Training Log Archive: jjcoteIn the 7 days ending Nov 27, 2011:
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Wednesday Nov 23, 2011 #
Bowling 4 [1]
Nancy and I, and her kids, her nephews, and the girlfriend of one nephew rolled a few games of tenpins. Things started out impressively:
Game 1: X 6/ 7/ 8/ X 8- 72 X 9/ 8/6 = 164
That's my best game ever, eclipsing the 154 (I think) that I bowled on 4/28/90 as part of the Orienteering Superstars competition. Note that I typically bowl maybe once a year, and I have unconventional technique: I use a 15 pound ball for my first throw and follow up with a 12, I use my thumb, index, and middle fingers, all sunk deeply into the holes, and I roll the first ball straight down the middle with no spin, seemingly inviting a split, but that almost never happens. Using Ian's metrics:
Strike rate: 3/11 = 27.3%
Spare rate: 5/7 = 71.4%
First ball pins: 8.09
Single pin spares: 1/1 = 100%
That's all pretty good, but unfortunately, it doesn't tell the whole picture.
Game 2: 7- 8/ 7/ 7/ 9- 6- 8- 81 7- 9- = 108
Game 3: 8- 71 43 8- 7- 9- 81 9- 72 54 = 83
Game 4: 54 63 8- 8- 53 33 44 8/ 8/ 33 = 93
I should have quit while I was ahead.
Strike rate: 3/41 = 7.3%
Spare rate: 10/37 = 27%
First ball pins: 7.19
Single pin spares: 1/5 = 20%
It's pretty clear that the main thing going on was that about halfway through the second game, my second ball became essentially useless. I was still doing okay when facing a full set of pins, but the followup was hitting nothing. Sometimes I feel like I'm getting off-balance and I can feel that everything is wrong as soon as I release the ball, but that didn't happen more than a couple of times at most. There were not even many balls that seemed hopeless, the kind where I would turn around in disgust and not even bother to watch them reach the end of the lane. Instead, I kept missing by a fraction of an inch (and I wasn't trying to be fancy, I was intending to hit the pins dead-on). At least I can say that the only ball that went into the gutter was when I narrowly missed trying to pick up the lone 10 pin.
Worth noting is that the last game was "speed-bowling" versus Stephen. This is where the winner is determined not by who drops the most pins, but by who finishes first (playing in adjacent lanes). I won, because Stephen was disqualified on his second ball due to a rule that had been clearly stated before we started: if your ball hits the pinsetting apparatus, you lose. Wham, right into the sweep (I guess that's why it stays down, actually, to protect the rest of the pinsetter). He also later on had at least one ball-ball collision (not sure how he managed that, but it makes a cringeworthy sound). Speed bowling is pretty entertaining, but for a couple of different reasons, it works much better with candlepins.
Game 1: X 6/ 7/ 8/ X 8- 72 X 9/ 8/6 = 164
That's my best game ever, eclipsing the 154 (I think) that I bowled on 4/28/90 as part of the Orienteering Superstars competition. Note that I typically bowl maybe once a year, and I have unconventional technique: I use a 15 pound ball for my first throw and follow up with a 12, I use my thumb, index, and middle fingers, all sunk deeply into the holes, and I roll the first ball straight down the middle with no spin, seemingly inviting a split, but that almost never happens. Using Ian's metrics:
Strike rate: 3/11 = 27.3%
Spare rate: 5/7 = 71.4%
First ball pins: 8.09
Single pin spares: 1/1 = 100%
That's all pretty good, but unfortunately, it doesn't tell the whole picture.
Game 2: 7- 8/ 7/ 7/ 9- 6- 8- 81 7- 9- = 108
Game 3: 8- 71 43 8- 7- 9- 81 9- 72 54 = 83
Game 4: 54 63 8- 8- 53 33 44 8/ 8/ 33 = 93
I should have quit while I was ahead.
Strike rate: 3/41 = 7.3%
Spare rate: 10/37 = 27%
First ball pins: 7.19
Single pin spares: 1/5 = 20%
It's pretty clear that the main thing going on was that about halfway through the second game, my second ball became essentially useless. I was still doing okay when facing a full set of pins, but the followup was hitting nothing. Sometimes I feel like I'm getting off-balance and I can feel that everything is wrong as soon as I release the ball, but that didn't happen more than a couple of times at most. There were not even many balls that seemed hopeless, the kind where I would turn around in disgust and not even bother to watch them reach the end of the lane. Instead, I kept missing by a fraction of an inch (and I wasn't trying to be fancy, I was intending to hit the pins dead-on). At least I can say that the only ball that went into the gutter was when I narrowly missed trying to pick up the lone 10 pin.
Worth noting is that the last game was "speed-bowling" versus Stephen. This is where the winner is determined not by who drops the most pins, but by who finishes first (playing in adjacent lanes). I won, because Stephen was disqualified on his second ball due to a rule that had been clearly stated before we started: if your ball hits the pinsetting apparatus, you lose. Wham, right into the sweep (I guess that's why it stays down, actually, to protect the rest of the pinsetter). He also later on had at least one ball-ball collision (not sure how he managed that, but it makes a cringeworthy sound). Speed bowling is pretty entertaining, but for a couple of different reasons, it works much better with candlepins.