Bowling

It’s obvious that I failed at Janathon. I didn’t blog every day. However, I think I just about managed to do some kind of exercise every day, e.g. Jimmy and I have gone for an awful lot of walks, easily covering about 6 miles at a time. I shall now continue with a blog post I started about the Irish Open…

In the spirit of exercise, the tenpin bowling Irish Open fell during January, making it a great Janathon effort. This is an excellent tournament with decent prize money, a good turn out and a great atmosphere. I last played in 2007 when I was still residing in Belfast and I was very excited about going back this year. Unfortunately, I have been injured so expectations weren’t as high as they would have been several months back, but I still intended to give it my best shot.

The day started early last Thursday when the mean Jimmy woke me up. To be fair, this wasn’t entirely his fault as our driver arrived earlier than expected and he did let me go back to sleep whilst he made coffee and breakfast before allowing me to sleep until the last possible minute, so you could argue he wasn’t very mean at all. Nonetheless, anyone waking me up before I want to get up is defined as being mean. Bacon sandwiches eaten, car loaded, Helen folded in amongst all the luggage on the back seat and we were on our way to Holyhead.

The drive through Wales was not unpleasant and we were treated to some utterly spectacular scenery as Jimmy took the wheel. I also amused myself for a while with cries of “sheep” before getting bored and going to sleep for a bit. The long and epic car journey was then followed by a reasonably boring ferry crossing, but I was able to satisfy my craving for a cheese toastie and showed off my incredible willpower as Jimmy took great delight in waving a chocolate muffin right under my nose. After finally arriving in Ireland, we made our way to the hotel and the start of my woes began as we promptly drove into a speed bump at 50mph and jarred my already fragile back.

Check in complete, we thought it would be a good idea to take a trip to the bowl and familiarise ourselves with the route, in addition to checking the scores. This proved to be a good idea as it was wrongly assumed I knew the route – other than a vague idea that we needed to head toward Dun Lairoghe, I didn’t. And I wasn’t even completely right about that. I wouldn’t depend on me for directions anyway; I got Jimmy lost on my own road back to my house. To make this tale even more tragic, not only did I get him lost on the road to my house, only a few days prior to this, I got my friend Dave lost on the same road to my own house. Anyway, we eventually found the bowl, enjoyed a delicious Indian meal and it was early to bed.

We woke up at a more acceptable hour on Friday and enjoyed a lovely Irish fry, complete with white pudding. I love white pudding and it really upsets me that I can’t find it easily in England. Much like Veda bread, but that’s a whole new rant…

Jimmy was first on the lanes and unfortunately things did not go completely to plan as he was tense due to nearly missing the start time. However, some nice shots were thrown and he finished on a positive note. Then it was my turn to take the lanes for my first block.

Block one was not a disaster. I opened up with a 221 and I had a great shot on the lane. When I hit the pocket, my strikes were solid and there was nothing wishy-washy about any of my hits. Unfortunately, due to general fatigue in my wrist and the pain, the main problem for me was repeating the shots which I was just unable to do. The next game dropped to a 158 and then it was time to move lanes. I unfortunately shot another 159 for game three which initially made me worry, but I maintain that I had a bit of bad luck in this game after leaving a couple of pocket splits. I still felt that I had something big in me and duly finished up the set with a 233, giving me a semi-respectable total and placing me reasonably high on the leader board. The 233 was great fun to bowl, if frustrating, as it was one of those games which could have just as easily been a 260+ had a strike in the right place carried. However, although I know I could have done more, indeed had I been fully fit, I’m pretty sure I could have absolutely torn those lanes a part as they suited my game really well, but all in all, I felt fairly satisfied considering the circumstances.

A long break, a run for Jimmy, a bath for me and it was once again back to the bowl for Jimmy to bowl his next block. Unfortunately, he just didn’t get the breaks this set and was suffering himself with injury and this was the end of his tournament. No doubt he’ll blog about this himself at some point. Back to the hotel and we were straight to bed as I had to be up early again for my next block of games.

I really hate bowling early in the morning. I always have done. There’s always the tiredness factor and it always takes my back a bit of time to ease out in the morning and an 8.00am start on the lanes just isn’t enough time for it to relax. I had a slight advantage over the boys knowing that I was more or less safely through to the next round, assuming that I didn’t press my finger firmly on the “self-destruct” button. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a great set. It wasn’t a disaster, but everything that could have went wrong this set, did. I saw pocket splits galore, I was unable to adjust accordingly as the problem came from not being able to throw the same ball twice due to the pain in my hand and when finally, I thought things had settled down, the soles on my shoes fell off.

Yes, the interchangeable soles on my bowling shoes fell off. One moment I was headed up the approach, merrily swinging a 15lb bowling ball and leaning into my slide to deliver the shot and the next moment my balance had gone, I managed to dump the ball on the lane and managed to brake in time to prevent going over the line. The walk back revealed my sole on the approach and I had taken a merry little slide on velcro on an already reasonably slick approach. This then messed with the rest of the game as something like that can really zap your confidence and it took me ages to find a sole to stay stuck so that I could complete the game.

Although the set wasn’t too awful considering, I felt very disappointed, although pleased to note that I was sitting in 15th place which would have been good enough to see me through a couple more rounds. Unfortunately, I was in a fair bit of pain with my back and my hand in particular and several shots were really starting to get to the point where I could no longer ignore the pain.

Jimmy took me back to the hotel so that I could have a bath and a sleep before going back for round two. I was seriously concerned about this block due to not having the appropriate soles on my shoes which led to not feeling very confident on the approach and also because despite strapping up my wrist, I was in pain. I made the decision to play on, but right from the word go, nearly every shot had me in tears and in all honesty, I am not even sure how I managed to deliver the ball at all. Halfway through game two I was in agony and made the decision to withdraw.

A long heart to heart followed along with a sleepless night and a few tears.

I haven’t picked up a bowling ball since and I am heartbroken.

Coming up: Shoe review and shopping!