It's always difficult to put a competition into words. A lot goes into competing and then the day of is a conglomeration of emotions, stress, anxiety and just doing what you need to. Then you add in the friendships and seeing people you haven't seen, some in a year, some in 10 years.... it really makes for a great weekend. We (Scott and I) decided not to cut to 123 for the meet. While I wasn't far off, I really just wanted to go into the meet feeling good. Plus an afternoon weigh in is never fun. Weighed in Friday at 3:00 and everything was feeling great. We were scheduled to start at 3:00 on Saturday but I knew those gear whores would take longer. Ended up starting at 4:00, which isn't terrible but definitely makes the waiting game rough. Ate, relaxed and kept nerves down by seeing some friends. SQUAT Warmups started around 3:00 and just took my time. It was nice to have Yessica in my flight and warming up alongside me. All felt fast and everything felt dead on. barx10, 115x5, 155x3, 185x2, 215x1, 250x1 (wrapped) Opener - 280. Openers should be easy, folks. And this was exactly that. Everything felt great. Christian Anto was my handler for the meet and put on a helluva wrap job. Dave Tate was also in the wings with Yess and I. He looked at me and said "Calm down... you've been doing this for 20 years. Take a breath." "I am calm, Dave!" "You look so angry," he laughed. Mind you, this is coming from a man who head butts a bar and is known as "Zippy"... and he's telling me, of all people, to stay calm.... hmmm. ;) 2nd - 305. This was a PR from last year and we knew 300 was a given so I took the 5 pound PR and made it happen. I discussed attempts with Scott via text and Christian as well. Christian did a great job of listening to me as a lifter and also putting in his 2 cents. You see, we don't train together, so he has no clue what numbers I want, what I've done and where my mind is at. But he listened and helped based on what he saw. He agreed that if 315 was what I came to do (especially since I had missed it in training) then to take it and smash it. Dave comes up and says, "you sure you wanna go 315? You've got at least.... 330 in you." I looked at Dave with probably what seemed like a look of horror and disgust. He said, "Ok, based on your reaction, that's not a good decision then. Stick with 315 and crush it."
Even though Dave knew I had 25 more pounds in me, MY reaction told him that mentally, I wasn't prepared to take it. I said, "well, I thought about 320...". He said, "well, 5 pounds isn't going to make or break your total, so just hit 315 if that's what you came to do." (More on that at the end....) 3rd - 315 (PR). Went into the meet with this number in mind as I missed it last year and missed in training (technical). Even though 305 was cake, I wanted to hit this strong. And I did. All parties (Dave, Scott, Christian) said it was a good call and walked away with some left in the tank. BENCH Started benching at 7:00pm Opener - 175. Something I knew was gonna be easy. Felt good. Really no complaints, but I knew bench was gonna be a mental barrier for me. I can groove 175 really well, but anything heavier and I press the bar too straight off my chest, giving me no leverage. 2nd - 185. This tied a meet PR and I was ok with that. We knew anything above would be hit or miss. It didn't move as fast as I wanted but it was still strong. After some back and forth between Scott and Christian, we decided a small jump would suffice. Get the PR and get out. 3rd - 190 miss. I flared to quickly on this one and I was almost able to recover it, but it was at a point that I had nothing left to leverage with. Bummed, but that's ok. Would've been nice to hit the PR, but also know what I need to fix and change.
DEADLIFT We started deads at 9:20pm... which is basically my bed time. :) Opener - 335. We wanted a big pull at this meet. Warmups felt heavy and not as fast as I would've liked, but what can you expect at this point. I couldn't get tight and definitely muscled it up a bit, but it was a solid pull. 2nd - 360 (PR). A 25 pound jump seemed good. I wasn't keeping track of other competitors lifts (more on this at the end), but I wanted to be smart and not take too big of a jump. I grinded through it. Again, just felt like I couldn't get tight and couldn't get the speed off the floor like I wanted. 3rd - 370 miss. Only jumped 10 because I knew it was gonna be rough no matter what. If i could've broke it off the floor just an inch more I could've grinded it to lock out. But I just didn't have any gas left. TOTAL - 860. This was a 25# PR total from last May, so I'm very very happy with that. Training was good, especially only having 10 weeks to prep for it (coming off the shows). Still some technical things to work on but I am really happy with how things went. It's a process and one that I love.
Even though Dave knew I had 25 more pounds in me, MY reaction told him that mentally, I wasn't prepared to take it. I said, "well, I thought about 320...". He said, "well, 5 pounds isn't going to make or break your total, so just hit 315 if that's what you came to do." (More on that at the end....) 3rd - 315 (PR). Went into the meet with this number in mind as I missed it last year and missed in training (technical). Even though 305 was cake, I wanted to hit this strong. And I did. All parties (Dave, Scott, Christian) said it was a good call and walked away with some left in the tank. BENCH Started benching at 7:00pm Opener - 175. Something I knew was gonna be easy. Felt good. Really no complaints, but I knew bench was gonna be a mental barrier for me. I can groove 175 really well, but anything heavier and I press the bar too straight off my chest, giving me no leverage. 2nd - 185. This tied a meet PR and I was ok with that. We knew anything above would be hit or miss. It didn't move as fast as I wanted but it was still strong. After some back and forth between Scott and Christian, we decided a small jump would suffice. Get the PR and get out. 3rd - 190 miss. I flared to quickly on this one and I was almost able to recover it, but it was at a point that I had nothing left to leverage with. Bummed, but that's ok. Would've been nice to hit the PR, but also know what I need to fix and change.
DEADLIFT We started deads at 9:20pm... which is basically my bed time. :) Opener - 335. We wanted a big pull at this meet. Warmups felt heavy and not as fast as I would've liked, but what can you expect at this point. I couldn't get tight and definitely muscled it up a bit, but it was a solid pull. 2nd - 360 (PR). A 25 pound jump seemed good. I wasn't keeping track of other competitors lifts (more on this at the end), but I wanted to be smart and not take too big of a jump. I grinded through it. Again, just felt like I couldn't get tight and couldn't get the speed off the floor like I wanted. 3rd - 370 miss. Only jumped 10 because I knew it was gonna be rough no matter what. If i could've broke it off the floor just an inch more I could've grinded it to lock out. But I just didn't have any gas left. TOTAL - 860. This was a 25# PR total from last May, so I'm very very happy with that. Training was good, especially only having 10 weeks to prep for it (coming off the shows). Still some technical things to work on but I am really happy with how things went. It's a process and one that I love.
Now.... I went into this meet just wanting to hit the numbers for myself. I peeked at others' openers but wasn't too concerned. I wanted my numbers. After speaking to Scott the next day about how the day went (he was very happy with it), he did say that if he had been present, coaching and watching he would've paid more attention to the competition and took some more strategic attempts. Now, "winning" or placing is always nice and sometimes, you definitely gotta go that route. But that's for another meet, another day. Scott did a great job of checking in throughout the evening and being there to help with attempts. Still tough because he'd have a better idea if he could see the lifts in person and take note of everything else. He stayed glued to his phone throughout the evening as my friend Jess sent videos and texts and relayed his plan back to me. Making sure I rested, ate, drank and had my warmups all set too. Thank you Scott for your attentiveness, encouragement and knowing just what I needed for the day. Christian's knee wrap job was awesome. Having never been wrapped by him before too. We took a test run in warm ups and he cranked them tighter with each attempt. Seriously did a great job. Called my depth perfect, handed out on bench and even though deads don't require much of a handler, he stuck around to the end. Thank you! Overall, a great day competing. The late night never bodes well for me, but still managed a decent day. Thank you to Dave for being there, giving advice, keeping us all calm and allowing me to be a part of Team Elitefts for the last 12 years!! I am honored and proud to represent. To all my friends and teammates that texted and checked in... thank you. A cherry on top knowing I have that kind of support. But.... we ain't done yet.... lots more big things to come....
