Meet Report - WNPF 2013 Nationals

Saturday, 23 February 2013

Making Weight

Being away the weekend before a meet makes making weight a little more difficult, but I again weighed in under 67.5 kg or 148-3/4 lbs.  The meet director put me down as 148 even.

Making weight was a bit trying as it often is.  Thursday, I had a small dinner early then stopped both eating and drinking except water to take my medicine and vitamins with.  Friday morning, I weighed 150.6 lbs.  Friday by the time I left my house at 3 PM, I weighed 150 lbs. even.  I drove to the meet, about an hour and a half, with the heat all the up and weighed myself at the hotel - 149.6 lbs.  at 4:45 PM.

So I got in a very hot bathtub and soaked for 45 minutes, which got me down to 148.6 lbs. on my scale, went down, weighed in, and then drank water and ate protein snacks while my wife and I drove about 10 minutes to dinner.


The Meet

I was the last person in the first flight on all my lifts.  There were three flights of squatters, four flights of bench pressers, and three flights of deadlifters.

The weather was rainy, and I have a permanent case of vertigo (dizziness) which is worse when it rains.

I planned to go 200, 210, 220 in the squat.  200 was easy, 210 was also easy but I lost my balance just as I reached the top and was red-lighted, so I repeated 210, carefully, for my third and got it.

Bench - I am stuck at 185.  I opened with 175, got 185 for my second, but 190 stopped at the sticking point - just have to get stronger.

DL - I decided, since I'd done 335 x 4 in training, to open with 345.  I warmed up with 225 x 2 x 2, 275 x 1, and 315 x 1 - none felt great. I was tired by this point in the day, about 2 PM.  My 345 pull went well, but I was called for hitching 355 as my second, and decided to stop there.  Hitching is a first for me and a sign of progress - I've always failed right off the floor before.  It wasn't a big hitch and I feel like, if it was a training lift, I'd have counted it.  That's life.  345 should be a new American WNPF record for my age/weight/raw, and I'm very happy with that.

My wife was with me because we brought down a second car to lend to her 91-year-old Aunt, who had totalled hers a week earlier, her first car accident in almost 70 years of driving.  We had dinner there and eventually made it home at about 9 PM after having left the meet at 4 PM.

Best total since I started lifting again last July - that's something.  DL has gone up steadily: 325, 335, 342 (metric meet), 345.

Took it easy on Sunday, just walked a couple of miles and stretched.  Lower back was sore after the meet's pulls and still sore on Sunday, not too bad today.

Onward and Upward