Winding Down For Saturday's Competition/Review of Goals
I have been spending some time rolling, stretching, and pushing the Prowler®. My hips are horribly tight, so I am trying to work that through. Saturday is my competition. I'm excited to meet up with some friends and compete. It's been over a year since I did my last strongman competition, so it's nice to get back into the swing of things.
My training for this competition wasn't very long and endurance will be the tipping point for me. At this point, it's too late to change anything with training and prep. The focus right now is getting some rest and coming in strong.
Here are my original goals and any updates as appropriate:
1. Last Man Standing Log
Opening weight: 140 pounds, 10-pound increases
Goal: 190 pounds since we have to lift at each 10-pound increment. 170 or 180 pounds should be the defining lift for an event win.
2. Progressive Farmers
Carry weight: Carry for 40 feet (turns at 20), stop and get 15 pounds added in, then repeat. Max weight and distance is the goal here.
Goal: To do what I need to do in order to win. My grip strength is awesome, so I will need to balance that with endurance. The implements are tough, so I will cross my fingers that I don't drop them on my toes and go the distance.
3. Tire Flip Max Distance in One Minute
Goal: I do not know the weight of the competition tire. Every tire is different, so my goal is to be able to do my 550 pounds for 180 feet in one minute. Twenty-five flips in one minute would be great.
4. 315 Pounds, 18-Inch Deadlift for Max Reps
Baseline: 20 reps in 35 seconds of serious wind sucking, impending heart attack potential.
Goal: 30+ reps. The weight on this is very light and straps are allowed. This will all come down to conditioning.
5. 200 Pounds, Stone Over a 46-Inch Bar, One Minute
Goal: Truthfully, my goal is to win all the other events and not even have to do stones. I haven't really trained stones this cycle due to my knee. I will do one for the points, but beyond that we will see.
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The Big Day
Today I competed at Snake River Strongman Challenge in Nampa, ID. This was my first strongman competition since February 2012. Up until a short time ago, I haven’t been training events and didn’t set my personal bar too high with what training I did do. My goal was to qualify for nationals and assess where my performance was back in the strongman world.
I was only competing with one other HW woman, Sara. Sara and I have competed against one another a few times, and I knew going into this she has gotten stronger. My mind told me I was okay losing to Sara, she is a beast. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure how my ego would handle it. I figured at the competition my performance would get a boost from Sara pushing me the whole way.
1. Last Man Standing 12” Log
Event Tie
Opening weight: 140 pounds, 10-pound increases
Performance: 140, 150, 160, 170, 180
Let’s just start this section by saying that Sara is a sandbagger with her pressing. This event went crazy fast since there were only four women competing, like three to five minutes between attempts near the end.
Sara and I both missed 190 pounds. The pressing area was on a slight slope down and away, so getting balanced before the press was a little tricky. I couldn’t properly clean the log on the 190 pounds; my leg and hip drive were non-existent. This is a serious issue that I need to address if I plan to throw my hat back in the ring in strongman. My knees have prevented proper training. After the grip record breakers in June, I will seriously assess what I plan to do about my knees. Clearly, ignoring the problem is not working.
2. Progressive Farmers
Event Win
Carry weight: Carry for 50 feet (turns at 25), stop and get weight added, then repeat. Max weight and distance is the goal here.
Performance: 170 x 50, 200 x 50
Sara went before me on this, so I knew the mark to beat. I did what I needed for the event win and stopped after the second round and moved on.
3. Tire Flip Max Distance in One Minute
Event Tie
I don’t know the distance I went. I do know that I flipped it 15 times and used my full minute. There was some confusion about the course since we both maxed out on distance. I slacked on my flipping and didn’t do enough to win the event.
4. 315 pounds, 16(ish)-inch Deadlift for Max Reps, One Minute
Event Win
Sara and I went together on this, so this was an event I had to go all-out on. I completed 25 very well controlled reps in a minute for the event win. At 20 reps I stopped at the bottom and regrouped. It is important to try not to do that because you get out of the rhythm, the timing is off, and it takes more effort to get moving again.
I remember realizing that my tongue was hugely sticking out of the corner of my mouth, and my eyes were rolled up, looking at the sky. I realized how ridiculous I must have looked, but at that point breathing was far more appealing. I had no idea where Sara’s count was. I thought I was ahead but was also not going to take any chances.
5. 210-pound Stone Over a 46-inch Bar, One minute
Event Win
This stone was mine, and it’s an awful stone to load. When I poured the stone, I used a 240-pound mold and watered down the concrete quite a bit to get a lighter stone. The result of that is a stone that has way too much dust, dirt, and indentations all over. Due to the abnormalities in the stone, my 240 pounds is easier to load.
At this point, even if I had zeroed I would have won based on event count backs. So the pressure was off. I loaded two and then started playing with the stone a little bit and lost my focus. I remember hearing, “Put a show on for the audience,” and knew that I needed to get my head back in there. I believe I loaded four or five. I am not totally sure.
Final Thoughts
I went into this as a training day knowing that it would likely be just Sara and I. My purpose for competing was to qualify for nationals. This was a mediocre performance, and I am certainly not jumping up and down with excitement for myself today. I got my first strongman competition in over a year under my belt, and I got to hang with some cool people and catch up with those I haven’t seen in a while.
The best part of today? The women were done competing in a little over three hours!! That is record speed! A big thank you to JoAnn for an exceptionally well run contest and stepping up to the plate for this competition.
Next on the horizon is the Odd Haugen Strength Classic at the end of June.
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Footage
It looks like there was some footage of the day after all. Luckily my friends Jay and Connie caught the deadlift on video for me, and there were a few pics that also popped up. Thank you guys.
Here are my thoughts on the video...
Despite my vast packing list and checking and rechecking, I did not bring my chucks or my P2 belt. Good thing I had some flip flops to just kick off and another belt.
If you do the math, 25 reps in a minute is one rep every 2.4 seconds. That just sounds sort of cool to me. There are seven seconds missing from this event, but you get the idea of how this went down. I would have loved to see how smooth the first few were.
My own impressions after watching the video is that the reps sure looked much easier than they felt after the first twenty. The women often talk about competitions being too light, but there's also something to be said about endurance and efficiency with being able to perform. The funny part to me is that I thought I came into this competition without being in very good shape. Fake it 'til you make it I suppose.
The girl really liked this picture. She thought it was fun to see how much further ahead of the guy I was. I would have loved to flip his tire instead of the one I did.
