A year older

What an interesting 3 weeks I've had since my last post!

The training camp was brilliant, learnt heaps of suff and picked of lots o new tricks to improve my physical & mental game! I was a little too eager and I bowled lots of games on the evenings, during the camp and also at the ranking event on Sunday the 18th. On Monday after 7 hors of bowling I had to stop as I was in agony with my wrist and arm.

I had an arm injury last october which was believed to be tendonitus and it seemed it was back. I rested on the tuesday and bowled for 30 minutes on the wednesday to video the changes I'd made to my game.

The Ranking event @ Tamworth went O.K. I didn't play my best but I've alos played a lot worse in my career! I finished 6th in the end, Jemma Smith managed to win the tournament with a fantastic 279 final game so massive well done to her!

I had a fantastic week away in Maldon with my friends also becoming even better friends with Kylie! Found out me and this girl have so much in common we had a ball! Jutss miss her lots now as the little bugger lives waaaaaay down south in the West Country!

When I arrived home on the Wednesday evening I was glad to see my Mom again and actually sit and catch up properly! The next few days I took steady to take in what I'd done over the past few weeks! Since qualifying in July for the Bowling World Cup I have worked so hard the time has just flown by!

I went to the doctors about my arm on the friday morning to be told i have a mild case of tendonitues but also repetive strain injury from all the bowling I'd done just latly. I was told the only way to stop the pain is to stop all together but obviously that is not an option. I was advised to rest as much as possible, take a course of Ibuprofen and take it easy ( something I don;t do well )

I did rest well, just practicing 30 minutes during the week prior to me bowling the YAC Masters on 2nd December. This is an invitational tournament to those who finished in the top 8 of the Under 24 rankings. I had a slow start but picked up towards the end, unfortunatley I didn't do enough to make the top 4 for the finals.

The week after I bowled the Storm English Open. It was a fantastic tournament run by Alex Hamilton & Andy James @ Lakeside Nuneaton. All info for this event can be found at www.ptbc.co.uk. I bowled my 6 games qualification on thursday evening posting a 6 game total of 1290. Women receive 8 pins bonus per game so my total scorew was 1338 which saw me win my qualifying block for a £100 bonus - Happy Days! The first set of qualification scores also counted towards the Team England rankings. I placed 2nd in the event for 110 points which put me on 845 total equal 1st with Zara Glover. This is the first time there has ever been a tie for the top rankings position in England.

I qualified for the final day in 16th position. Players ranked 11 - 50 had to play a further 6 games on sunday morning. Unfortunatley I didn't get going and missed the next cut to 24 by 9 pins.

I was gutted I was so close to making the cuts in the last 2 tournaments I played. I stood back and took in the fact I hadn't practiced at all and wasn't actually supposed to be resting my arm now bowling I walked away happy with my performances.

PBA Star Brian Voss came over for the Storm English Open and also agreed to run some clinics at AMF Sheffield whihc I helped to organise. The day was extremley stressful worrying if everyone was enjoying and and the day was running on time - it didn't!! I learnt heaps though and on tuesday I was lucky enough to get 2 hours one to one time with the legend himself. We worked together to improve my game and spoke lots about opportunities and new goals to achieve in my bowling career.

So now I have time to rest, my next scheduled event is on the 19th 20th January which is the first Team England ranking event. I have 5 1/2 week to relax, rest my arm and look back on a fantastic year.

I am so so so excited about 2008 with lots of exciting trips planned!

Watch This Space!!

JJ xxx