Currently ~7 weeks out from the IPF/NAPF Pan-American Championships taking place in Ribeirao Preto, Brazil (Sept.16, 2015), and ~11 weeks out from USAPL Raw Nationals. I will be competing in the 72kg class, and this will be my first year as an Open Division lifter (no longer a Junior).

Life Updates:

1) Finished my Internship/Fellowship at a Law Firm this summer, and am finally getting a vacation! It's been a long time since I've had any real time off from working or Law School-- so I'm really really excited to have some time to spend with family and friends without simultaneously being stressed out about a million other things. It was a great learning experience, and I'm extremely grateful for those who invested their time to help me develop/sharpen existing and new skill sets AND the new friendships/relationships I formed.

2) Traveling: Currently in Colorado, visiting/vacationing with some of my best friends in Powerlifting (and by vacationing I mean-- training, helping handle a few of them at a Powerlifting meet, eating, and doing some nature/Colorado-y things). More on the trip in my next update! After CO, I will be going home to TX for a couple of weeks to have some much needed quality time with my Family.

Training Updates:

So this log is titled "Back to the Drawing Board" because we started out my training cycle for the Pan-Am's and... things just weren't working. I felt terrible most of the time, I wasn't hitting anywhere close to my target weights, and it lasted longer than "just having a bad week". So I put in the work, got through my training sessions, but made sure to keep my Coach updated on how things were feeling/shaking out. Sure enough, we decided that this particular approach to training just wasn't working for me and that we needed to make some changes (still getting a grasp on what these changes are and what they mean-- so more on that later).

All of this is to say that-- sometimes things don't go as planned, and it's important to be flexible enough to go back to the drawing board and just try again/a different approach. It's not a failure, just a learning experience-- which I often find are more beneficial (in the grand scheme of things) than successes.

More on the Traveling & Training in my next update!