Brute Strength Gym's Strongest Man IV Write-up

I apologize for the delay in getting this posted. My P.O.S. camera does not really work for doing video anymore so I had a delay in getting my videos (no one's fault, but mine), and I like to wait until the score sheet is posted so I can give the most accurate info possible in my write-ups. And finally, I had a problem with my farmers video so I had to pull some dirty tricks on windows movie maker before I could get the video finalized into a post-able format. I like to put out writeup and video all at once rather than piecewise. So without further ado, here we go.

A week and a half ago I did my first competition since the 105kg Pro Nationals concussion debacle back in November. Not only was this the first competition for my friend Chris “My Other Hand Isn’t Strong Enough; You Take My Little Hand” Peirce, but also the triumphant return to strongman after a three year hiatus by the now Doctor, Rob “I’m Your Huckleberry” Rowland. To top it all off, my training partners Mark “Mine’s Just Got a Little More Brown Sugar” Alexander and Steve “The Giant Killer” Mattheu also did this contest, not even to mention all the other friends I got to see. Chris was in the novice class, Rob made the cut down to 200, Mark cut to 231, Steve bumped up to the 265-pound class for his first foray into the Heavyweight (HW) division, and I bumped up to Super Heavyweight (SHW). This was the first time that Brute Strength Gym’s Strongest Man was held at the Hampton Sports Festival and it was an outstanding venue for the parade of awesomeness that arose. Steve, Mark, Rob and I went down early to weigh-in and avoid the early morning driving and rush of getting there on the day of the contest. Chris and his fiancé, Lauren, came down Saturday morning and her family came down as well to support him. After a brief rules meeting, warm-ups began and here's how the contest went down for me...

Circus DB Clean & Press

This is typically one of my better events. I got 9 reps in 60 seconds a couple of times in training with my Bigg Dogg Strongg dumbbell loaded up to 160 pounds. I figured I'd be good for 10 reps or so in contest, but a few weeks out, I tweaked my left shoulder a little bit and as a result, I cut back on my overhead training going into the contest. Everything felt pretty good in warm-ups, so I went Simple Deck once the judge gave me the "go" call. I hit my first 6 reps in about 30 seconds, but when my right arm began to tire and I switched to the left, my first rep was a near disaster. It went up all slow and twisty and I stalled a little before lockout. The fact that I was able to salvage it was a small miracle. I hit one more crappy rep with the left, went back to the right...and then stopped because I only had a couple seconds to go before the whistle blew. My final count was 9 reps at 165 pounds, which was good for both a PR and the event win, in both the SHW class and overall HW.

Yoke Walk

This should've been a walk in the park for me, but I got a bad case of passing out. This is extremely frustrating, since it only happens in competition and never ever in training. I managed to take the 730-pound yoke the 80-feet in about 20 seconds, but that was slow as frozen crap in January in North Dakota. Which was only good for a mid-pack finish, but at least I managed not to drop it while stumbling on my jello legs.

Farmer's Walk/Hussafel Stone Medley

Weights were 300 pounds for Farmer's walk and 350 for the Hussafel stone, for 50 feet each. I felt pretty good about this event since the weights were pretty easy. I just had to have a fast pick and smooth transition between the implements. I went testicles-to-the-wall and finished in 22 seconds and some change, just a couple hundredths out of first. So, I received a second place.

Conan's Wheel

Utter disaster. I took this for a lap-and-a-half without too much trouble, when I went down to Brute to train. Unfortunately, I began to pass out as soon as I picked it up in competition. My ears got bumblebees in them, legs went to jello, vision began to shrink down to a tiny dark tunnel and everything got tinted red. I dropped it and then my legs went into convulsions and I almost face planted into some iron. Terrible place.

Atlas Stone Over Bar

I figured I was pretty much out by this point, but I'm too stubborn or stupid to give up, so I went to my happy place of soul crushing anger and fear fueled love. Though I got a few moments of blackout city heading my way at several different times, the fact that I got a brief rest between stone loads helped me hold off the demons. I nailed 7 reps with a 330-pound stone over 54-inches in about 55 seconds. I definitely ran out of time, rather than steam on this one. I could've done it faster, but after one complete clusterfluff and one mediocre yoke walk, where I barely averted disaster, I took it a little slower to make sure I made no technical fouls. I tied for first on reps, but my time was faster, so I took the event win.

Results

Amazingly, I ended up in a three-way tie for second place in the SHW class. I won the three-way tie based on the count backs. I had two first-place event finishes, Jeff had one, and RJ, though he had a strong showing, had no first places. This was a whole hell of a lot better than I thought I did, being there were only three events I thought I did well on, so overall it was good. However, I need to get this whole passing-out nonsense sorted out. Steve took second-place in the 265-pound class in his first outing as a HW, even though he only weighed about 210. Congrats at this point to my friend, Jim Dart, who won the 265 class and took first overall in the HW division. He had a great day with no mistakes. Dr. Rowland came in fourth place by 1.5 points, behind the one and only Carl Johnson, Georgetown S&C coach, in a stacked 200-pound weight class. He had a triumphant return to the sport of fools. Mark finished fifth in a 231-pound class that was one of the most competitive I saw outside of nationals. Chris finished eighth in a huge novice class, although I honestly consider his placing largely irrelevant due to the fact that he hit a PR every single even...and that's the true measure of success in this sport. It's only when you massively screw stuff up (like I did), that you must then turn to score sheets to try to salvage some dignity from a less-than-ideal performance.

In addition to my training partners, I also got to meet a few new guys and see a ton of guys I haven’t seen in a while, both competitors and otherwise. These included: Joey Tedrow, Mark Kimener, Tina Whitaker, UR S&C coach Jeff Appel, Georgetown S&C coach Trevor Williams, Mike Lusby, Jeff Holt, David Pike, Barry Perkins, Jeff Crane and Chad Dunn. It was also great to see everyone from Brute again, though I do try to see them as often as I can make it down to train. Despite two events I wish I could've taken a mulligan on, this was a great experience overall, as it always is when Brute Strength Gym is involved. The venue was top notch, all of the athletes did a great job, the judging was fair and consistent all day,  the spotters and promoters did a great job keeping so many athletes moving through the events and got us out of there in a timely manner and the t-shirts and prizes were great – not to mention all the swag in the goodie bags!  I don’t know where I'll be for the next BSG competition, since I'll hopefully have a real job somewhere after finishing grad school in early May, but I know that I'll definitely make the trip back if I can schedule it. Thanks to everyone who planned and ran the show, all the athletes, spectators, my training partners, and of course, Dave Tate, and everyone at elitefts™.