I will not be going to the Summer Nationals in either the individual or team events. I'm furious at myself for permitting weapon problems to distract me; and I'm even more furious at myself for allowing a small deficit to drive me into aggressive, unthinking bouting.

I fenced fine in the pools, seeding out at 15 of 32 fencers. But in my first elimination bout I had two weapons fail (one of which I had tested earlier that day before putting away for later use) before I even started (which led to the loss of a point); I also went through two replacement weapons that I had to scrounge, and these two failed because of what turned out to be a weird combination of compressed pins on a body cord after using it in a new weapon, and old, loose plugs on older weapons. So, on my 5th weapon of the bout, and down 8-6 (one point of which was the red card for the two faulty weapons earlier) I started fencing too fast and loose and pissed off, and I lost that bout 15-8. Argh, argh, argh, ack, alackaday, and curses.

Team "Athos, Porthos, and Mentos the Freshmaker" (thanks ronebofh ) was also knocked out in the first round; but that wasn't my fault as much, and I did have a bad weapon on the last point, but we were already down 40-34 goint into that bout. At one point we were ahead 21-19; I was the anchor on the team so I had to try to make up those 6 points in the last period, as well as score an additional one. But once again, frustrated, I fenced poorly and let my opponent get 5 straight touches. I had done very well against my previous two opponents, and I thought we were going to take the match, but we lost a ton of ground in the middle and I couldn't focus enough to make it up. Garh.

So, disappointed. But I did see some great fencing, even if I didn't do any of it. My legs are more tired from fencing sporadically for 4 hours than they are after fencing for 2 1/2 hours straight. I think it's all the standing around getting cold.