So starting from the beginning.
The weekend came and I was ready to go. I made weight at 217.5 and was feeling good. I woke up a little later than usual on Sunday morning and had a big breakfast. Then I had breakfast twice more.
I showed up back stage at 12:30 and saw everyone warming up and thought that it was too early to warm up because the competition starts at 1 and the women usually go first so I will warm up when the women start. BIG MISTAKE because just after 1:00, we were all called in order to walk out and get introduced on stage and then told that we were all lifting in that order so be ready.
I panicked because I was up in just a few minutes and didn’t even pick up a bar! I ran down the stage and franticly started pulling on the loaded bars. The bars were loaded with kilo plates and I am already bad at math so I had no idea what was on them. I started adding weight and roughly calculated 650 which would have been where I wanted to stop. I bend down to pull and stand up with the bar but it was HEAVY. I begin to panic. I really struggled with 650 and I am supposed to open with 735! I am screwed! I grab my phone and recalculate to find out that I just pulled 771. Well I just hit an unofficial 21lb pr… Just as I realize how dumb that was, I get called to line up.
My name gets called for my first attempt and all I can hear is the place lighting up. I am no celebrity but over 35 people showed up from my gym and they were on fire. I walk up to the bar and pull my opener, 735, like it was empty. It felt empty after the 771 that I pulled 2min ago.
I was confident that my second attempt at 766 was going up too. I sat in the back talking to BJ Barabas about plans for our next strongman competitions until it was go time again.
Walked out to the thunder of TeamBSS cheering and hit my second attempt, 766, with as much ease as my opener. I was ready to attempt 804 and my confidence was up with a little worry about my grip.
I paced back stage and refused to watch anyone else’s attempts because I didn’t want to psyche myself out. I had no idea where anyone else was or who else was in my class and I was alright with that. I had a goal and I was going for it.
It was time… I walked out and Mike looks at me and says “If you get this, you take the win” and I think “oh shit.”
I like to make myself super calm before I lift so I approach the bar and take a deep breath and shut out everything. I calmly grab the bar, take a full body inventory and make sure that my grip is set. Just as I start to pull the bar off the ground, I can feel the bar roll a little bit and it started to come out of my hands. I knew that I was locking it out as long as I could hold on. If you watch the video, you will see me pause briefly just below my knees. I started to lose the bar and tightened my grip before I continued to pull. Just as I was about to lock out, the bar came loose and I felt like I was going to shoot through the ceiling. The spotter caught me and I had to take a few moments so I didn’t take a nap right there on stage.
I blew it but I had a great time, hit a competition PR and walked away injury free.