Home games time! Last weekend was Prescott Highland Games. Generally I was pleased and had a few bests:

HWD: 22'5"
LWD: 36'11"
HH: 53'9"
LH: 60'4"
WOB: 12'
OS: 24'11"
BS: 21'7"

My LWFD was about a 5' improvement, and my heavy hammer was over 10'. WOB was a PR and I nailed it first attempt. My first toss at 13 had the height but my angle was wrong. I'm thrilled with all of these. Granted, Prescott's field has a gentle downhill slope so people tend to PR, but I'm feeling a lot more confident about my weights. Last year at Tucson I'm pretty sure people were taking bets about which direction my heavy weight would go. Now I'm much smoother with the implement. Still a long way to go, but I'm finally feeling like progress is occurring.

The thing I'm most disappointed with is my light hammer. There are advantages and disadvantages to a sloped hill. With the slope, the ground in front of the hammer is about 2-3" higher at the low point of the head. In LH, on my first throw I laid back too much and tumbled over the trig. My second was very tentative since I wanted to get a score on the board. On my last I tried to really get it out there and struck the ground on my final turn. I'm pretty sure I should have had a 75' or so throw. I still need time with a caber. I had one decent pick, but managed about a 20.

The other side is that our club had about 6 new throwers at the games, and they all had a blast. A lady thrower I train with took 3rd overall in women's (and 1st and 2nd are both very strong, very experienced throwers). She got a lot of great tips from her group. A C class who has come to a few practices was first in his class, and won every event except for caber. If he threw in B he would have been 3rd or 4th out of 10. He is strong as hell, and has zero technique. He's already itching to get out and start really training technique. I think he's figuring he has a chance to win his next event throwing with the B guys.