I will be competing at The Odd Haugen Northern California Strongman Challenge and Visegrip Viking Challenge on May 21 and 22, 2016. I am thrilled to be back to competing in strongman and finding my passion to train once again. My return to strongman isn't just about getting back into event training. It's also my return to dropping weight, becoming athletic once again, maintaining solid nutrition AND figuring out how to incorporate and maintain grip training in the mix. In the past that has not been possible and I generally go out in a big ball of flames. This time I'm optimistic.
A perfect storm is brewing and many different components of who I am as an athlete are changing and improving. Part of this process is reflecting on where I have been in order to catch you all up while continuing the inner strength to rebuild and compete at my best.
You can catch up on the first two installments of background information here,
Rebuilding: The Fat Doctor & Inevitable Decline
There is more to come on this entire process and more background and I hope you find value in some of the lessons and struggles I have experienced. Keep your eyes peeled for the third installment. Who knew I really had that much to say?
Last week I posted talking about danger signs I was seeing. Mainly it was not eating and I could feel the fatigue continue to increase. Recovery issues started rearing their ugly heads again. This makes me nervous and instinctively could feel as the screws getting tightened, the wheels were beginning to get wobbly and could maybe fall off. Cardio started falling off the map too. I knew the next week was going to be super tough and want to make all of the pieces fit together and sustain one another.
Saturday I made an executive decision to hold off event training for one more week to give myself some more recovery time. OK, so recovery was one reason. And, let's just say that Piggie Gurl had a rough day. I took her in to get her girl parts fixed and had to go late in the afternoon to bring her back home.
Spoiler Alert: The moment she finally made it out to my car from the vet, she peed and pooped all over my seat. Because, of course! Why would I expect or plan for anything different? It was inevitable and part of the natural order in some form.
I clearly underestimated how much of an endeavor getting a pig fixed would be. I was thinking another day at the office, like a dog getting fixed and no big deal. Well, pigs aren't dogs. Thankfully she is one healthy pig and surgery went as expected. However, Piggie Gurl was looped. Poor thing couldn't make heads or tails of anything and being cooperative was for sure not on her list of things she wanted to do. Pig had to stay inside for the night and I underestimated needing plastic for the floors, having extra blankets ready and oh....maybe getting some sleep.
She almost got a second night in the house until late Sunday night. Piggie must have been feeling better or the pain meds were working great because she decided it would be a fun to not only pee multiple times all over the plastic lined floors and blankets, but to start ramming every piece of furniture near her. At 10:30 I made the executive decision that Kylee was back outside and her healing welcome in the house was officially over. Getting a medicated pig on a leash to cooperate and WALK, much less walk where I want her to, is next to impossible. Once she got back outside, smelled the fresh air and ate some grass, she was almost relieved to be back in her own space. And we were all relieved to get some sleep.
I got my second session training for this week in this morning and will post it soon. I must admit thought, panic has set in. I have 8 weeks left, 2 of which are deloads, I have yet to do any event training OR touch heavy weight and I'm already struggling. The nerved are a little rattled thinking about that. But I know my monkey mind gets going and I just need to let it go and trust the program and my own competitiveness on competition day. My goal is to qualify for nats for strongman with some grip goals I hope to achieve. It is what it is. I anticipated this week being the most difficult with training so I am making sure I am not missing meals and that I am making a point of getting more sleep. All I can do is show up every day, work hard, make it count and come in as a confident and prepared athlete. Shoot, I got this.