This is late, but....Recap of the Capital City Open

Sorry for this being so late, and for not posting anything in 6 months. I've been really busy with school and every time I think about writing something, something comes up. But now, I am going to try and post at least once a week about some topic. Ok, on to the recap.

April 26th was the Capital City Open, a weightlifting meet held in Alexandria, Va. This was my first time ever competing in weightlifting (Olympic lifting). It was an incredible experience that really solidified my desire to continue to train it and set future goals.

Training up to it was pretty intense for me. I was (mostly) following a 4 week meet peaking program from Catalyst Athletics that was based on something Bob Takano had written. I made some slight changes though in the sense that I actually was squatting every day, sometimes to a max, sometimes to just a heavy single up until the week of the meet. I did that after listening to a podcast with John Broz and hearing about the rational of doing that, it sounded like something that interested me and seemed to make sense for the program. In addition, about 2 weeks prior to the meet, I had purchased a pair of wodlifts based on the recommendation from Travis Cooper, one of the best lifters in America. With that I was then able to pr my snatch by 5 kilos the week before the meet. So training was looking and feeling good going into the week of the meet. I was hitting my numbers and feeling better than ever.

The night before the meet I was with Sean Campbell, a friend of mine who was going to coach me at the meet, and we were discussing whether or not I would actually cut down to 94kg since I registered as a 105 since I wasn't planning on cutting when I registered. I did end up cutting down by just cutting with water, wearing lots of layers the night before and morning of to sweat and not really eating at all the day of the meet. Luckily, the meet was running late but we weighed in at the scheduled time, so I instead had 3 hours beforehand instead of 2 to actually eat some food and rehydrate, that was a blessing. I weighed in at 92.7kg (about 204#) which was the lightest I had been in about 8 years which was crazy for me.

Regarding the actual lifting, it was crazy, I was feeling really good warming up for the snatch until I was about 10 minutes out from my first lift and all of a sudden I started getting super nervous and sweating like crazy. Sean actually said it was a good thing that I was starting to get nervous because it meant that I cared. I opened up there at 61kg, a really conservative lift for me and I barely even made that. The bar had actually scraped against my knees and somehow I still got it back overhead. I then started really freaking out for the second attempt (64kg) after barely making the first. I ended up missing it after barely getting the lift off before the clock ran out, I missed it forward and almost hit the head judge. Heading into the 3rd attempt where I took 64 again, Sean finally told me to breathe. I remembered that I needed to do that and I have some breathing techniques which I use to calm down, and I actually felt extremely calm heading into the 3rd attempt where I smoked that 64.

Standing up 64kg after finally being relaxed

After the snatch, I got to calm down and relax and wait before the clean and jerk. Warming up for that, I was feeling really solid and thought I might have a chance to actually PR. Getting into the opener at 81kg, another conservative weight for me, I was really dumb; I smoked the clean but forgot to adjust my grip for the jerk so I ended up pressing that out. I then hit 83 for my second attempt because I knew I just needed to remember to adjust. We then decided to go to 88kg for my 3rd attempt which I again hit pretty easily but was really happy with. 

Pulling on 81kg before missing the jerk

A slo-mo version of my 88 C&J

In the end up I totaled 152kg and went 4/6 which I was happy with for my first meet. I didn't even realize I was enjoying it though until I was sitting watching the rest of the lifters in my session when I could finally relax and all of a sudden it hit me,"Damn that was really fun". That's all I could think at that moment. I can't wait to do more competitions, but right now just more training and having fun with it.