It’s time to get back to the daily updates on the DTG. Number 25 was a bit of a restart, and after making regular updates for nearly a month, it’s time to take a look at what I’ve accomplished this season and where I’d like to be going forward.
Season Recap to-date:
- Major Matches Shot: 5 (Bianchi Cup, SS Nats, GP Sectional, ProAm, Steel Challenge)
- Best Match Finish: Won Single Stack at GP Sectional
- Match I shot the best of my ability on: ProAm
- Upcoming Major Matches: Area 3, CTC Midnight 3-Gun, IDPA Nationals
Match goals
- Area 3: Finish in the top 10 in Single Stack. There are some pretty rad shooters in SS at Area 3, so I know I’m going to have to shoot a strong match with few mistakes to crack the top 10.
- CTC Midnight 3-Gun: Don’t get DQ’d. Seriously, this is my first ever major 3-Gun match, and it’s at night, with a bunch of weird guns I’ve never used.
- IDPA Nationals: Win CDP Master Class and finish in the top 5 overall. This is probably my most ambitious goal, but CDP is where I’ve always had my best performances in IDPA, finishing 4th at the 2012 Indoor Nationals and 9th at the 2011 Carolina Cup. I just need to aim my ass off.
Fitness Reboot
One of the most frustrating things I’ve had to deal with this season has been trying to stay on a consistent workout plan with all the travel I have for work. The quality of hotel gyms is not something to depend on, so right around the time that I left for ProAm I decided to completely reboot my fitness training and go for the simplest of plans: pushups, squats, pullups (when available) and crunches coupled with LSD running and wind sprints for conditioning. The goals are simple: 50 pullups, 100 pushups, 200 squats, and 300 crunches without stopping the exercise. I’ve also coupled that with actually monitoring my diet pretty carefully.
Shooting and Dry Fire Training
My training in these areas is built around a realistic schedule of my free time, which is 1 range session per week, two if I’m lucky. This is the frank part – I loathe dry fire training. I know it’s good for me, and I know that doing it benefits me…but it’s boring. I’d rather PT until my arms fall off or run until my legs explode than dry fire. But, I also know from sports training that dry fire is important, so I’ll keep doing it.
One of the huge training benefits I’ve had this season is that I’ve avoided my usual bouts of the GunSpaz. I’m shooting the same gun at every match this year right up to IDPA Nationals in September, and after that I’ll start training for next year’s Bianchi Cup with my new Cup gun (which I’ll announce later in the year). Right now, I view this season as a mixed bag. I’ve had matches where I shot poorly like Bianchi Cup, matches where I’ve shot well, and of course matches where I shot well but had a couple of rough stages (ProAm and Steel Challenge). At the halfway point, I have two training months left until the big match, IDPA Nationals. I know that I’ll need to spend a considerable amount of time in dry fire working on concealment reloads, and a considerable amount of range time as well. For the next two months, the most important part of my training is simply going to be keeping my focus, and not getting distracted by all the cool stuff I have going on.