The (mostly) agony and (some) ecstasy, part II
29 March 2006If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
But no, reality is light years removed from the Big Bus fantasy. Back in the real world things were grinding along at a snails pace. Squats, a deep knee bend with a loaded barbell on the back of the neck, started things off. Betty S was first up at around 10am. She would be followed by Whistler Jen. Both ladies lifted in the 1st group of 14 lifters. Betty made her 132-pound opening squat before making 154 but getting turned down for insufficient depth. She made this easily on her third attempt. I asked for a record breaking 4th attempt and she made her easiest lift of the day, setting an American record in this particular powerlift organization by squatting 169-pounds. Not bad for a 63-year old woman who only started weight training last October. This is a far cry from the weak sister who couldn’t squat up and down six-inches for 10-reps without assistance from Kirk and me. We’d literally each have to grab one of her hands and pull upward to help her stand up after the 6th rep dipping and arising a mere 6-inches. She’s lost 50-pounds of fat and added 10-pounds of functional muscle since commencing. Now here she was blowing away 170-pounds and setting squat records. As her husband Teddy quipped, “Incredible!” 200 will fall for Ms B in June. Jen’s squats have come up very quickly; she had a hell of a time initially and could not relax her quads enough to achieve legal depth. About two months back something clicked physiologically inside her and now she squats super-deep super easy exhibiting great technique. She made a picture perfect personal best with 176-pounds before making 203 but receiving red lights for twisting at the conclusion. She went plenty deep but the pure effort she generated arising caused her to start corkscrewing to the left. At lockout though her feet remained firm planted straight ahead, her torso faced the left wall with a 200-pound barbell on her shoulders. The pure oddness of the lift made the three judges collectively turn the lift down. They decided that the lift looked so incredibly wrong that there must be something illegal about it. I think it was the wrong call.
Squats for the ladies were over and Ron was ready to roll. He made a terrific opener with 237-pounds. He jumped to 263 and made the poundage easily – but wait a minute; the judges turned his lift down on a 2 to 1 decision. It was so easy that we decided to jump to 277-pounds to set a new age-group national record. He made the rookie mistake of “over correcting” and took the weight down waaaaay too deep and could not recover: this is only his second competition ever. Oh well, he’ll do 300-plus at an upcoming June competition. It was 11:30 and I was tired from the mental effort of preparing three separate lifters lifting at different times keeping the timing straight and maintaining focus on nine separate squat attempts. It was mentally taxing. Kirk was a huge help. The room was stuffed to the rafters with audience and the lifter turnout was larger than expected. Susan, Kirk and I slipped out to devour some buffet Chinese at a mall restaurant. We headed back for the bench press segment: three of our lifters would be bench pressing: Amira, Connie and Ron. I needed to get back on my game face. At the bench press conclusion Ron had to be content with his 210 opener. Amira bench pressed 83 pounds and missed 88. Connie overcame distraction to make a super 137-pound effort before missing 148. The bench press segment was interminable as no less than 50 lifters, half “one-lift specialists” benched and benched and benched…finally the bench presses were over at 3pm. Finally it was time to deadlift. Ron made 343 and 363 before deadlifting 403. He was turned down 2-1 for hitching at the last possible moment, defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. Jen made 242 and missed 286 at the very conclusion of her lift – she too pulled the weight to completion with power to spare but the bar hung up at the last possible instant to garner two red lights. Betty made 132, 154 and an age-group national record deadlift of 169-pounds before missing a 4th attempt 202.
Everyone did really well in their second competition and Kirk, Susan and I headed back to my hacienda at 5:30. I was burned out yet stayed up to 1:30 with the ever entertaining Captain – famished, we ate two meals; lamb chops and mixed veggies at 6 and a mess of spaghetti with homemade chicken marinara sauce at 11…the Captain dropped an entire plate of whole wheat pasta and sauce on the floor, cleaned it up, made up another plateful shortly before we fell out. It was the end of a day that started for me at 4am and ended 21 hours later. I felt as if I’d been rode hard and put up wet, to use a horseman’s term for utter and complete exhaustion.
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