I've written A FEW TIMES about my feelings around marathon leagues. The idea of cramming 5 or 7 weeks of throwing, plus a tourney, all in one day - I just. I mean. I really like pudding but I don't wanna slam down a five gallon tub of it a la Carl. You add to that the sudden drop in the banking account and the day-after fugue state, and you've got a situation that isn't quite my cup of tea.
At least, that was my thinking for a long time.
I think the issue came in part from my inexperience in preparing for a marathon league. Having extra clothes for my sweaty meatsack body, sleeping well, planning to have a recovery day - none of this occurred to me the first few times. And while I still wrangle with my brain shutting the hell down starting in "week 4," the majority of my previous complaints can be fixed with planning.
Except for the money one, because I never learned how to budget axe throwing in home economics class.
Even so, I've become comfortable enough in my throwing and my achievements that I can look at a marathon league as a fun, who-cares-what-happens opportunity. And there, dear friend, is where I really think marathon leagues become something magic.
MARATHON LEAGUES AS A LABRATORY
I had a marathon league this past Sunday at the Meadery. That was Mother's Day, for those keeping track, so our numbers were pretty low - even for our typically-light marathons. I think there were 7 people in total.
Now, the mix of experience/achievement level was pretty wide. Bob, our resident pro, joined in, as did our resident Otter, Rob. Both of these throwers are exceptionally good at what they do, and typically finish in the top 2 of any local (and even regional) tourneys they go to. The rest of the field was filled out with throwers who were pretty early in their axe throwing career, and me, the middle-ist thrower who's ever thrown.
I decided, the night before, to use the marathon simply as practice. I recently figured out something with my throw in particular that helped me be more accurate (dear reader: it's keeping the axe in front of my head when I'm throwing. Not like, directly in front of my face, but I mean not drawing my hand so far back when doing the actual throwing movement. Prolly pretty obvious for other people, but I'm a slow learner). I wanted to really put this new thinking/throwing into practice, and where better than a 20-match-plus-tourney event?
With that thought in mind, giving a damn about where I finished in the league OR the tournament didn't matter anymore, because it wasn't the point, anymore. I wanted 20+ matches worth of practice in. A full day of practicing my throw AND getting a real sense of how that throw would hold up as my little badgery feet and arms got tired.
HOW IT TURNED OUT
Well, shifting what success meant had a real big impact on my overall enjoyment of the marathon. I practiced the hell out of my "don't swing the axe back like you're hucking a baseball" technique. By the end of the league itself, I felt pretty confident that the new throwing style was working out as intended.
Throw in the realization that I hadn't looked at Axescores the entire time, and you've got a pretty low-pressure outcome, really.
That's until I DID look at Axescores.
Now, I was hoping to be in the top 3 of course, but to manage it felt pretty swell - what felt better was not really focusing on finishing in the top 3 for the whole ding dang thing. I'm guessing that lots of folks are already leagues (a haha!) ahead of me when it comes to focusing on the fun rather than the numbers, but it was a new look for me, and, you know, was nice.
In the end, I finished in 2nd place for the tourney, which is a rare spot for me and was a nice surprise when it was all said and done. But even that wasn't really the point of the whole thing, in my case: I wanted that sweet, sweet uninterrupted time to try out some new throwing and get a real sense of whether it was gonna work out or not.
THE POINT IS THIS: MARATHONS ARE FUN ON THEIR OWN, BUT THEY CAN SERVE MORE THAN THE OBVIOUS PURPOSE(S)
I am learning to love marathon leagues, and I'm learning that lesson because I'm shifting what matters to me during that sacred, axe-y time. It's great to go to a marathon and just tear shit up, but the truth of it, for me, is that I'll likely not go to a tourney and tear anything other than my feeble tendons and stuff. Instead, and enjoyably, I can shift what "winning" looks like, and measure my success based off of that metric. Winning is cool, bud, but have you tried having fun and getting better at your whole deal? Because I have, and it's pretty swell.
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