Win with humility lose with grace

I believe myself to be a humble person generally; I don't brag about or push my success or achievements in peoples faces and feel I accept good results with graciousness. Hubris is not one of my personality traits.

Today I competed in the final competition day for a year-long tactical long range rifle shooting competition. I have been sitting in second place overall for most of the year and despite missing the last two competitions due to being away shooting other national competitions interstate I went into today's competition with a chance to retain second place for the year. I believe there were 5-6 of us who were shooting for this second placing as the first place holder is un-catchable at this point.

Today, despite the whole year coming down to this last competition I decided to risk using my new rifle, which I had only picked up on Thursday night. Not only that, I shot it using factory ammunition rather than the hand-loaded precision ammunition I would usually make for a competition and with a scope that is not mine. I was asked by a re-seller to try it out as it's brand new into the country and this seemed like a good opportunity. So, I wasn't going into the competition with a lot of confidence, certainly not as confident as I would be if I were using my tried and tested competition rifle.

We shot seven stages with complexity levels from medium to extremely difficult. It was physical and considering the 32 degree cloudless day and no shade, it was unpleasant. We were shooting from a range of 253m to 1200m off barricades and prone, under duress of time with physical challenge thrown in also. Needless to say that on almost every shot the heart was pumping hard and lungs were heaving.

By the end of the day I was feeling worn out. I'm 47 and have trouble keeping up with shooters I compete against as they are years younger and fitter than I am. I think I am the oldest shooter by about 15 years actually. I didn't need to wait for the results to know I had shot poorly. I ended up finishing 9th of 15 shooters. I know where I lost my points and why; Unfortunately stupidity was my main failure today rather than my shooting. On one particular stage I actually failed to dial in my elevation requirements to my elevation turret so was was shooting and missing! An idiotic and rookie mistake I haven't made for a couple of years. So, I finished 5 points away from 4th place as each place above me was only secured by a point over the next.

I drove the two hours home in disgust and will do the debrief of my performance tomorrow when I am less annoyed at myself. I had fun shooting, that's always a given, but I am so dejected with myself.

It's fortunate that I don't take these things too hard though and have the ability to move on and focus on the next thing on the agenda. Today's poor showing will cost me second place in the annual standings, probably even third. I won't know until the end of year event this coming Friday night but by then I will have put it aside, dealt with the disappointment and moved on. I have an IPSC (tactical pistol competition) taking place on Saturday so I need to get my game face on all over again.

One of my favourite sayings, and one I end posts with here and there is: Vincit qui se vincit which is Latin for "He conquers twice who conquers himself when he is victorious” which sort of means that a person should control the urge to be arrogant, smug, cruel or vindictive when they win. Today I didn't win, far from it in fact, but I am glad that when I do I do so with modesty and humility.

Vincit qui se vincit
@galenkp