Alright, here is my writeup. This is gonna be long because I'm bored and feel like writing.
Edit: It turned out much longer than I thought it was going to be. I doubt anyone is gonna read this.
Left friday right after work for the 5 - 6 hour drive up to maine, starving because I didn't eat for about a day because I was worried about making weight. Finally get to the hotel after hitting traffic a couple times and driving through a storm. Go up to Elliot's house to weigh in, and weighed 174.7 with my shorts, belt, wife beater, tshirt and some stuff in my pockets. If I weighed in in my underwear I probably would have weighed 171 or 172. Happy with that. Then went out to this fish and chips place with a bunch of people and began to stuff my face. I had some disgusting pedialyte, gatorade and a couple nutrigrain bars on the way there, then got a chicken finger platter with french fries, a cheese burger, and probably 6 diet cokes. I ate it way too fast, and felt like I was going to puke, but I was fine. A few hours later had a couple more nutrigrain bars, and wendies. Went in the hottub back at the hotel, and weighed in afterwards with my slippers and wet bathing suit on at 178. Thought I was going to be much more than that. In the future, if I ever have to make sure I make weight again, I'm not going to eat such crappy food afterwards.
Anyway, go to sleep, and wake up 6 hours later because my back was really bothering me. I was super super stiff and I was really worried that it was going to prevent me from doing well in the contest. Laid there for another probably 2 hours, then finally got up and started using my foam roller really extensively. Between the foam roller, taking a hot shower, and stretching, my back started feeling much better.
Get to the contest site, checked in, checked out the equipment and made a pb+j sandwich and had some vitamin water to get some more food in my stomach. Feeling pretty good at this point.
We get the rules, and begin warming up for the first event... log clean and press with 175lbs. Warm ups were going really well and I felt great. I haven't really trained THAT much with a log, and each time I do it normally takes me a bunch of warm up sets to get comfortable with it, but this day I felt great right off the bat. Warm ups end, and they begin. On my side, women went first, then the novice class, then the 175 class. I was the last person to go. In the 175 class, I believe the top 3 up until I went had 10 reps, 7 or 8 reps, and 5 reps. My goal was to get 6, which I didn't think was going to be a problem at all. I get up to the platform, clean and press 2 out easily. Go for a third, and I don't know what happened, I just missed locking it out. Put it down, reclean it, same thing happens again. Clean it again and this time I had no leg drive and missed again. After this I had 10 seconds left, so I clean it again and try one more time, but it doesn't leave my shoulders. Ended up with two reps here and was VERY disappointed. Not off to a good start. I think I ended up in 4th or 5th for this event.
Next up was the farmers walk. My class was supposed to do 220lbs per hand for 100 feet with a turn. I dont know exactly what we ended up doing, but it was definitely much lighter than that. My turn comes up, and I'm not sure of what the fastest time so far is, so I just try to go as fast as I can. I sprint the first 50 feet, hit the turn and my turn was terrible compared to how I do in training. I recover really quickly though and finish. My time was I think 15.32. I go over to the score keeper to check on the standings, and I ended up with the fastest time, so I got first in this event.
Next event up was the medley. We were supposed to carry a fire hydrant 50 feet, flip a 550(?) tire 3 times, then load three 160lbs kegs to a 48" platform that were like 10 feet away from it. Elliot wasn't able to get enough fire hydrants, so instead we carried a 200lbs stone (no tacky allowed) He also lowered the weight of the tire, which was only 400lbs. Oh well. I'm really bad at carrying things, so I went pretty slow carrying the stone. The tire was a joke and I went through that fast. Got to the kegs and I made a mistake of grabbing the first keg with 1 hand and trying to swing it up in one motion and had to put it down, this cost me a few seconds. Got the next 2 kegs up easily. My time was 40 seconds and change, good for second place.
Next up was the yoke walk with 500lbs. I was hitting 450ish for under 10 seconds in training, so I was aiming high and had a goal of 12 seconds tops here. I get up to the yoke, and didn't set myself up properly, whistle blew and I got a really bad pick up on it and it barely moved, reset as quick as possible and went. Made it maybe 30 feet and I stumbled and dropped it. Picked it up and finished. Finished around 15 seconds. I think 4th in this event. Very disappointed here. I really need to work on starting off quickly because my first few steps are always really slow. Again, very very disappointed here.
After the first 4 events, I was in 3rd place. The top 2 qualify for nationals in november in vegas, so I knew I had to do really well on the last event... which was the atlas stones, if I wanted to move up to 2nd place to qualify.
I believe the weights were 200, 220, 240, 270, 310 to a 48" platform. About 2 people before me, people started to feel rain drops. My turn finally comes, and as theyre setting up, it begins to rain. Just my luck, right? By the time I'm ready to go, it's raining kind of hard. I could have waited, but because of my luck with the rain, I started to get angry and psyched up and did not want to wait. Everything was wet, but I didn't care...it wasn't that bad. I blow through the first 4 stones in 18 seconds, get up to the 310 stone, and I Just couldn't grip it. It was a newly poured stone and was a little dusty, so I guess because of that and the stone starting to get wet, my tacky wasn't working well. Then again, I shouldn't make excuses for me being weak. No one in my class loaded the 5th stone, but I wasn't sure of what everyone elses times were for the people who loaded the first 4. My time was about 18 seconds. I go over to the score keeper to check what the standings were, and she covered the paper and said "dont ask!" Haha.
After my run, they delayed for maybe 20 - 30 minutes until the rain stopped. I was getting anxious to hear what place I got on the stones and if I moved up in ranking. They get the contest going again, and had to finish the novice class, the 200, 231, 265, and 300. They finally finish, and begin announcing the winners. They get to the 175 class, and I wasn't called for 3rd! I ended up in second place overall and qualified for nationals, which I can't complain about considering this was my first contest ever. Later I asked Elliot how I placed in the stones, and it turns out I had the fastest time and got first place in that event. Very happy with that.
Overall I had an AWESOME time. Although I would have preferred the contest to be heavier (except the log because I sucked on that...haha) I'm not going to complain.
I made a few rookie mistakes that I need to work on, and need to work a LOT on my overhead pressing. I decided I'm going to suck it up and buy my own log so I can train with it on a regular basis which should help out a lot. I also need to work on my speed and my carrying events. I didn't even come close to hitting any PR's on this day, but I am pretty happy with how everything went.
I have 2 months of training until my next contest, then about 2 or 2 and a half months until nationals. I am 90% sure I am going to go, as long as I have the money and have at least one person to go with. I have a lot of work to do if I plan on doing well there. The events and weights haven't been announced yet, so we'll have to see what happens with that.
Here is a video of all of my events:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEc4_J7FjSc
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