Age: almost 51 by a BCH or two.

Meet: NASA Gallup NM

Weight: 196

Squat: 135 (297), Bench 120 (264), DL 157.5 (346)

First the good. I won for masters 2 unequipped ( this is clearly utterly meaningless i know. But my kid likes the trophy). The bad, I missed my second 2 bench attempts. The ugly, I had no clue that a powerlifting meet was an endurance event. It went from 10am to 7pm. I was thinking it was just a tough workout of singles. No way!
You need to eat a lot during the day and I just hadn't planned for this. After squats, I really was tapped out. Duh, but hind site is 20/20. There is just too much time between events. It's as if you are trying to do your mon wed fri workouts all in one day, and they are all personal bests.

I've only been deadlifting and squating for about 9months so those I did conservatively and made all three. Lots of room to improve and i will. On bench, however, I thought 300 would have been a slam dunk. I've benched forever. Made my first. Jumped too quick on my second. I know the rules, but years of bad habits prevailed. Bar came down slow, and I just exploded up. Didn't count. On my third I was out of fuel.

All I could think of while failing that lift was Rip yelling at me. "It's all on page 344 of ppst, not the hardcopy but the 2nd kindle addition, you asshole! Why didn't you read the fucking book before you drove 3.5 hrs to Gallup shithole nm?" Thanks, coach! It almost worked!

In any case it was fun. The people were great and helpful, as everyone has always said. Most importantly, the nano-second I was done, I wanted more.

Really coach, you are the best and you can't be thanked enough! Maybe see you at your home gym meet soon.