was its own dichotomy. On the one hand, the anxiety I felt could be contributed to not knowing how I was going to fair in my first international tournament. On the other hand, I could trace the feelings that I was having to knowing that I had been shooting well enough in the weeks prior to fly home with hardware. I've learned that the latter is much more powerful ! of an obstacle to overcome than the former and I know that is one of the reasons why I advanced to the second qualification round was nothing less than a gift.
Don't fool yourselves; Europe in the winter is cold. Having lived in London and France already (each for a year) and having never come home with a tan from either place, you might think that I would have remembered this tiny little detail. While it was 50 degrees in Chicago, I was sitting in a freezer in the Netherlands - but, I used the extra 24 hours I had worked into my trip as to cope with jet lag, one way to keep warm was to do some indoor sight seeing before the main event got underway.
For those of you who've read Anne Frank's Diary, you'll appreciate the fact that I actually stood in the secret annex that she and her family hid in during World War II. Having read the diary, I was surprised that I couldn't recall the writing ambitions that young Anne had, on May 11th, 1944 she wrote "You've known for a long time that my greatest wish is to be a journalist and later on, a famous writer. In any case, after the war I'd like to publish a book called The Secret Annex." Inspiration comes in many ways, but given the course of history that ended Anne's life, the following entry written by Anne when she was but 15 years old moved me in a way that only confirmed all things in life are possible - even when you don't live to! see the outcome. March 25, 1944 "I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people. And therefore I am so grateful to God for giving me this gift of writing, of expressing all that is in me!"
Needless to say, I left the Anne Frank House with a sense of hope and encouragement. Two hours later I was in the practice hall warming up, focused on the next few days and what they might bring. My practice went well, but not great. The fatigue from travel was wearing on me and after only shooting 60 arrows, a fraction of what I shoot at home, I took a small break so that I wouldn't get overly frustrated with myself. One of the main things that I've learned from Archery is that frustration kills the moment, the end, the day, the everything. It is important to stay focused on the big picture and not on the little one, especially the day before a stepping-stone in the plan.
Friday was the first day of the competition, I arrived at the venue an hour early, warmed up and started soaking everything in. The day before, only the competitors from the US and countries further away from Amsterdam had arrived so today there was a montage of national team warm up suits and a buzz in the air of ja's and oui's, hallo's and si's. Having not competed in an international tournament outside the US, I didn't know many of the competitors. Many of them were nice and by the end of the week, I had a couple of new Dutch, Slovenian and British friends.
As I walked from the practice hall to the competition hall, my mind was racing with the overwhelming feeling of wanting to do well having come all this way and not wanting to focus on wanting to do just that. I knew that only 4 or 5 girls were getting cut on the first day and that all I really needed to do was focus on the right things, shoot like I did at home and I'd be competing in the second round... but something didn't feel right and somehow I had a sense that this day was going to be a struggle. Only three of my matches were against opponents, while two of my matches were for score. As I allowed the frustration to settle in, I started trying to hard to aim - and even though I thought I was in control of my out of control feelings - I had lost my focu! s. These feelings manifested themselves particularly well in my last match against Naomi Folkland.
I knew Naomi was coming and of all the girls at the tournament, I knew Naomi was one of the ones to beat. Naomi was a member of the British Olympic Team this past summer as well as a 5 time British National Indoor Champion. The problem with knowing this is that you can dwell on it and by the time you stand next to her on the line, you'd rather have her autograph than shoot against her. At the end of the first three arrows, and having not won any of my matches to this point, I was two points up on her. You might recall the match this past summer when I beat the Canadian Olympian Marie Pierre Beuadet - it wasn't entirely as if I hadn't been in this type pr! essure situation before. Despite thinking I was ready for it, the expectation and the anticipation that mounted forced me to drop 4 points on next end, tying up the match. During the third end, I dropped a 6 and during the fourth end, I missed - my once 2 point lead was now a devastating 12 point deficit. A sudden wave of panic hit me. I did not come all this way to miss the first cut, I did not enlist a sponsor for the airfare of a trip that I was only going to be competing in for one hour. But at this point there was nothing I could do, my fate at the tournament was to be determined by whether or not I could qualify by score.
The next 5-10 minutes felt like an hour. I found myself all of the sudden having to figure out what I would do if I didn't make it. Then suddenly I saw it - the screen flashed the names of the top four non-automatic scorers who would advance to the second round. I had grabbed the last spot by just 4 points. It is amazing how when it is all said and done, you have no idea how important those precious points are until they save you. Relieved as I was, I had to wait there until I saw my name pop again. I knew that anything was possible and they could come back and say they miscalculated a score and I'd be out. After it came up a second time, I packed up my stuff and headed to the practice range to brush up on my shooting issues.
That night I got on the phone with my tournament coach and we laid down the rules for the second day. I spent another 15 minutes that evening outlining what I wanted to keep focused on during the second round. Amazingly, that night I had an excellent night's sleep and woke up refreshed with a few butterflies. I don't think it is good to be so nervous you can't focus, but I tend to find that when there is some edginess I can concentrate just that much more.
I took the next morning easy but was constantly aware that I had a job to do later that day. To get my mind off of the impending tournament, I decided that laughing would be the cure. So, to accomplish this goal, I decided to watch a lighthearted movie. Looking through my DVD stack, my chick flick choices ranged from Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail and Renee Zellwinger's Brigit Jones Diary to college cult favorites Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer starring Adam Sandler. I avoided at all costs the temptation to pick a movie from my inspirational stack The Cutting Edge, Rudy, and Miracle. I've found that although they may motivate one to perform well, the basis for each movie's plot is that people come from behind and win. Not that winning is a bad thing - it is thinking about it that can get in the way of doing it in a sport like archery.
In the end, I settled for golf and Happy Gillmore's happy place. Yes, yes, you could argue that the plot of the movie is similar to what I was trying to avoid, yet there is something about hand eating alligators and beer drinking fans that distract one from such plot.
As the movie came to an end, I stood up stretched and as if in slow motion, calmly got up, very aware of my breathing, and started to get ready to leave. 20 minutes and a cup of sugar-free decaffeinated coffee later (trust me it is not as bad as it sounds) I was loading my stuff into the van and on my way to the sport hall.
As I set my stuff up, I made eye contact with various other archers nodding my head and smiling as if to say, "best of luck to you." Today, I would shoot just enough to get sited in and muscles warm. I had no desire to wear my arms out early as I had done the day before. After shooting a little, I went out to watch the men's compound as they wrapped up. I had two friends shooting in it who were capable of winning and I wanted to be there to support them. With 30 minutes left before we started shooting, I shot another two ends on the practice range and then headed out to the competition range.
The hall had emptied out during the short break between the divisions and I was alone on the competition floor. I set my USA jacket up to face the crowd, placed my bow strategically next to my chair and sat down, plugging my head phones in to keep me calm. As I looked around, I soaked it all in. I love competing, in fact that is the biggest difference from when I used to row. As a rower, I would walk into a race wishing it was already over. The pain associated with winning was not nearly as enjoyable to me as a 90 minute steady state row on the Charles.! In archery it is not so much painful as it is mentally straining. Most tournaments take about 2-4 hours and in some cases all day, the mental preparation for an 8 minute race versus a 4 hour shoot is hardly similar. Given the choice, I'd rather 4 hours of mental strain to 8 minutes of sheer pain.
Suddenly the room went dark, the lights started flashing and techno music began playing. Clearly, I had missed the memo on something. Turning around, I saw the parade of athletes as they entered the room. Realizing I missed the grand entry, I turned back around, upped the volume on my diskman and continued to focus on my breathing. I knew I felt different from the day before, I knew I had one thing to do and that was focus on form and I would be fine.
I hadn't checked my grouping until we started and it was then that I noticed that I had the tougher group. Both the top girls who had been in my group yesterday were again in my group today. My first match would be against the top Dutch shooter, Femke Bonnen. Although I didn't mind shooting against her, it wasn't exactly the easiest first match. Her near perfect score of 119 out of 120 earned her a win to my 114 - a personal best 12 arrow match. My second match was against Naomi. Having crumbled against her the day prior,! I kept my focus on my form and off her or the score. Although we were tied for most of the match, a one-point slip somewhere along the line lost me the match (114 to 113) yet again. With the two toughest girls out of the way, the pressure was on to win the next three matches... of course if you haven't picked up on it by now, in archery focusing on the outcome can be disastrous.
I don't remember the names of the next three matches, although I believe two of the girls were on the Ukrainian team and one on the Dutch team. The dynamic of these 12 arrow matches is that typically, if you can get a couple of points on someone in the first two ends, there is little room for the opponent to come back barring any major mistakes on the leader's side. During my third match, I was at least 4 points up after my second end and I remember a sort of weight lifting off my shoulders. It wasn't as though I could give up, rather if I put my energy into the right thoughts, I would be ok. The end result was a 117 on my part, enough to win easily and set a new personal tournament best.
The trouble with shooting to your max is that sometimes your brain and body get excited and it is hard to stay intent on the thing that are important... then when try to level yourself, you end up trying too hard. Such was my problem, something that only experience can tame. My next match, I got caught up on score and the fact that I was tied most of the match. On one end, I dropped enough points that in any other match I would have lost. Fortunately, my opponent was having a similar issue and the end result was a tie. I suppose a tie is better than losing, but the experience was invaluable. My last match was similar to the ! fourth, not having the experience to bounce back from the mental pressure of the day, I again lost by just one point (112 to 111) and finished the day with only 3 match points to my name.
Deflated, I waited to see the scores. I knew that I wasn't in the finals, but that my score couldn't have been too bad, maybe good enough for a top 5 finish. It was the first time all day that I had looked up at the scoreboard, something I had failed to do during the Olympic Trials this past summer. As the scores popped up it became clear to me that although I had secured a 5th place (the highest losing scorer), I had shot the third highest score overall - higher than every single girl in the other qualifying group. Happy with my placement, happy with my score, my heart broke to know that I was good enough to be in the finals, but would be watching from the sidelines instead. I pushed my stabilizer into the ground a few times, took a moment to pack up and slowly walked out of the competition range, the crowd a blur as the images in front of me seemed to merge together.
By the time I reached the practice range, my emotions were gone and my attitude positive. I smiled to passers by and to the question "Are you through?" I at first said yes, then realizing they meant though to the finals, I quickly said "No, but it was a great experience." And that is what it was at the very least. It was the first time I had traveled abroad to compete, it was the first time I had shot against archers from Europe, many of whom will be attending the World Indoor Championships in March... to not be ecstatic about the experience would be a big mistake.
Out of respect for the archers who did make the finals, I did go and watch the following day. I also got to shoot (and win) a mini tournament that was held by Beiter (a major equipment manufacturer from Germany). The target is black foam with 6 plastic yellow circles. Each archer, there are six in a game, shoots one arrow at a time, the person who hits the most out of six wins. My score of 5 out of 6 was enough to win me 1st and 30 euro to cover dinner that night.
