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Are there any national contenders that started later in life?


Wesquire

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I may not look it but I am over 40. From SS to MA in IDPA in two years. Top 20 placing in MA at nationals for IDPA. Moved to a larger talent pool, went from C to A in Production in a year.

I have seen a vision doctor. I have a personal trainer. I have a shooting coach/mentor. I travel to train with certain people. I do not have a mon-fri job. All I do is think about being and work at being better as a pistol competitor. I recently purchased and built my own outdoor practice range just over a hour from my house.

You can bet I am going to try my hardest to be a national contender with that kind of effort and the multi year plan I have! So yeah, talk back with me in 5 years.

This goes back to a thread I started about "what would it take for you to achieve your shooting goals?" I made my goal, assessed how to achieve and am moving forward. Fly or fail, I will have no excuse.

To what end you might ask? Throw your hands up at the folly of it? For myself and if you can't understand that then I don't know how to help......

Edited by rowdyb
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I may not look it but I am over 40. From SS to MA in IDPA in two years. Top 20 placing in MA at nationals for IDPA. Moved to a larger talent pool, went from C to A in Production in a year.

I have seen a vision doctor. I have a personal trainer. I have a shooting coach/mentor. I travel to train with certain people. I do not have a mon-fri job. All I do is think about being and work at being better as a pistol competitor. I recently purchased and built my own outdoor practice range just over a hour from my house.

You can bet I am going to try my hardest to be a national contender with that kind of effort and the multi year plan I have! So yeah, talk back with me in 5 years.

This goes back to a thread I started about "what would it take for you to achieve your shooting goals?" I made my goal, assessed how to achieve and am moving forward. Fly or fail, I will have no excuse.

To what end you might ask? Throw your hands up at the folly of it? For myself and if you can't understand that then I don't know how to help......

I hope it pays off. I'd probably burn myself out doing all that. I do love dry fire though. My current goal is making A class within 6 months of my first match.

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I may not look it but I am over 40. From SS to MA in IDPA in two years. Top 20 placing in MA at nationals for IDPA. Moved to a larger talent pool, went from C to A in Production in a year.

I have seen a vision doctor. I have a personal trainer. I have a shooting coach/mentor. I travel to train with certain people. I do not have a mon-fri job. All I do is think about being and work at being better as a pistol competitor. I recently purchased and built my own outdoor practice range just over a hour from my house.

You can bet I am going to try my hardest to be a national contender with that kind of effort and the multi year plan I have! So yeah, talk back with me in 5 years.

This goes back to a thread I started about "what would it take for you to achieve your shooting goals?" I made my goal, assessed how to achieve and am moving forward. Fly or fail, I will have no excuse.

To what end you might ask? Throw your hands up at the folly of it? For myself and if you can't understand that then I don't know how to help......

Can i be like you when i get older ?[emoji41]
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I think Vogel and Sevigny both started in their 30's. But no guarantees.

Vogel started competing right after high school. Sevigny was mid 20s

Edited by Wesquire
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If true you kinda answered your own question. FWIW I'm 25, been shooting for maybe 2 years max, and am trying to break into IDPA Master within the year. I've hardly practiced until recently; as long as your vision and strength don't completely fail you I don't see why you can't succeed if you dump in the time. The real kicker is dumping in that time and making the practice sessions actually matter more than dumping rounds and a cursory glance at the timer.

Edited by Peally
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If true you kinda answered your own question. FWIW I'm 25, been shooting for maybe 2 years max, and am trying to break into IDPA Master within the year. I've hardly practiced until recently; as long as your vision and strength don't completely fail you I don't see why you can't succeed if you dump in the time. The real kicker is dumping in that time and making the practice sessions actually matter more than dumping rounds and a cursory glance at the timer.

I'm younger than you are. I was just curious

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I started shooting pistols in 2008 at the age of 32. I went from "U" to "GM" in a little over a year. I am currently 39 and not a "National Contender" yet, but I do manage to hand out a fairly descent beat down at most of the major matches I attend. If I keep on the skills improvement pace I have been on, I should be a solid national contender in a few more years.

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I started shooting pistols in 2008 at the age of 32. I went from "U" to "GM" in a little over a year. I am currently 39 and not a "National Contender" yet, but I do manage to hand out a fairly descent beat down at most of the major matches I attend. If I keep on the skills improvement pace I have been on, I should be a solid national contender in a few more years.

Nice. I'm going trying to match your U to GM pace.

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I started shooting pistols in 2008 at the age of 32. I went from "U" to "GM" in a little over a year. I am currently 39 and not a "National Contender" yet, but I do manage to hand out a fairly descent beat down at most of the major matches I attend. If I keep on the skills improvement pace I have been on, I should be a solid national contender in a few more years.

Nice. I'm going trying to match your U to GM pace.

Good Luck!!!!

Its doable, just not easy. Also keep in mind that earning a GM classification by shooting classifiers it just the tip of the iceberg. Performing at a consistent GM performance level at matches is a whole different story. Doing that is pretty much like going from "U" to "GM" again from an overall practical shooting skills and competition experience perspective.

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I started shooting pistols in 2008 at the age of 32. I went from "U" to "GM" in a little over a year. I am currently 39 and not a "National Contender" yet, but I do manage to hand out a fairly descent beat down at most of the major matches I attend. If I keep on the skills improvement pace I have been on, I should be a solid national contender in a few more years.

Nice. I'm going trying to match your U to GM pace.

Good Luck!!!!

Its doable, just not easy. Also keep in mind that earning a GM classification by shooting classifiers it just the tip of the iceberg. Performing at a consistent GM performance level at matches is a whole different story. Doing that is pretty much like going from "U" to "GM" again from an overall practical shooting skills and competition experience perspective.

Thanks. Good luck to you as well. Just using GM as a goal because it is more definite for when I actually achieve it.

Edited by Wesquire
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while it would certainly be nice to start out when you're 15 years old and have a personal coach and all the ammo & time in the world it comes down to desire more than age .... how bad do you want it and what are you willing to do to reach your goals? The average shooter really has no idea the level of continuous commitment required to be a 'national contender' or even just make GM. Are you prepared to work at shooting 5-6 days/week for YEARS to reach your goal? If not it doesn't really matter what age you started at ....

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Thanks. Good luck to you as well. Just using GM as a goal because it is more definite for when I actually achieve it.

Nothing wrong with GM as a goal, I guess, but I have put that on the 'way over the horizon' goal list. First my goal was to make b, then A, and now it's to make M. At the same time, I also have goals of improving my percentage of the winner at major matches. Basically, my goal each week is to get a little bit better (and have fun). I figure if I keep doing that, I'll eventually get to where I can focus on the way over the horizon goal. I don't expect to be a national contender, but I don't really care. I do expect to get as good as I can reasonably get. FWIW I started shooting seriously at age 51 or so, after about a year of dabbling.

I'm prepared to to commit to it for as long as I'm enjoying it, and not much longer than that, lol.

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Thanks. Good luck to you as well. Just using GM as a goal because it is more definite for when I actually achieve it.

Nothing wrong with GM as a goal, I guess, but I have put that on the 'way over the horizon' goal list. First my goal was to make b, then A, and now it's to make M. At the same time, I also have goals of improving my percentage of the winner at major matches. Basically, my goal each week is to get a little bit better (and have fun). I figure if I keep doing that, I'll eventually get to where I can focus on the way over the horizon goal. I don't expect to be a national contender, but I don't really care. I do expect to get as good as I can reasonably get. FWIW I started shooting seriously at age 51 or so, after about a year of dabbling.

I'm prepared to to commit to it for as long as I'm enjoying it, and not much longer than that, lol.

It is hard for me to make classification goals because I've never been classified, but my best guess is that I'm at a low A class level right now.

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It is hard for me to make classification goals because I've never been classified, but my best guess is that I'm at a low A class level right now.

Well then, you have a goal. Go get classified. In the meantime, you can get a better idea by downloading the classifier book from the uspsa website and setting up a few simple classifiers (el presidente, el nuevo presidente, down the middle, diamond cutter, etc....) and timing yourself on them and figuring out the scores (using classifiercalc.com or the list of HHF's that was posted in this forum last week).

don't shoot it over and over, just set it up, dry fire it a little, think about it, then do a couple live runs and figure out your scores. In my experience that will still be a little higher than you will actually shoot in a match, but it's a decent baseline and may give you an idea of what sort of things to practice.

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So I ran some El presidente drills today. Set the par time at 6 seconds,then I ran about 5 timed runs. Averaged 5.8 seconds with about a 60-40 split As to Cs. How does that stack up? Low A, high B class?

Edited by Wesquire
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So I ran some El presidente drills today. Set the par time at 6 seconds,then I ran about 5 timed runs. Averaged 5.8 seconds with about a 60-40 split As to Cs. How does that stack up? Low A, high B class?

What the?

Why didn't you calculate the HF and then run it through classifier calc.com?

Assuming you're shooting production (and therefore minor scoring, if you got 8 As and 4 C's you would have 52 pts. in 5.8 seconds = 8.9655 HF = 87% score.

My experience is that I can expect to shoot 10% or so lower in actual competitions.

Hope this helps. If you build a man a fire, you keep him warm for a day, but if you set him on fire, you keep him warm for the rest of his life. :cheers:

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