Wet and Wild

It’s hard to be too disappointed when you throw your 4th longest throw during a rain storm, but I can still find a way. You see, I was about 3 meters short of what I wanted.

Everything was going well during the warm-ups. I felt good for finally getting my 140’. But as soon as the warm-ups ended, the skies opened up and the rains came down. Luckily I had been out practicing a couple of weeks ago when it had started raining, and rather than leave I said to myself, “Someday I’m going to have to throw in a meet in the rain, so I might as well figure out how to do it.” I think that help my confidence a lot today. Everybody else threw way below what they normally do, while I threw what I normally do. That was kind of sweet.

To give you an impression of just what an effect the rains had on others. One of the ranked throwers in an older age group slipped and fell, and broke a finger. From then on all the other throwers in his group threw standing throws from the front of the ring. Meanwhile in my age group, the No. 2 thrower in the country (who’s had a 170+ ft throw this year) threw just under 140! He had been throwing around 160 in warm-ups but on his first competition throw he slipped, and his confidence was gone from then on.

Maybe I’m not so disappointed after all.