We made it! The show went on and all went well.
I've never competed in the OCB before. It's a natural federation complete with polygraph and drug testing. Many people ask why I decided to compete in this federation, as opposed to the NPC where I usually compete.
In my entire powerlifting career, I always just "competed." To this day, I still register under APF rather than AAPF. In the past (namely from 2000-about 2012) all the good competition was in the APF. When I competed geared, all the top lifters were in APF. So for me to register under AAPF seemed pointless. I wasn't going to a meet to get a trophy... or register under 3 divisions and get 3 trophies. It wasn't the trophies I cared about.
Sure, winning and placing 1st was a goal. But I didn't want it to be because no one was in my class. I wanted to legit compete against other women. I love the strategy of figuring out attempts in order to come out on top. (Yes yes, powerlifting is much about how well you do against yourself, no doubt. But again, 15 years ago, there was solid competition and it was fun to compete against others.)
Having done several NPC shows, and even competed at Junior Nationals a few times, I wanted to try a natural federation to see how I could fare against those women. The "big" show in the OCB is the Yorton Cup... complete with some prize money too! So when I began prepping in January, that was ultimately my goal... to qualify for the Yorton cup and take a stab at some prize money.
Well, then Covid hit. Shows were getting canceled left and right. After two canceled shows I was going to do, I was going to hang it up for the year, but ultimately decided on the August 8th show. 7 full months of prepping which is quite long for me. The show ended up being a small show, with NO other women's physique competitors. In fact, I kinda stood out like a (good) sore thumb with the figure and bikini girls.
I ended up having the MOST fun I've ever had on stage and I LOVED my routine and just had fun with it. Perhaps not having any other competitors helped me relax. But it also showed me that I can have fun, relax AND put together an amazing presentation.
Yeah, I'm bummed there were no other competitors. But I'm so happy with the package Anne Sheehan helped me bring together in those 7 months. While I don't have much else on the horizon in terms of competing, who knows what will pop up. As we all know this entire year is a bit of a weird thing.
Here's my mandatories and routine.
