Well, it's finally here.. The competition that I did an on-line qualifier for way back in June and have had my eyes on since then..it's finally here! I've trained hard, practiced the workouts, and come in as prepared as I can possibly be..so whatever the outcome from here, though I'm sure I'll always look at the 'what if' scenarios and always want more.. I can honestly say that I will be proud of what I put out there. So, here we go!
My travels got off to a bit of a rough start.. I went to bed Wednesday night with what felt like the start of a cold.. Stuffy nose, rough throat.. Great.. I tried all day Wednesday to stay super hydrated and sleep well, but it looked like this cold was settling in on me.. A cold is not a huge deal..but have you ever flown with a congested head? Oh. My god. I've never been in so much pain.. And I think the scary factor of the pain being in your head and the feeling that your ears are going to explode.. It was not fun.. And I got to do it twice, since the airlines thought a trip to Atlanta before heading to Minnesota would be fun. I tell ya what.. I've had ACL tears/repairs, all kinds of falls in gymnastics, and two c-section/labor/etc and never before had I experienced uncontrollable tears. Yes, tears. It was so weird! I couldn't stop them! Just streaming down my face as I chomped desperately on my gum, sipped water, and wiggled around unsure of what to do to stop my head from exploding.. The poor fella next to me looked terrified at what was going on.. It was bad.. But. I made it. I've taken some decongestant meds that are helping and, for the most part, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm definitely not 100%, but I don't think it's effected my workouts so far.
Wednesday I just ran through a couple things to prepare.. I did some snatches just up to 135# (the starting wt for the comp) and those felt pretty good. I ran through 12/12 cleans and MU..wasn't perfect, but I feel good about how to approach the workout to get my best result. I did some unbroken double unders and rope climbs, and then just some deficit handstand push up work.. Nothing too crazy, but it felt good to get that final practice in. Thursday was just travel and rest.. And Friday starts the competition!
Matt and I got up at a relatively leisurely pace for me..sleeping in til past 6am?! We went to breakfast because I know myself and that I'm not the best eater during these comps.. Once I get close to workout time, I don't really like 'real good' and just stick with bars and shakes and things, so I wanted to at least get breakfast in, since my first workout wasn't until 3pm. We had to be over at the comp site (St Cloud State University's ice hockey arena! Pretty nice venue! It's big and has stadium seating and jumbo trons.. It's a little chilly here, but that's no ones fault.. I'm very impressed by the set up and how things have run so far!) at 10:30am for our 'briefing'/meeting, so after that was done, there was quite a bit of time to kill before it was my turn to snatch. We walked around and shopped at the vendors..got a new jump rope! (Don't worry. I'm pretty sure I won't use it in my workout tomorrow!) got some clothes, headbans, drinks.. All the necessities! We watched a little of the competitors before us.. There are about 1000 athletes here?.. Teams, rx men and women, scaled divisions.. Lots going on! I will say, the chilly weather has been a bit of a factor, since our 'athlete area' and warm-up space is all outside.. But, again.. No ones fault and other than when it rained during our warm up time for the second workout, it hasn't been too much of a negative.. They have a big tent in the warm-up area and we had already gathered our things from the 'camp' by the time the rain hit, so no big deal.. Anyway, by about 1:15, I started to head over to get stretched out and start warming up for some snatches! I found another gal in the warm up area to share a bar with. Finding weights to warm up with was a bit of a struggle.. There was maybe 2 sets of 5's out there? Lots of 35/45# plates! but the smaller plates were few and far between.. We did a few warm ups and worked up to 105.. Did a few there until we could find more weights.. Then did a few at 125 until we could find those 5's.. Did some 135.. All was moving well and feeling good. We put 145 on, because we still had some time and wanted to stay warm.. Still moving well, though I had a couple misses there but no big deal.. Still feeling good. We lined up outside for about 20 min, so got pretty chilly in that time.. It was finally time to start! We took the long march out to our starting place, shared a few last nervous laughs and 'good lucks' with the fellow competitors..and then we were up! I had 8 minutes to get to my max snatch weight.. It was set up as a ladder, so we had to open at a pre-determined weight and then move up the weights in specified increments. Based on my current max of 155#, which I have only hit once, I knew I was only going to have a few weights to hit.. 135, 145, 155.. And if that all felt great nd just flew into place, I would try the 165, which is a weight I have never attempted before, so definitely was unsure of how that would go.. Since 155 is a pretty new max, I don't think I've even done so much as a snatch high-pull at that weight, so definitely un-chartered territory for me. So I get out to my spot, time counts down.. We were able to pre-load our bars (for some reason, just elites were allowed to do this? I wasn't exactly in a rush, so didn't matter much to me), so I loaded up to 135 and got ready to roll. I hadn't missed a 135 all day, so clearly it was time! First attempt..dumped.. Agh. Got the next one, though, so not too bad.. Loaded up to 145 and hit the first one.. Time for 155! It moved well and I was under it..several times..but for some reason, I couldn't quite stick it and stand the darn thing up!? I still felt confident, despite missing a few, because it was moving so well. I knew it was there and that it would happen..and finally..yay! Got it. The crowd in front of me gave a big cheer, which was nice.. I could feel them wondering why the heck I didn't just stand up with it..and I'm not sure I have an answer! But I finally got my 155 and based on how tough it was for me to get that, I opted to stop there. I could maybe have given the 165 a whirl..but I wanted to stay healthy and just go out with a solid lift, so that was that.. I'm happy with the weight I hit, but just wish I could have gotten my first or second attempt, rather than waste all that time with those silly misses.. Our time of the lifts did matter, since that was the tie break, but there's nothing I can do about it, so we move on!
We had a few hours between events, but I'm not big on leaving the comp site in the middle of it all.. Just too much stress of being away..will I make it back? Do I need to be somewhere? So we just stuck around, and that was fine. The next workout wasn't one I was too nervous about, so the warm up and such was pretty easy going. Next up is the rope climb/Deadlift/bar facing burpee workout.. 5 rounds of 2 rope climbs, 4 Deadlifts at 240#, and 8 bar facing burpees (meaning you jump over the bar after each burpee). I had done this once in practice and it took me 8min, so pretty solidly under the 10 min time cap. I knew I could get it all done, but it was going to be a matter of how hard I could push myself. With 5 rounds, I knew I couldn't come flying out of the gates, so I moved steadily..not rushing too much, but not taking any breaks.. Rope climbs were going well, getting to the top mostly with just 2 big pulls (had to do an extra mini-pull on a couple of the climbs), Deadlifts felt heavy, but was moving through the sets of 4 touch-n-go without too much of a problem.. And the burpees were..burpees.. I didn't try to fly through them, but didn't stop moving, either. I couldn't really tell where I was amongst the field. I pretty much just kept my head down and focused on what I was doing. I finished at 6:59, which was a minute faster than in practice! And that's with the extra comp stuff of advancing the bar down the floor, then the extra run/walk from rope to bar and back.. So I'm happy with how that workout went for me. I know I pushed hard because I felt awful right after! My feet were in an odd numb/cold/crampy state and I was a little light-headed.. I recovered quickly enough, but I could tell I was working hard! So I'll take it.. Day 1 done! I hadn't checked the standings all day.. I'm currently in 29th place, out of 35.. Not great, but I'm just a few points off of a much better ranking, so I just need to keep focused and work hard the rest of the weekend and see how things go! My snatch had me in 31st and I got 19th on the second workout.. I have my work cut out for me, if I want to climb the ranks a bit.. But I'm up for it!
We had our meeting last night, regarding Saturdays workouts.. We found out that there is a bit of a twist to the first workout.. First up is the 'unbroken' workout..but before we start, there will be a 'buy-in' where we have :90s to do a max effort handstand hold.. The total seconds we are able to hold in that time will be subtracted from our total time in the workout! This could bode well for me.. I think I need to be a little conservative with the handstand hold, so I don't burn out my shoulders unnecessarily before the workout, which can be shoulder-heavy with the double-unders, shoulder-to-overhead and chest-to-bar pull-ups.. I think I'll shoot for about a minute worth of holds.. We will see how it goes! But I'm excited for the next day of workouts.
I must say, all the shout outs from friends and fellow JoCo-ers wishing me good luck and offering support in this competition has been much appreciated and motivates me to keep working hard and do my best to represent them well. Lots of people in the gym have talked to me about this comp and have seen me practicing the workouts and such, so I know they are all with me in spirit and it means a lot to me! Here we go on to day 2!
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