Back in December, Awesome Trainer told me "you need something to train for." She was right. That meet I've been telling you about was this weekend.
Since Awesome Trainer is away with her Crossfit team, JD, my head coach at my gym volunteered to handle me on the day of, which was this past Sunday. We talked in the days leading up to it about my goals and expectations. He and I were on the same page: go big or go home.
My goals for this weekend were simple: post a total, then go for PRs and a medal.
TLDR summary, because this one is long: we went big. and I went home proud.
This training cycle has been interesting. My clean and jerks have been awesome. I know I was set for a big PR. Snatches on the other hand . . . I've been on the struggle bus with my snatches.
Game day arrived, and not surprisingly, I woke up before my alarm. I didn't need to be at The Barn (yep, that's the name of the venue) until 10:30. I woke up, showered, did my hair, changed my mind and redid my hair, double checked that my bag had everything I needed, repacked my bag because I had time, and then gave up on killing time and went to breakfast. I made it to Van Alstyne in time to watch a friend (who won his weight class!) lift in the session before mine.
If you've never been to a weightlifting meet before, here's how it goes: warm up for snatch, do your 3 snatch attempts, hang out for a bit, warm up for c&j, do your 3 c&j attempts, hang out and see how you did. Your spacing on your attempts depends on what attempts everyone else is taking. You could follow yourself, or you could have 8 attempts between yours. Staying warm but not getting tired is an art.
Warm ups were basically what I expected. We managed to stake a claim on the warmup platform I wanted, and I was feeling nice and flexy in the Texas heat and humidity. I was still on the struggle bus with snatches (that's a story I've already told you and will probably repeat again). They were good up to about 75% of my max. After that, I was hitting power snatches, but not getting under the bar well. This is exactly how training has gone, so no surprises there.
My first snatch attempt was a make at 40 kilos. My right elbow wasn't locked out, but I didn't press it out and got away with it. Second attempt was 44kg. I got called on a press out - no lift. It didn't feel heavy off the ground, I just didn't get under it, so to give me more rest before my next attempt, we went up to 45kg, which is my PR. Same story - called on the press. I haven't watched my videos yet, but I'm pretty sure it was on my right side. Sure, I would have liked to have gotten credit for one of those, but really, it was exactly what I expected. I'm glad we went for 44 and 45, even if I missed them.
When it came time to warm up for clean and jerk, everything felt right with the world. Really. That's where I'm strongest and the most comfortable. I had declared 55 kg as my opener with the intent of only actually taking an attempt at 55 kg if disaster struck in warm ups. About the time we hit 50kg in my warmup, we had pretty much decided to go up. JD had me hit 58 kg before he officially made the change, and then 60 kg as my last warm up - I'd been consistently hitting things on my second attempt, so this made perfect sense. In my snatch warmups, I had a few that I missed the first at higher weights but made the second.
My first c&j attempt was an easy 60kg. Words I never thought I'd utter: easy 60kg. Attempt 2 was an easy, solid make at 63 kg.
Attempt 3 was 67 kg. By this point, I was tired. The heat, no, the humidity, really, had zapped me. I executed a beautiful clean pull, realized mid pull that I was going to miss it if I got under it because I hadn't set myself up quite right, and bailed. I didn't even bother jumping under it - it was a solid attempt, but I feel like I made a good choice. In hindsight, I might have made a change to give myself a little extra time, but I'm not sure it would have bought me any time. And, I could have pulled 68 kg, or even 70 kg, had the same result, and just been more taxed going into this week of training. My make at 63 kg was a 5 kg c&j PR. I'm thrilled with that.
I'm proud of how this meet went. It's been a long time since I've been on a competition platform, and this was a solid comeback. We went for it. Even if we didn't make it, we went for it. 70 kg is so close I can taste it. Awesome Trainer has me in a training cycle that I'm confident will get me there. I'm making massive gains. When I compete again in the fall, I'll be even better.
So now, back to training. I didn't take a day off life I have in the past - sometimes staying moving works better than complete rest to speed recovery. I went super light today - just some jerks, presses, and squats to stretch me out so I don't end up more sore tomorrow than I was today.
Tomorrow I go to work fixing my snatch. I'm determined, and I'm hungry. Go big or go home.