We did it! Strongman Corp Masters Nationals 2018 is complete!

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Whew! I’m a couple of days behind my updates- Day 1 recap was easy to write because I was still high from competition energy, but Day 2 recap is taking a while. There is so much to process: So many emotions, so much happening in my body, and so much in my psychic life. More on all that will come in a later post.

Day 2 started with Rage Butterfly and I going head-to-head on Farmer’s Carry. 160# in each hand for 60 feet for time. The announcer made a point to say that we were carrying, in each hand, more than we actually weigh. Pretty cool.

I’m not sure my time on that carry, but it felt good, and I felt like I could go for much longer than 60′. Prior to the event, I was concerned about my grip, but those 4×8 deadlifts with 80′ carry at 135# in training really helped me get a sense for the pick off the ground and how to hold on even when my arms are beat to shit. Video of the event coming soon!

The second event of Day 2 was stone over bar. We used a “Stone of Steel” aka “Bartos Stone” which is made of metal rather than the traditional concrete. Metal is much more slippery than the concrete, and some athletes couldn’t get much of a grip on the stone even though they were strong enough to do the lift if only they could have picked it up! I’d only ever practiced with a concrete stone, and just two weeks prior even figured out how to get the stone over the bar without actually using the bar as leverage- something we were not allowed to do. Having only ever lifted the 130# stone once, to get two in 60 seconds was a huge record for me. I finally feel like my body KNOWS how to do stone over bar now. It’s all in the extension. I’m pretty thrilled about that success!

Though I didn’t win a trip to the Arnolds, I’m stoked that my training partner Rage Butterfly fought her ass off for a well-deserved win at this competition. She has come a long way in her training, and her fierce determination and competitive energy is something inspiring to witness. I couldn’t have asked for a better competitor. She pushed me hard and makes me want to do so much more! I’m coming for you, RB!! (Also, let’s plan our post- event rosé party, call me.)

I’ve got so much to say about how inspired and motivated I am after this event to do all the things I’ve ever been scared of. I faced some of my most intense anxiety and fears this weekend and was rewarded by wonderful people, great fun, and I proved to myself that when I put in the work, dedication, and focus, I can do great things.

NONE of this would have been possible without some very important people in my life. My partner and the love of my life- you have patiently supported me through all of this, even when the impact on you and our life together has been intense. Thank you for being there for me always- I could not have found the courage to pursue this adventure without your encouragement, patience, and enthusiasm. My brother- you drove all the way out to Vegas to cheer me on, and brought so much love with you. Thanks for being my best friend and my sibling! How lucky are we! My coach- Your programming, encouragement, and advice has helped me fight through my own demons and come out the other side with a personal victory that I have always known I’ve wanted but only now have been able to conceive of. My analyst- you’ll never read this, but without you I don’t even know if I’d be alive right now, let alone not destroying myself bit by bit, wasting my energy and untapped abundance. And all my friends and family who are tired as fuck of listening to me whine about how heavy things are or how hungry I am or how busy I feel or bla bla bla. I have learned something about what I really have inside me and I’m aiming to make better choices about how I embrace my power and privilege, and how I share love and connection with people.

And finally, RAGE BUTTERFLY you are the best training partner I could ask for! I’m looking forward to many more adventures in strength together.

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Day 1 Recap!

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Rage Butterfly and I successfully completed day one of our two-day Masters competition. The strongest Masters in the country, the announcer reminded us!

Our first event was Axle clean and press at 112#. RB got two points and I came away with a big fat zero. My cleans looked and felt great, better than in training, but my abdominal bracing and overhead strength were not on point at the critical moment.

The next event was yoke, which is by far my favorite. 350# for a 60′ carry for time. I don’t know my score but it was pretty fast for me! I’ve got a video to upload later but for now here’s a couple of pictures of us waiting to begin.

The final event was axle deadlift. I’ve never lifted more than 265# on the axle at the gym, so the 300# would definitely have been a huge PR for me. Alas, it inched up to mid-shin and didn’t budge. I think I was too far forward! Something to aim for in training, I’m so damn close. RB got 3 reps in the 60s time span. Here’s a picture of me warming up:

Hey though… now that I think about it. This warmup was 280#. So… PR FOR MEEE!!!! 🎉

All in all it was a fun and exciting day. The expo where we’re competing is massive- as are the people in it! I’ve never felt so tiny in my life. I guess this is actually a Mr Olympia expo??? My brother got a great picture of some person huffing a brightly colored liquid that gives you special powers or something. And we saw lots of well-oiled and spray tanned bodies. Body modification through weightlifting, supplements (legal or not) and diet is such a complex and varied culture. We were exposed to so many different ways of being in one’s body here! Some people are super strong and some are precisely sculpted. I definitely feel like I want more tattoos after today. But probably not new boobs. I’m ok with what I’ve got in that department for now.

I’m definitely feeling hungry for that 300 deadlift….. and I’m so close to that 112 axle!!!!

Stay tuned for Day 2 tomorrow…! Farmer’s carry and Stone of Steel…

Weigh in complete! Next phase: food and hydration

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Rage Butterfly and I weighed in this morning well within our weight class and we are RAMPING UP with pedialyte and allll the carbbbs we could get our hands on. I have decimated a bag of cheese flavored corn chips and a box of gluten free oreos, along with a gallon of pedialyte.

I’ve gone from miserable to reclaiming my mind and body. I’m so relieved to feel the effects of FOOD. BEAUTIFUL FOOD. I hope it all catches up with me in time to power me for tomorrow’s Titanic events!

This is RB and TB waiting to hit the scale. This is what miserable looks like. We are beyond the point of caring and that’s probably why we’re so pleasant looking. It takes energy to express anything other than blah vanilla plain. We didn’t have much of that. Now that we’re eating well again, we’re ready to harness the RAGE! Activists take note, we must fuel the revolution with food and water!

At the airport… Meet Week is here!

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Just popping in to leave you all a quick note as I wait to board the plane to Vegas!

The nerves started kicking in this week and brought with them intense dreams, chest-flitters, and tummy-turnovers. I’m excited and nervous about making weight, rehydrating, and then the actual meet itself! Piled on top of that, I started classes again today for my doctorate program, which was also significant in its own way.

Summer is over, but something else is just beginning…

Rage Butterfly is on her way to the gate, so I’ll pause for now and keep updating you as we get closer to the meet!

Honoring some things I chose not to do

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My training partner and I made a huge commitment this summer to train and enter a competitive weight class for our first-ever competitive Strongman contest. Speaking for myself here, that choice to do meant that there are several things this summer I chose not to do.

I didn’t say no to things because I didn’t want them. Actually, for the most part, most things I’ve said no to are because they didn’t fit with the choice to be an athlete in the way I’m attempting to be right now. This confuses me a little. I can understand more easily the feeling of saying no because I don’t want something, which can often be hard for people like me who are socialized as women. We tend to say yes just to keep the peace, because sometimes our lives and livelihoods depend on our likability.

But saying no because in other circumstances I would say yes, but I can’t right now; or saying no even when I would like that thing very much, but I don’t have the capacity to take on more right now- these are all difficult choices for me to make. I’m someone who tends to take on a LOT and loves doing that, mostly because I have so many cups that there is almost always room to fill one more. But really being conscientious of my limits and my desire to have free time for rest and recovery and play is new for me. I think training has helped encourage me to find more of a balance in what I say yes to and what I say no to.

But there is still something lost in the saying no. I’ve said no to several parties, opportunities for work and speaking gigs and having my writing more visible. I’ve said no to long weekends, beach days, cold beers, sleeping in, staying up late, and cooking some amazing recipes. I’ve said no to new restaurants, baseball games, and walks in the park with friends.

These are all things I want. And I want to take a moment to recognize that these are not things I will say no to forever. Just for now.

Because I want to say yes to other things. A clean home, good food in the refrigerator, quality time with my sweetie and my pup and cat, getting strong and competitive for the contest, giving good quality therapeutic care to my patients, cultivating my spirituality, harvesting herbs, berries, and vegetables from my garden, going for hikes with my dog, and giving myself lots of room to let what’s important emerge. When I say no to something I wish I could do, I am reminded that it’s okay to want things, and I feel grateful for knowing more deeply what it is I want.

I remember, too, that this is temporary. I will soon be saying no to competitive training, at least for a few months while in maintenance mode. It’s also helped boost my creativity by having to say no and then finding another creative way to get a similar kind of experience. I said no to buying a painting recently because I don’t have the funds to purchase art right now- but I did have enough money to buy a couple of canvases and paints, and make my own art. Not only was it a wonderful intuitive process to create abstract art, but it boosted my creative confidence. If I have to say no to something, it means I am doing something else I really want. And that the want of the other does not have to hold any kind of moral weight. It is something I will get to in time, if I still desire it.

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my first painting in YEARS. as long as I don’t try to paint anything specific, it turns out ok!

Ten days out…

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I’m popping in here, ten days from contest, to give you a little run-down of what’s been happening during my looooonnggg radio silence.

Q: Why haven’t you been blogging, Tenacious Bee?

A: Well, to be quite honest, since I’ve been on a weight cut my mind has been preoccupied with survivin’. And because all I would be writing about is my diet. Which would be a waste of internet space as well as brain molecules for you, dear reader. Diets are fucked and they are a way to control the masses and increase capitalist production while decreasing self-worth.

Q: Well what else has been going on??

A: Well I’ll tell you!

I’ve been making an effort to let training fold itself into the background of my life. I’m consistent, I show up and put in the work that my program demands, and then I leave for the day and allow it to be what it is. My lifting is a part of who I am, but it’s not my totality. This being my first real competitive Strongman contest, I am going to play a lot of it by ear and by feel. And at this point, I’m about as strong as I’m going to be by September 14.

Instead of allowing myself to be preoccupied with the upcoming event, I’ve been committing to focus on the here and now. I’ve been reveling in my amazing garden that’s bursting at the seams with tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, peppers, raspberries, carrots, onions, shallot, and zucchini. At least three times a week I make a beautiful salad entirely out of garden delights! My favorite is a tomato, shallot, cucumber, basil, mint salad with a squeeze of lime and hefty dose of salt. It’s fresh and crispy and a delight when paired with baked chicken legs that have been marinating in my favorite spices.

Now that it’s September, we’re planning our fall garden and all the anticipation that accompany new ideas and possibilities. On a recent trip to the North Bay, my sweetie and I picked up a bunch of seeds which we’ll put in our seed starter this week. I’m most excited about the giant white kohlrabi and the watermelon radishes we will be inviting into our garden, but I’m also stoked about the various cabbages and beans we’re about to let nature work its magic on.

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Something’s emerging…. potential! Possibility! Hope… Determination… germination 😉

I’ve also managed to work on several papers and presentations in my field of psychology, which is no small thing to be sure. I’ve even read a book- I read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. (Powerful- highly recommended.) And finally, I cleaned out two rooms in my house that I left abandoned and neglected for years. Finally these rooms have purpose, light, and fresh air rather than a shitload of cardboard boxes, old paperwork, mold, and A DEAD FUCKING RAT!!! THAT’S RIGHT I FOUND A DEAD FUCKING RAT that apparently my cat dragged in there probably a few months ago? and left there to decay and rot. No wonder we had a fly problem this year, uuggghhh!!! YUCK.

So, yeah, all this is to say- there is life outside of lifting, but I’m still really happy to be on this adventure. I won’t be sad when it’s over and burgers and booze are back in the picture, but damn if I’m not so grateful for the chance to learn what’s really important to me. Stay tuned for more on that….

4 weeks out!

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Lots of people have been asking me what I think about the contest, now that it’s so close.

My response: “I’m trying not to.”

That’s not entirely true- I am definitely thinking about the contest each time I practice one of the movements in training. I think, What is the 105# log feeling like? Heavy? Manageable? What will 120# feel like? Can I push myself more with this farmer’s carry? Will 160# per hand feel do-able with all the stress of the event upon me? How’s my bracing and breathing under this yoke?

Mostly, my focus right now is cutting weight. I’ve never had to do this for a lifting event before, so it’s all new. There are definitely a bunch of ways to drop pounds, but none of them are particularly wonderful-feeling, especially not while lifting heavy shit and holding down a full-time job and other commitments. At this point, I’m really just trying to go day by day, hour by hour, and that means I’m slowing down a lot of the non-necessities (like this bloggo, sorry y’all) and trying to maximize my chill time.

If I learn anything from this experience of cutting weight, I hope it’s how to maximize my chill time!!

I am getting excited about Vegas, though. I’ve never been, but there’s a restaurant that beloved Anthony Bourdain visited that looks amazing and I’m hoping we all go after our weigh-ins.

In fact, I’m going to make a reservation now! Hashtag MOTIVATION

https://lotusofsiamlv.com/

It’s another thing to look forward to that has nothing to do with how much weight I cut or lift. I need these little markers right now, to help lessen the tension of preparation.

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(Not my diet, but add a pack of Virginia Slims and I’m tempted…)

Back after a short hiatus (Recovery is Queen!)

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Hi, all of you three people who read this blog!

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve blogged regularly and I’m here to explain myself with the following reasons:

  1. It’s actually summer for me. I work full-time year round, and September-June I’m also in school for a doctorate. So these past few weeks I’ve really been soaking up the summer vacation.
  2. I started a calorie deficit two weeks ago and it’s killing me! Not really, but certainly my enthusiasm and motivation is a bit lower than when I’m properly fed. So I mostly conserve my thinking energy for what really matters: My job, my friends, my family.
  3. I got my period this week. This makes me feel even more starving and grouchy, and my recovery is a lot slower than usual.
  4. I spent 30 hours last weekend moving heavy furniture and getting my impromptu creative juices flowing due to a furniture mishap in my office, which needed to be fixed before the start of the work week. That burnt out my body AND my mind, and threw off my training for the week.

That’s kind of what I’m here to talk about today- not the burnout part, you can read last week’s entry for that- but the recovery part.

As an aging athlete (with aforementioned full-time job, academics, and family) who is training for a challenging contest at a calorie deficit, my biggest priority is my recovery. This is all worth nothing if I lose my job and break my body and drain my energy sources and can’t recover. I have to remind myself: THIS IS A HOBBY! IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

So when the Great Furniture Debacle of 2018 happened last weekend, and Monday I couldn’t squat for shit (but definitely peed), I took two additional days off from my training program. That’s right: I had taken Saturday and Sunday off from my program, and then when Monday went down the toilet I packed it in after those heavy squats and took Monday and Tuesday completely off.

When I say “completely off,” I actually mean it. My training partner, Rage Butterfly, spends her off days doing this, I’m not kidding:

I generally go out to [Local Wilderness Park] Thursday late afternoons for a trail run/swim/run, and tomorrow I’m going to throw in some heavy hill carries as well (I’ve got plenty of logs, sandbags, and an nasty bucket o’gravel) during the first run portion. Yes, the second run is wet, it’s good practice for [Spartan] race conditions. Run is under 5 miles.

You know what I did on my day off? I cooked a boatload of food, 20 meals for the week actually, and in between prepping sat around in the garden eating tomatoes off the vine. I did a load of laundry, took a hot Epsom salt bath, and talked with my brother for a couple of hours. My partner and I talked about whether we should paint the walls of the living room to spruce it up, and if so, what color. The biggest adventure was driving to Trader Joe’s with my bedhead still properly intact to pick up some staples I’d missed during the previous day’s grocery run. Later, I watched a couple episodes of a TV show and did some research on the internet for an upcoming vacation. I drank my fish oil and magnesium and was in bed by 10pm.

THAT’S my kind of day off.

Anyway, I have learned over the years that as much as I enjoy pushing my body, I have to really, really rest at least one day per week. No stress, no plans, no obligations, and certainly no physical intensity.

So, back to those two days off last week, Monday and Tuesday: It screwed up my program a little bit, but here is a vid of my squats on Wednesday. These were a do-over from Monday, when I couldn’t make it through the first set of five and my 85% felt like death:

(Thanks to C who is “helping me brace” by cracking me up)

These squats felt like butter. They were not effortless, as you can see from my elbow positioning- it did still feel challenging to keep my chest up and fire my abs. Part of that is because I’ve lost some mass in my abdominal area and now I’m having to re-learn how to brace against my belt (the physics has changed) which throws me off a bit.

But what I’m attempting to demonstrate is that taking time off really DOES work, and it’s so necessary for my body to be reminded that I love it and appreciate all the hard work it does to keep me well-regulated. If I treat my body well it treats me well back. I didn’t used to have this relationship with my body, but I’m so grateful for that now: When I listen, and respond, in time my body can heal. Yes it’s taken me YEARS to have this relationship with my body- I used to feel so chaotic and disconnected from my body- and I am so grateful for the ways our relationship has grown more loving and connected over time.

I was able to finish most of the 6 days of programming this week in 4 days, by adding my accessory exercises throughout the week and limiting my main lifts (my coach said to eliminate one pressing day). I even took Sunday completely off this week (see above). I’m super glad I took these breaks and highly recommend prioritizing recovery for bleeding, old, preoccupied athletes with full-time jobs like myself!

A “less-than-ideal” training situation

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Hey, it’s been a while. Somehow last week I lost a bit of steam when it comes to writing, mostly because I started running a calorie deficit and everything felt like hell. My body is pretty irritated with me, like one might be with a too-rigid parent, for not giving it what it wants when it wants it. But, as one does when all the joy is sucked out of one’s life, my body is complying. I feel sad about making my body bend to my will because I love my body’s unexpected free will, but I have to drop some weight to make it into my qualifying weight class at contest. The calorie deficit means that even last week’s deload week felt like rotten bananas and old garbage.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again: I DO NOT RECOMMEND being in a calorie deficit while also peaking for strength. Don’t do it. Be better than me.

So then, as if the weakness wasn’t bad enough, this weekend I spent about thirty hours changing my work office around. That meant lugging heavy furniture up and down a flight of fifteen stairs and moving books, bookcases, desks, and tons of paperwork for hours straight. Most of the time I went long spans of time without eating or drinking water. I worked a sixteen hour day on Sunday, including three hours at IKEA. Only one of those hours was spent in line! Someone told me I should call my union rep on myself for forcing myself to work a double with no lunch breaks.

IMG_1609I think that if Buddhists went to hell it would probably be filled with assembling IKEA furniture- it’s an odd combination of meditative and terrible. Buddhists, or maybe engineers. Like, it’s satisfying to see a design take shape, but my poor fingers and back from hunching over and screwing in tiny screws!

So, naturally, come Monday’s programming I was toast. Not only did I not get to sleep until 1:30am and then back awake at 7 to fix more stuff in the office before my work day started, but when I hit my first set of squats below my working weight I felt like I was lifting elephants. I added 20# to that to hit my working weight and I couldn’t even get through the first set. I even peed a little on my last attempt! That is rare for me.

It was also a sign to pack it in. A few things were happening at the same time. One, my body was sore, cramped, and neurodisconnected from itself- I couldn’t “think” of how to fire my glutes or quads, I could hardly feel my abs, and I couldn’t “remember” how to brace (hence the pee, I think). Also, I was at the gym in the evening which is unusual for me. The flow is different, the vibe is different, the people are different, and I felt different. I couldn’t get my grounding.

Plus both Mars and Mercury are retrograding so everything’s a little bananas.

So I picked up my shit and went to the grocery store. Another aftereffect of spending all weekend at the office is that I didn’t get to meal prep so I’m having to do it piece by piece. That meant going to Trader Joe’s on a Monday evening with all the post-work zombies (myself included). As soon as I picked up my heavy grocery bag and headed to the car, my body said NOPE and I knew my heavy lifting was seriously done for the next day or two.

(Don’t worry, I didn’t get injured, just a stubborn NO cried forth from my bones.)

I’m taking the next couple of days off and focusing on stretching and mobility, and will get back on the donkey on Wednesday- it’s peak time for Nationals! Stay tuned!

Searching for meaning in my training

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It’s funny when the same thing comes up again and again, over and over. This time, it was about my growing strength.

The first conversation was with my classmate, to whom I found myself saying “I’m the strongest I’ve ever been.” “Ever?” He said. “Yes, ever. This is the strongest I’ve ever been in my life.” It felt good to say that and mean it.

My body has been ready for this my whole life: To be strong. I have become tired of not being able to carry my own weight, to feel burdened by my body and its history.

The second time it happened came from the other direction. My coach and I were talking about various aspects of training, including the fact that my body is recomposing rather than losing pounds (meaning, the eating plan I’m on has me gaining more muscle and losing more fat, but the pounds are staying about the same). He said, “That’s actually a really good place to be. You’re the strongest you’ve ever been.” “It’s really true,” I said.

My whole life, I’ve felt like my body was capable of being really strong, thick, powerful, and capable. I’ve never been much of a dancer (although in fourth grade I did a school-wide performance where I interpretive danced to a Eurythmics song). I’m not particularly nimble or sproingy by nature. But I am a damn good deadlifter, and can carry five giant bags of groceries all at once. (#TrainingLifeGoalz)

But this training program I’m doing right now, where I’m training for a specific goal rather than just putting in work, does something to me psychologically. It gives me a purpose, a meaning to the work I am putting in. I tell myself it’s about the contest in September, but really I think I just need a purpose outside my immediate situation to help me keep track of the long-game. To stay in the immediate feeling is too much, too overwhelming sometimes. If there is some kind of destination, even though that destination is not the “end”, it helps me keep going when the accessory work gets boring and the lifts get heavy. Having a long view takes the pressure off of having to be good at what I’m doing right now. It reminds me that there is something else I’m lifting for.

Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust concentration camps, expanded on Nietzche’s idea of having our own “why” in life: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” Frankl’s life experience led him to understand that if one can find meaning in their situation, one becomes more prepared to survive it. Witnessing the lives of the people in the concentration camp where he lived, the sickness and the misery, he noted that those who maintained a sense of meaning– be it keeping family and loved ones in mind, or in Frankl’s case, writing a book on scraps of paper that he kept hidden in his bedding– stayed healthier. People need a sense of meaning in order to keep going.

Though I am in no way trying to compare our situations, Frankl’s experience and mind has helped me through many dark times in my life. Training is by no means a “dark time,” but it certainly challenges me to put my all into everything and survive what feels like a momentary potential of death or serious injury. It is a psychological game as much as a physical one, and teaches me to trust my body, trust my coach, trust my history, and trust myself to show up for these moments where the implement feels heavy, scary, and overwhelming. It’s a small laboratory which helps me experiment with how I might handle the more terrible things in life.

We are now in a situation in this country where children are again being stolen from their parents (this happened with impunity to Black people and Indigenous people for centuries here, and it is happening again) and locked away in camps. Hard-won rights are at risk of being lost, and it’s being plainly exposed that those “rights” are built for some but not for all. Like the right to bear arms. Philando Castile was a licensed gun owner and shot in front of his partner and daughter because the officer was racist. This is our country. We can’t pretend it “doesn’t happen here.”

The meaning we find in it all has to come from somewhere. If my body is strong I can be strong for the people who need me. I can think more clearly about my actions and how they support or antagonize my white supremacist indoctrination. I can know more readily where I am located in this system. I can survive my own white fragility and turn my anger to where it needs to go: Toward finding alternative systems, alternative structures, and an end to the way oppression plays out over and over again in this country built on bloodshed, genocide, and terror.

I can carry my own weight when I’m strong, so I can better help carry those whom I have wounded by my structural position over generations as a colonizer. That is my bigger purpose, the long game: It is Audre Lorde’s words, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”

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