Counting the hours until the Bard comes to sit by the fire and tell his tale.
Congrats for the fine showing!
Counting the hours until the Bard comes to sit by the fire and tell his tale.
Congrats for the fine showing!
Many thanks to you all.
I've my thoughts in reasonable order now, but I'm also coming back to work after 3 days of accumulated emails and newly discovered meetings on my calendar that I got ambushed by this morning. So it'll be later today if not tomorrow.
I'll tell you something: I heard Knurling had a drink with a certain brazilian lifter. He seemed to enjoy it.
Yeah, but we had to keep well away from open flames with that stuff around poolside at the Golden Nugget. Otherwise a quick dive into the nearby jacuzzi would have been our only salvation.
Eat your heart out Captain Morgan!
Oh ye foolish man! You have awakened the dragon! The Worlds: Part I.
Hwæt! (the opening line of Beowulf and really a bardic tradition which word means "Hear me!" or "Listen up!" Intended to get the attention of the rest of the hall while drinking and wenching was in progress)
I lifted on Friday the 8th. There were 70 lifters that day with two platforms running. We started promptly at 0900. I was THE first lifter of the day and the top of my flight each time, being the oldest one there with the lowest weight selections compared to the bigger younger guys sucking up all the oxygen around me.
Squat:
1st attempt - 275: I grabbed the bar and shouldered it stepped back, dropped like a stone and came up like a piston. At which point the head judge looked at me sadly and said "You didn't wait for the command to squat." 3 red lights. Major case of the ass on my part, but I fucked up fair and square. I was reconsidering my plan for my 2nd attempt but stayed the course. If I fucked that up, I could have been flirting with a DQ before I was even properly underway.
2nd attempt - 320: Shouldered it and the bar jerked hard and down to the left. WTF! Did I not center myself under the bar!? The head judge immediately called "Rack!" The right side loader had added an extra 20 kg plate to his side on a misload. I was stood down while they reloaded the bar. Got under it laughing to the great amusement of the audience amongst whom Dearly Beloved had already organized a cheering section for me. Nailed it and got a PR! It was a little hard but felt solid as Hell. I had been thinking about taking a pass on my 3rd lift the weeks before to conserve my energy but decided to go for some more gusto.
3rd attempt - 325: I caught the loaders in another misload of 3 20 kg plates which would have crushed me. I called it out to the head judge and adjustments were made. More laughter from me and head shaking along with some applause for me from the peanut gallery, including a growing number of much stronger young guys in my flight. I failed halfway up. I left everything I had in the PR. The spotter/loaders rescued me and I made a point of thanking them and shaking hands with them as I stepped off the platform.
Bench Press:
1st attempt - 220: Another misload of too many 20 kg plates from the right side. I was counting plates pretty carefully by then and comparing the count side to side. But it went up, although a little harder than it should have.
2nd attempt - 253.5: The head judge called out 177 kg which I knew wasn't right and in fact was entered incorrectly in the projected excel spreadsheet. As he called that out I respectfully but loudly sung out, "NooOO Sir! My selected weight was 115 kg.!" I hate metrics but I can at least tell 115 from 177. A confirmation from the scoring table got an on the spot correction. But I failed the attempt. I was already running out of gas. My nerves from the weeks leading up to this resulted in a lot of bad sleep and eating. More on that later. Very frustrating since I had made this in the September meet.
3rd attempt - 253.5 Failed it also. I had to try again, but the previous attempt was not even close to a lock out. But I refused to pass. Also more thanks and hand shakes to my rescuers under the bar when I failed.
Deadlift:
1st attempt - 360 Another(!) 20 kg misload on the right side. As I said, I was watching everything closely by now. Fixed it and it went right up. That was 5 out of 7 misloads, and the only time in any of the meets I had seen any for anyone. I was by now walking around chuckling and calling myself a Joner to Dearly Beloved, her impromptu cheering section, and the other lifters. All of whom were amazed by my composure, as was I. I'm not exactly known to have a good temper when pressed by adverse events.
2nd attempt - 413.5 This started up very strong and fast and I lost balance forward and stalled. And hauled. And fought it for what felt like 30 seconds but was probably 4 or 5. And lost it. This really pissed me off because this too would have been a PR and had I not rocked on my toes and kept on my heels I would have nailed it. It wasn't even hard until Mr. Moment Arm of my own making defeated me. So I did it again.
3rd attempt - 413.5 But was too depleted from the previous attempt and that squat PR to pull it upright.
I was done by 1315, which was pretty cool given the 12 hour marathons I had in my first two meets. I was ready for a shower and change of clothes while the others finished up around 1600. While disappointing in my results compared to my goals, I did get a PR out of it and am working along a Deming Curve given my learning process this year to what I know will be a much better 2014 for lifting. 1000 lbs. here I come.
Dearly Beloved and I returned with me in dockers and a polo for the awards ceremony. Which were handed out by a very hot looking fitness model type in sprayed on black tights and likewise fetching yellow sports bra. We were apparently supposed to pose with our arm around her after bending down for her to place the medal on our necks and get a good look at her cleavage in the process. I kind of tried to casual the arm not too much around her but got razzed by the crowd and the judges to clinch with her. So I sighed quietly to myself and remembered that Dearly Beloved has never been a jealous woman who never cared that I looked around at people and such I found interesting. The sacrifices we make.
I got 1st place in the Raw Division for 275 lb. lifters 60 - 64 with a bright, shiny, heavy, and huge medal. What I am even more jazzed about is the paper certificate with a 3rd place in the Opens for ALL 275 lb. lifters of any age group. Pretty damn amazing.
There's more to tell about lessons learned, plans going forward, and overall take on the proceedings. Along with a major shout out to Carlos and Gatorwolf. More to come in Part II.
Great report, Mark. I'm looking forward to Pt. 2.
More meat, more ale - I shall hear more of this warrior's tale!
"Well then!" He said after catching his breath from having swallowed more than just a wee dram of mead.
The Worlds: Part II
So Tell Us Dorothy, What Did you Learn?
The biggest thing was not to let pre-event jitters fuck with my head. Sun Tzu said in more than a few of his aphorisms that when you can get into the enemy's head you are halfway or better to defeating them. Which is exactly what I did to myself. I purposefully quit log entries prior to this because of my deteriorating mental condition. The upcoming event so intimidated me I was getting the sweats and near panic attacks affecting my breathing. I thought I was getting sick and came that close to sitting this meet out two days before the fact. I wasn't eating well and the entire prospect just filled me with dread. Which is who was riding in the back seat all the way to Vegas in Dearly Beloved's Camry. My fade early on was the direct result of bad eating and worse sleeping. I tried to follow your advice bob g, I was even forcing myself to eat when my stomach was telling me to stop after two bites. But I got the bonks and overcame them as best I could. BUT! I doubt this will happen again having come through the fire this time. I have done a lot of things requiring some performance that I still can't believe I pulled off. But they were mainly responses to unexpected events. Knowing a peak performance for an unprecedented event is pending is hard to deal with. But now, having been through one it is no longer unexpected.
The next thing I learned was to not do two meets so close together. Not only because of the recovery, but also because of trying to to figure out how to get in some hard singles to prepare for and to time the deload correctly. Which was also almost certainly too light and too soon. But this is how learning occurs.
My form in the squat and deadlift need more frequent performance and reinforcement. So I need to change my programming so that I do both during each week instead of alternating one or the other each week like I do now.
I never actually failed in the squat, but the specter of it has haunted me since I was a teen when I came close in my parent's basement a time or two. But my 3rd attempt was a spectacular fail, yet here I am with a back solid as Hell despite having failed twice with two follow on hard fights with the deadlift. So I now know the edge of my envelope better and that the consequences for testing the boundaries are not as bad as I thought. This alone is majorly big shit for me.
Goals
Near term, 1000 lb. total. Also dropping a weight class and maybe two. I'll more and tougher competition in the 242 and 220 classes, but I think I'll be more comfortable generally and in doing MA.
Impressions of the Event
You can do fine lifting however you want. But you can have a really great time and meet some great people at a meet. The atmosphere of support is humbling and contagious. The young, hugely strong, big guys there all congratulated me as I left the podium with my medal and certificate with genuine admiration. As I encouraged a young guy with the pre-meet jitters at his very first event. Funny, mine diminished the day before and disappeared completely the day of. So since I had overcome my own demons, I felt obligated to help him do the same.
Between lifts I wandered around the auditorium with my WFAC t-shirt "Join the fight against muscular atrophy." A few people thought that was a pretty cool shirt. Even some of the Texans, who were well represented but didn't seem to know about this place. One of those Texans graciously agreed to assess my depth during warming up in the squat to reassure me about my performance prospects on the platform.
Judging
I have no complaints. As I see it, one judge made one mistake compounded by an erroneous entry in excel. It wasn't a single point failure. Things happen. The chronic misloader clearly had bad vision. I could see him squinting and struggling to read and interpret the screen with it's prompts. But he saved my ass three times when I failed. So he may be flawed, but he gets a pass. The judge who informed me I had failed to wait for a command was genuinely sympathetic. I had had a great chat with him in April at my first meet and I know he remembered me. During that opening screw up one of the other judges, a guy about 10+ years older than me whispered, "And be sure you lock out your knees." as I left the platform in despair. He didn't have to say shit to me since it was such a fundamental fail, but he did. A pattern repeated from the September meet by the federation's head, Steve Denison himself. On my 2nd attempt in the DL, another different geezer judge also older than me called out as I approached the platform, "Come on old man, hoist that bar!" As I say, not all things or people are perfect. But these folks try hard and are OK.
Like I said, I met Gatorwolf, and thanks man for coming up to me later after the lifting and introducing yourself. It's always good to meet another another SS guy.
Carlos and I exchanged a lot of PM's and phone calls and I finally timed my energy levels reasonably well so that I managed to have a great chat poolside before it was too close to my bed time. He and Dearly Beloved chatted along famously, but then that's what she's good at. With me having as much fun listening as talking. Love ya' man! That cachaça is some nice stuff.
A fine tale! And a great adventure. I am flabbergasted at the number of misleads. Congratulations on the squat PR. There will be more to come!
Congratulations Mark. It sounds like you had a tremendous learning experience and one heck of a fun time!