On Thurs­day, Randy T, Thu H, and I went back to Paci­fica Archery, since the free rentals expire at the end of the month and I wasn’t sure when I would be able to use it after this weekend.

Randy T went pro and has his own bow and arrows now. It was cheaper than expected, too. Now I’m think­ing about pick­ing up a set for myself.

Here’s how we did. Thu H had her own tar­get and pur­ple arrows. Randy T and I shared one tar­get; he had the green arrows and I had the pink ones.

I shot sig­nif­i­cantly bet­ter than last time. I think the big dif­fer­ence in how I shot is that last time, I only paid atten­tion to where the point of the arrow lined up before I released, but this time, I was care­ful to line the entire arrow (point to nock) up with the target.

How­ever, because of a com­bi­na­tion of bad form and inap­pro­pri­ate gear, I gave myself quite a nasty welt. It was stu­pid, really. I wasn’t bend­ing my bow arm enough, so the string would snap against it. The arm guard is sup­posed to pro­tect against that, but I grabbed a small one that only cov­ered the front half of my fore­arm. I think the the back edge of the small guard actu­ally caught the string a cou­ple of time when I should have been in the clear. Any­ways, it def­i­nitely looked a lot worse than it felt. There was min­i­mal pain, but the welt was a good cen­time­ter raised above the rest of my arm. And the bruise I had the next day (and still have now) is a good three inches across, but isn’t very sensitive.

Les­son learned! Next time, get the proper gear. And remem­ber to shoot right. And maybe wear a long-​sleeved shirt, too.

After­wards, we went back to Randy T’s place to see Erin B, who was on doctor’s orders to rest up. She was look­ing great, though. Only one month until Clark is due! We also really liked their house and their dogs. Sadly, I for­got to take pic­tures when we got there. Next time!