So I hooked up with my old training partner Brian for an NOV meet the day after Thanksgiving. I was carbed up and ready to go. I was actually a few minutes late because I forgot I had to pack a gym bag. This is a huge departure from me competing in the past. I'd be packed and ready to go at least a week in advance. Times sure have changed.

The cool thing was, I did in fact have some butterflies heading up to his gym. That's a good feeling. It means this stuff still matters to me.

Once warmed up, we were ready to go. Brian lifted in the 185 lb class. He went with the traditional three lifts of squat, bench, and deadlift with a standard bar. I competed in the 218 lb class and went with yoke bar box squat, regular bench, and a hex bar dl.

With the squat, Brian's yoke bar was different than mine. I have longer handles that I can push up on. Whereas Brian's bar only had little nubs on the end which I could barely hold onto let alone push up on. Note to self, bring my own bar next time.

My training numbers had me somewhere around a 530 to 545 squat. I actually ended up missing 515 which caused me to vomit in my mouth a little. I know the bar was different, but not squatting at least 500 would have mentally ruined me. I could not just walk away. Much like a "normal" meet, I reevaluated and went through my squatting cues. I took a few air squats to practice form and then let myself rest a bit for another attempt. Luckily, I was able to find my huevos and complete the 515 on the next go around.

For the bench I hit a very comfortable 410. I knew I only had one more good lift in me. I figured a 25 lb jump would be doable, plus it would basically put me at double body weight. It was a grinder, but I got the 435 and was happy with it.

On the deadlift 495 felt fairly easy, so I decided to go to 6 plates per side for 585. It came off the floor great, but then there was a little glitch. I felt like I was going to blow my "O" ring out. At that point whatever damage might have been done, was done, and dropping the bar wasn't going to change it. I finished the lift off strong. With my "O" ring intact and my boxer briefs unscathed, I wanted to finish the day with one more lift. I made a small jump to 605. The bar broke the floor well, then started to stall a bit and I came forward, but I fought through it to finish the lift. Had a gnat landed on the bar, it would have caused me to miss.

All in all I am relatively pleased with my performance. Last year I was 233 and went 1600. This year I was 218 and went 1555. By wilks formula I was only 1 point off of last year strength wise. Had I been using a handled yoke bar I think I would have beaten last year's numbers at least by formula.

I look forward to reflecting on this experience for a while. I have mixed emotions on the last month of peaking for this. The nice thing is, this is all on my terms now. I'll make of it what I want.

Whatever I want to do, I can't start for another week or so anyway. I have the couples strong(wo)man contest next weekend. Pushing yourself to the limit twice in eight days is a good idea, right?

Oh, by the way, Brian and I both won our respective weight classes and best overall lifters. In celebration later that evening I ate two of the best donuts I have ever had in my life. One was a butternut, the other was a specialty donut named the Doughboy. It's a glazed donut, cut in half and stuffed with chocolate chip cookie dough, then half of it gets dipped in chocolate. Definitely worth the calories and definitely better than a lousy dust collecting trophy.