24h NO STRESS — recap of archery team competition

24h NO STRESS is an annual team event for archers taking place in Priekule, Latvia.

The bows that can enroll — longbow, barebow/instinctive, recurve, and compound. The members of one team all shoot the same bow type. Teams are formed by 2–4 archers, each has to shoot for at least 4 hours, and the maximum hours one can do is 12.

The principle is simple — each hour, 30 arrows are shot by one team member. The order and sequence are in the hands of each team.

Last year, I considered this event, but I was far from ready then. Feedback was good from other archers in the club, and already then, I kept in mind that this is something to try out.

At one of the last events met with some other barebow archers, who were not already in any of the teams. One lady was in on this; a bit later, we got one more relatively new shooter to join. It was a question now — are we capable of this, being only three, or is there a chance to find a fourth archer?

Eventually, one guy from the club decided to join our lovely team. It was already a win to form a team.

How to deal with 24-hour shooting?

Our strategy was to switch by one hour during the daytime and by two hours during the night to have an extended break and a bit of sleep.

Event day & night

My ride to the location took 3 hours and 20 minutes. So, I did hope to have some sleep during the night. We looked up the spots — the base spot in the hall where shooting happened, and a separate spot in the quiet hall for sleeping.

Met up with the team and other teams from our club. A cosy atmosphere was forming in the hall. People carried foldable chairs, tables, sleeping bags, and A LOT of food and snacks. I had an entire bag of snacks.

Event hall. Image by the author.

In our schedule, I was fourth in the queue to shoot, so I had three hours of free time. Got around, had coffee, checked equipment, and then followed how teammates were doing.

The start was ok for us. One team member was struggling a bit with the equipment and carried out adjustments on site. I did ok for my skill level and training regularity — 213/300 at first hour.

The next 4 hours were honestly the worst in point summary for our team, but that was not really keeping us down. I did 188/300, which is not amazing, but also not that bad.

After midnight, we started 2-hour shifts, to allow each 5–6 hours of break, which would give 4–5 hours of sleep. But to be honest, I could not fall asleep at all, but I did rest quite a bit.

The most surprising part was that the night and early morning hours turned out to be the best performing for everyone in our team.

Morning warm up at 5:50. Image by the author.

I started my double at 6:00, and first time in competition, I hit 10–10–9. This was very rewarding. I made some mistakes every hour, but this was an amazing feeling, truly. Never expected that after disturbed sleep, this could work.

Hit that yellow. Image by the author.

One of the mistakes included my wrist sling snapping, and an arrow landed in the neighboring target face. These series ended 215/300 and 208/300. This is actually the highest (423) that I have done in competition. I still consider myself a noob with limited training access, but witnessing at least some progress gives a nice boost and some sprinkles of confidence.

I did the closing hour for our team. We finished sixth out of seven barebow teams. But that was probably not the point; the main focus was on trying out this format and seizing the opportunity to have something like an extended training session.

What do we think of this?

I think the event is cool. This format is not for everyone, but it is worth trying out. Not having proper rest and cosy sleep is not the best companion for archery, but let’s be honest, this is more adventure and socialising than competition.

Am I going next year? I don’t know. As we learnt from White Lotus, there is a time in life when you can no longer handle uncomfortable life. Jokes aside, this was physically challenging as I cherish good sleep, and I did not feel that great the next two days. So, will see next year if I’m ready to repeat this.

Other than that, huge shoutout to the organizers — handling a 24-hour event is not easy, but everyone felt welcome and taken care of. Kudos!