These unwavering, and incredible beliefs that waver between insane and foolhardy are the only way limits are pushed and things we consider otherworldly take place.

I just got news another competitor is dropping out of the US Open.

I understand completely why he's doing this and I respect him incredibly for messaging me personally and consider the guy a friend, but I'd be lying if I wasn't disappointed.

He's hurt his knee and dealt with these issues over the past few years and is now taking time ot get healthy, and I'm happy for him.

But all the while, I have a darkness in me. The feeling of chills and fire and death I get when I picture myself on that stage up against the best in the world. The vision, delusion, or fever dream of seeing my wife, my father, and my mother looking at me and I at them as I approach the bar for the third deadlift and KNOWING I will win if I pull it. ANd knowing I will.

I think about it every day. I convince myself fully that I am the closest thing to a God in existence when I am in front of the judges, on the stage, listening to "the bar is loaded".

That's why I could never imagine pulling out of a meet of this caliber. Even if connective tissue tore from bone, muscle was gored and sewn, and blood was shed. I don't claim that this is a positive characteristic, but is mine and my own. I own it and I am that man.

It's lethargic knowing that the closest comparison that can be made to this is a delusion of grandeur, and maybe that's all that this is. Maybe I'll bomb, maybe I'll tear both my quads, maybe I won't make weight. But until those things happen, I will believe I will win. And in my heart I know what it will feel like locking eyes with Skyler before that pull, and that is a feeling I want to experience. And so I will.

It's easy to consider dying, being maimed, and losing money/time/relationships when you refuse all other alternatives. I am Joe Sullivan the Powerlifter. That's who I always will be and I'm proud of it. Even if it is ultimately delusional, it is mine and my own.