Coming into this meet I decided I was going to try and put some weight on since I'm at somewhat of a disadvantage at times when I weigh in at 258 and compete against guys that cut from 290 to make 275. My goal was to be right around 275 when I weighed in, but instead I was at 267 and gave me me some room to make up. We ended up eating at Bob Evans in London which has been known to bring on the bloat and it apparently didn't fail this time around either. I'm sure I was all of 275 on Saturday morning.
Warm ups were going well, the weight felt light and was moving well right up until I put the suit on over my briefs. I couldn't get it all the way up and it felt like it was making my knees cave some; it was definitely a lot tighter than it needed to be. We pushed forward and did my final warm-up at 875 and I knew something was off. As I sat there waiting to do my opener my right leg began to ache and felt like it was cramping real bad at the quad. I shifted around trying to make it go away, but it only got worse. Name was called, Allen wrapped my knees and I headed to the platform telling him I couldn't "feel" my legs. Like I had dead legs and they wouldn't cooperate. I squatted with the weight, but jumped the call due to the discomfort and couldn't stand up with the weight. That was quite the slap in the face. The legs weren't working. I stumbled off the platform and had to be helped to the back as my legs kept giving out on me and I looked like I was drunk. Made it to the back and the guys pulled the suit off to allow some blood back into my legs. Dave came back to check on me and asked if I had a larger suit. I didn't, but I did have a brand new suit in my back which was still in the bag and the same size. He looked at it and talked it over with Allen and Danny and Porter and decided to cut the seam off the bottom of the legs of the new suit and I'd give it a run. We skipped my second attempt to allow me some time to recover which made a big difference. We got the suit on for my third, wrapped the hell out of my knees and sent me to the platform. To make it interesting It took my long enough that I got the squat command with 1 second left on the clock. This one went smooth...down and up with 965 just like it was supposed to, but a little slower than I liked. Three whites and I made it in the meet by the skin of my teeth. Had to keep it interesting I guess.
After all that I was exhausted, but we had to get ready to bench now. The weight gain was helpful for the bench because it made the shirt tighter and more supportive for my old joints. Warm-ups went real well and felt good about it. My opener was 555 and it touched easy and popped right up. We moved to 605 and had the same results. The plan was to switch to the Poker shirt at this point, but the Jack was working well so Allen took me to 635. This one went well too, but slowed at the top and required me to hold it a little longer than expected. Not a PR, but I'm happy with it since i'm about 52 weeks post-op. lol
On to deadlifts....wasn't sure how this was going to go so I opted to move my opener down to 605 to make sure I stayed in the meet. My warm-ups were shit and felt horrible so I'm glad I did it. The opener was all white lights, but felt real heavy and moved snail like IMO. Moved to 660 to pull more than I did at the WPO and tightened the straps to help more. I got the 660, turned around and looked at Danny and told him I thought I was done. Allen didn't hear me and asked if I wanted to go up and my response was that "I didn't want to be a little bitch" so I let Allen pick the weight and we went to 675. Tightened the straps even more so I had to struggle to the bar and lo and behold I pulled the weight. Still a bit off from my best, but I was happy and it made my day to finish off the day the way I did.
I ended with a total of 2275 which leaves a lot to work on. I'm not sure when I'll do another meet since there are some issues that need to be addressed, but I promise the total will be a lot better next time around.
I can't thank my CTX teammates enough for all their help during this training cycle after the way my WPO cycle went. This one was 10 times better. Thank you Allen Pilley, Danny Tinajero, Walt Hill, Shelly Cannon and Porter Wood for all the help and keeping me sane during the debacle. Love you all.
Thank you to Dave and Tracey Tate for coming out to support us and offer words of wisdom when I was in desperate need of it.
It was honor to finally get to share the platform with JP Carroll and Bryan Doberdruk. You're both good dudes and I had a great time hanging out with ya'll.
On to the next one.