For anyone that follows my log, I've talked about this trip in detail, from both a training perspective and a life perspective. Here are the high(and low)lights of my last year and a half as far as competing goes.

RUM8 Feb 2015: 2088 @ 242 wraps (pulled left adductor)

RPS Boardwalk Brawl: Backed out (pulled left hamstring)

Lexen XXX Dec 2015: totaled 1900 to qualify for the Arnold taking 90% on third attempts

Arnold March 2016: Backed out (pulled left glute)

Dave's orders: 6 weeks off starting the week of the Arnold

Dani's PT work: fix my pelvic tilt

Self discovery: Learn how to breathe and brace properly using Duffin's technique's and Dani's coaching

Boss of Bosses 3: Backed out, probably not physically or mentally ready, also an unexpected career change

Result IPA Mountain Madness: 2300 total in my first single ply meet at 242. I'm not sure what the record is- I've seen a couple different sets of numbers. The highest was 2336 so I'll assume that's the American record, which puts me at #2. And I didn't even consider this while selecting attempts otherwise 2350 was there. Oh, and I'm healthy.

790-850-900miss

600-650-700miss

700-750-800

Frustrating is an understatement when i think about the whole journey. I had to back out of multiple meets that I could have competed in- not up to my full potential- but still...I questioned if I was doing the right thing for awhile, and then I embraced it. And it's paid dividends. The goal with this single ply meet was to 'get back to my raw numbers' and get back on the platform. Well mentally and physically I exceeded my conservative estimations. I had a good meet and I really just enjoyed the moment.

I chose this meet simply out of convenience. It's an hour from my house and I know the meet director, Josh Stottlemire, runs a good meet. Fortunately, Westside was also doing the meet so I got to catch up with Louie and a couple others that I used to train either with or 'near' (lol, I was still the runt 3 years ago).

I weighed in at 238.0 Friday morning, headed back to work, and stuffed my face all day. We do some cool stuff at work where we bring in local food trucks a couple days a week- Friday happened to be sushi so I loaded up on fish, rice, and sodium.

Saturday morning went through the usual routine. Yessie and I got there a couple hours before the meet started. My training partners weighed in the morning of so we met them there. Kat, John, and Joe were all in the first flight. Yessie took care of them while I warmed up with the Westside crew. I ran out to wrap Joe and John a couple times. Two things took away from my warm ups- the distraction of having to wrap them, which really was no big deal. The other was my poor timing- shaking off the rust of getting back into a meet mindset. I wasn't sitting back in my warm ups like I normally do and that carried over to the platform. Smoke 790 as I should have for an opener. But 850 was ugly- you can see I break knees first and as I hit the hole my hips shift back to their normal position making the concentric harder than it should have been. I did the exact same thing with 900 and missed it. Even if I would have take 870/880 as a a third I wouldn't have been able to recover. So I wasn't even frustrated with the miss itself- more so because I repeated a mistake on back to back attempts. That's unacceptable.

Warm  ups for bench were better. I was more focused. Opened with 600 and it was easier than expected. Then 650 was good- although my right arm slowed down pretty good and my back cramped up after straining. So instead of grinding with 670ish, I decided to jack the shirt down and just try 700. I was confident under the weight and the set up. I gave it hell on the press but I didn't have the cajones to finish it. I was happy I gave it a run though.

Surprisingly I didn't feel like garbage going into deadlifts. It was a quick meet and maybe the gear helped with that  little bit- although I can't say for sure. I also did a lot more walking this training cycle. I stuck with the plan and hit 700-750 then went to 800.

Side story- I pulled my first 700 at Night of the Living Dead with Louie there. I was training at Westside at the time, just on the weekends, so I kind of felt like I couldn't let him down even though I wasn't part of his group.

Fast forward three years later I pulled my first 800 with Louie judging. Just one way that this sport is so damn cool.

So I finished 850-650-800 for 2300, 7/9. I strained an oblique, a calf, and a rear delt. Totally minor stuff but achey none-the-less as I write this.

My training partners, God bless 'em, all PR'd on their squat, bench, deadlift, and total. That's 12 PR's. Good. Shit.

Thanks to all who have supported me, whether it be reading my training logs or just little messages along the way. Thanks to Yessie for being a stud girlfriend. Thanks to Dave and Traci Tate for asking me to be a part of the greatest team in strength sports. Thanks to Bob, Steve, Marshall, Harry, Chad, Hamer, among others for all that you do for me and have done for this sport.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfMrLOiufyQ]