I stumbled into Strongman earlier this year by signing up for California’s Strongest Woman, a novice strongman competition in Santa Cruz, on a whim. Well, maybe not a whim– my coach and trainer is a strongman competitor and kicked ass at California Mid-State Fair last summer (and won the contest). So it would be accurate to say I had a little encouragement.

Fast forward to April 14, when I won third place in my weight class in the Master’s division which automatically qualified me to compete in the Strongman Corp’s Master’s Nationals in Las Vegas in September.

My first thought was, “Well, shoot. I guess I’d better get serious about training!”

This blog will chronicle my experiences with all aspects of my training, including several important questions:

What is Strongman? How do people get strong? What’s the difference between exercise and training? What is a competition like? What is it like being a woman in the lifting world? Do politics really belong in sports? Is it even possible to separate them since bodies are historically sites of political and social organization??

Writing is important to me. It’s how I process and make sense of things. With these writings, I aim to explore the experiences of me, a middle-aged gender-flexible person, psychotherapist by trade and psychoanalyst in training, as I embark on my very first Strongman contest preparation. Parallels to life, the universe, and everything will be made. Please enjoy lots of food pictures, squat videos, and musings about envy, greed, power, receptivity, humanity, love, justice, mental health, and community. 

I’m glad to have you with me!

(That’s me, above, at California’s Strongest Woman’s opening event. I got 105# on the log clean and press. At the moment, it’s still my PR.)