I've never been one that sleeps more than necessary, or maybe I should rephrase that. I've never been one that goes to bed earlier than I deem necessary, I have always had the skill to sleep way past 8 a.m. :) The last 4 weeks has taken my life, and sleep, into a different category thanks to my beautiful little daughter. She has, like most infants, her mind set on not letting any of her parents sleep more than 2,5 hours in a row during the night. Thanks to my wife, I do get to sleep most nights since I'm not physically able to feed the little being craving our attention.
We actually went camping this past weekend in Jönköping which happened to be where the 2nd competition for the national were taking place. My wife was very kind in agreeing to this so that I could participate in the competition. Since I'm not playing in the Swedish Championships it was very important to play this competition to get as much consideration as possible for the Sweden squad for Odense. Now I'm hoping that my game has been good enough for Boss Strandberg to nominate me for another shot at bringing the gold back to where it belongs.
As for my game this weekend I'm not all that satisfied. I ended up tied for seventh place which by itself is not a complete disaster since I haven't had time to get into any sort of form to challenge for a victory at this level, but the mistakes I made has left me really upset. Being a fan of statistics I have compared my results to last year's championships and how I played there. This weekend there were five lanes my average was 0,4 shots WORSE than last year. Add to that antoher two lanes that were about equal as last year, but still a lot worse than they should've been. That makes up to 7 bad lanes and 11 good or acceptable lanes. I had two lanes that I bettered my result by almost 1 point per round and some where the results where the same, but the shots where much better.
Comparing myself to Fredrik and Anders I note that I was 5 shots behind Fredrik and I lost 5 shots to him on the mailbox and another 3 shots on the German ledge. I was 11 behind Anders and lost 4 shots on the mailbox and 3 on the ledge. It's not that difficult to see which two lanes cost me the most even though I have several more lanes that should've been better. On the plus side I did gain 1 shot on Anders on 4 different lanes and tied on another 5, which leaves 9 losing lanes. Againts Freddie I gained 1 shot on 6 lanes and an amazing 2 shots on lane 18, not thanks to me. We tied 7 lanes, so only 5 losing lanes, but 4 of them by 2 shots or more.
As for my general feeling of the weekend, I'm pretty satisfied in that I actually could compete at a decent level with less practice than everyone during the season and also during this weekend. As Odense draws closer my practice regime will intensify to bring me to the level of play I displayed in Bad Münder. Rest assured that I will be in Denmark to close for Team Sweden just as succesful as last time in Geldrop.