The fine peeps at Kingspoint held a mock meet today for charity. It’s been over 2 years since I did a meet and this was a perfect soft landing.


I didn’t get brave, thus the 3 white lites (sheets of paper!) on all lifts, but they all felt really good so I did add a little extra than originally planned for the last deadlift.


I was only 5 pounds under my (meet) best squat two years ago, 4 pounds more than that on benchpress ... and a whopping 45 pounds short on deadlift. While that’s been the most problematic this year, it did move pretty good, even with conventional stance, and I know that it’s just a matter of doing the work.


Of course, today has got me thinking about numbers for the October meet.

Target in KGs - squat 80, bench 60, deadlift 90

I have registered for a meet. The London Open in October. Yay! We started meet prep Monday and finished the first week today. Friday’s are going to be all three lifts, doing a set of 5 of increasing weight until it’s the max. So since today was the first of that, it seemed like a good benchmark of where I am starting off this round, and so I am saving it here.

It was July 2016 for the first meet. I’ve done another , but because I am starting over a bit (not all the way over, but certainly not as ready as 2017) I am looking at that one as a reference point too. My squats are about the same now as they were when we started prep that year, so while I have a lot of work to do, it is DO-ABLE! My bench is already close to my best. Deadlift is no where even close to 2017.

Oh, and I’ll be a weight class up. But I tell myself it’s practise only, for a competitive entry in 2020!

The chart mostly speaks for itself.   But I also told Jerimiah that I'd really like to be a bit brave on a last attempt in 2018.   Not that the last on any of these above were guaranteed, but they had been done before a few times.  

And we aren't currently setting a date target other than "next year".  We'll just work on progress and keep checking in and when it seems within reach, sign up for  a meet and to a 3 month (probably) prep cycle.  

I said the same last year, but by November was desperate to get signed to a meet to have it firm.  I'll try to exercise patience and remember that more meets are added regularly and I won't miss out.  Then I can try to be a bit more organic with the planning, which may be helpful given my travel schedule can be hard to have any long term insight into or control over.

​HERE WE GO!!!!  

Here are my results (in kilograms).  I am super proud, super tired and super sore.  

#Squat-  opened with last year's best for a result of 70, 75, 77.5
⚪️⚪️🔴
#Bench- last year's meet best was 47.5. Today -  50, 55, 57.5
⚪️⚪️🔴
#Deadlift - last year's meet best was 90. Today 95, 100, 105
🔴⚪️⚪️

I will have more to say later, but for now, it's enough. It's plenty. 

It's almost here!  I knew after last years meet that I'd do it again.  And I narrowed it down to a few events in November, and have been prepping for the Apex Summer Showdown since January. And now it's less than 2 weeks out, and I am getting the prep emails and reminders.....  it's HERE! 
I will have a buddy going to her first meet (Daphne) , which makes it a little more exciting.  I'm hardly an old-hand, but having a bit of experience makes me feel like I have something to offer her as she goes on this adventure. It's such a great community, and I have received so much encouragement from it: it's nice to be able to support someone else who's taking it for a spin.
I have (mostly) gotten over the stress of not competing in the same weight class as last year.  Maybe a tiny bit sheepish, but nothing that will hold me back from giving it my all, and putting some good numbers forward. .... on which to build my next year worth of progress.

I've been a bit frustrated this week with my weight.   Here is the ramble of stuff in my brain.

So....why is my weight relevant?      Because -I made it so.  And here's how. 

I don't think about weight so much anymore.  A scan of this blog shows one of the truths of my heart.  I love this sport.  

But when sharing with most people ....it's often a story about how much weight I have lost.  Everyone gets that.  They can see it.   And the rest of the journey....while so much more valuable to me .... hasn't made it into my vocabulary beyond the closest friends and this blog.   It seemed personal ...a bit un-graspable.... irrelevant to others.   
 
And the competition added the weight-on-the-scale to my radar.   And it became my focus.   And that little continuous ping reinforced the weight story.   And if that's the story...the real story , then NOT losing weight when I head to a meet where I made it some sort of brass ring...well then that's failure, isn't it?
 
But neither story (despite the fact that I wrote them) ...is autobiographical.   Unless I MAKE THEM the story.  And I actually do get to choose.  
 
So I write this blog to sort out my head and my heart.  And I'm going to start telling people that the weight loss is nifty but that if veils and deeper and more relevant truth.  And I am going to eat healthy, and compete at whatever weight I am at when I get there.  And I'll lift more than I did a year ago. 

And I'll have another story that's true, that I wrote and that I chose.

We just wrapped on a vacation to COUPLES .... and it was such an amazing rest. We are not really much for "adventure vacations" per se. We already really enjoy our life/lives and aren't looking to a vacation to fill it up with parties, thrills or physical exertion. A real vacation for us is a rest. Not just the lack of daily obligations, but almost a mandate to just "chill out already". Garth already has that down pat, but I struggle. It would be easy for me to find stuff to fill the time. And for some, that might be just what the doctor ordered, but for me; a good vacation is a serious reboot; complete with some time just being....being. Still. Quiet. Sometimes listening to music, or reading. Or a walk. But mostly just a nice slow crawl, a slower pace in the brain, and a release of "need to be doing" for my heart.

And I sit here on our patio for the last 1/2 hour before leaving, feeling grateful for this opportunity, and equally thankful for the life we return to. There is not even a hint of wistfulness about leaving.

All of this leaves me feeling immensely blessed and grateful.

We ease back in tomorrow. Laundry. I'll go to the gym and train. Then back to work on Thursday; full steam ahead.

My meet is around 14 weeks out. I have a whole cycle to work through, and hypertrophy starts tomorrow. I am eager for the work, for the inevitable progress, for the opportunity to practice. For the endorphins. :)

And work is really humming. I love the product and it's shaping up to be a fun and challenging 2017.

Lucky girl.

I have quoted Seth Godin (his blog, more specifically) hundreds of times, but none more than this:

I've probably already referenced it in my blog.  Sometimes, I am quoting it to try to encourage others to MOVE ALREADY!  And sometimes, I have to speak it inwardly to do the same.

This time it's a bit different... it's the convergence of two things. 

ONE is this.  Last year I set some goals, and posted them here.      

Suffice it to say... it's the end of Q1 soon, and I didn't get there.    But I did get a lot closer, and while I have this lingering disappointment, I can also remember when setting these targets that they were do-able, but very hard.  And yet here I sit, pretty darn close to being able to pull off the squat and bench numbers. 

TWO:  is this:

I registered for my next meet.

So I haven't reached my goals for Q1, but I registered for a meet anyway.

WHAT GIVES?!

Well, frankly... I'm perfect. Perfectly ready. Perfect enough.  Not enough to win. Not enough to qualify for anything.  But that's not why I went last time, and I LOVED IT. 

And while there is a little part of me that cries at the thought of being at the bottom, I'm not going to let that stop me from taking hold of the experience.     And if I won't let anyone else steal the joy and magic of this discipline from me, I certainly won't do it to myself.

Therefore, no matter what my numbers are; I am perfectly ready.   

In July I had my first Powerlifting meet: and had a 90Kg Deadlift, which was by far a personal best.  198#, plus a bit.  And since then, I've been sticking with the programming, and have not been up to even 185# (my previous gym PR) until just a few weeks ago.    It felt good to hit that 185#, but it was not exactly *new*. 

Today I pulled 200#.   And I am thrilled about it.  Its only marginally more than my previous best, and that took 5 months to gain.  And I am not known for my patience.  There is just something magic about this sport.

I have my whole life to create progress.  Bees make only 45 grams (based on my calculations and some wiki-work) in their life.      A lifes work, and it's over in a slice of bread.  But they make alot of other things too, while they make that honey.   Honey is just the most apparent evidence: The in-your-face proof. 

 1.6# is my 45bee-grams.  And I'll take every sweet drop. 

I'm no social scientist. So if you want to read about Maslow's hierarchy of needs  try Wikipedia.   But there was an interesting reference to it in a book I am reading for work.    I'll spare the back reference (but the book is called "Beyond Engagement" - Brady G. Wilson, if you are interested...)... but it quotes someone who ran the Boston Marathon as saying;

"After I ran the Boston Marathon, I had no motivation whatsoever.   My diet and my training schedule went to pot.  I need to set another goal for myself before I fall apart."

Oh, Snap.    

....And I do kinda remember that feeling after the London meet in July.     I have continued training, but I know for sure that it's a slightly different feeling than training towards prep for a meet.    Which is OK.  I think actually that may be one of the things that makes Powerlifting the sport for me.  There is ALWAYS a goal.  Because it's not a specific event at which you measure your progress....  well, of course it IS, if you go to a meet,  but also... it's not.   Every few months you cycle through the program and BOOM!  PR baby!     

I found my magic.   My girlfriends is yoga.  I can imagine that it might be much the same.     

My goal tomorrow: Just one squat at a time.  Just one more.  My goal for January - test and new PRs for all 3 (Squat, Benchpress and Deadlift).     And then we'll set them again, AND schedule a meet!

I know it's called a "Meet" because people... well, they MEET.  But I am going to think of it as just the place you meet your goals.