HALF MARATHON WRITE UP

BACKGROUND

This is the soundtrack of my life

As I wrote earlier in my strongman comp write-up, I’d been plagued by boredom and apathy during my most recent bout of training, and was losing the spark from strongman.  Somewhere in the midst of all of that I had the bright idea to run my first half-marathon.  My wife is a distance runner, having run something like 26 half marathons and 2 fulls, and having been around her during all this time, I had absorbed a lot of distance running through osmosis but never really participated.  Slowly, it worked its way into me, and eventually I found myself wanting to do a half marathon of my own.  In truth, the seed got planted about 2 years ago, when she ran a race in the middle of a snowstorm on a mountain in Montana, because, in truth, that looked awesome and something right up my alley, but logistics prevented me from being able to participate until this point.

And as I mentioned: I was still training for a strongman competition while also training for my half marathon.  I’m very good at making bad decisions.  But it also meant that my running training was pretty limited.  I settled on running twice a week on top of lifting 4 times a week and an events day 1 day a week.  This shook out to needing to have one 2 a day per week, which ended up being on my press day on Monday.  I’d run in the AM and lift right after lunch.  I’d then squat on Tues, Bench on Wed, do a long run on Thurs, day off on Friday, Deadlift on Sat and events on Sun.  This was, of course, on an ideal week.  Life occasionally gets in the way, such as working the night shift 3 weeks in a row at one point during the training.  I had a lot of time during the day to train, but since I wanted to walk my kid to school and pick them up, things got compromised.  In addition, I know I’m not the first strongman to run half marathons, and that there were most likely better plans out there, but I’m having more fun doing things the way I want to do them versus the “best” way to do them.

Of my 2 runs, I’d do a 6.55 mile run on Monday.  Math whizzes will note that this is half the distance of a half marathon, or a quarter marathon.  This initially started because I wanted to see if I could even do that, because there very well was a possibility I bit off more than I could chew.  Prior to starting this endeavor, the furthest I had run in about 10 years was 4.5 miles, and that was the week before I started the training process, going out with the Mrs on a day when we both had the day off.  It’s something that re-lit the spark to try for the half marathon.  About 17 years ago I was running 8 miles a day, every day, and in the summer I bumped it up to 16…but again, that was 17 years ago…and 50lbs ago. 

Bit of a difference

After the success of that 6.55 mile run, I wanted to see what I could really push for on distance.  I set my first long distance run for 8 miles: my previous max distance.  Having experienced success with that, I went to 9 the next week, then 10, then went back down to 8, as it was the week of my strongman competition and I did not want to go too stupidly far, and then back to 6.55 the week of the race.  I was told that, if I could run 10, I could finish the race, so I was going to put that theory to the test.

I picked a pace of 6.3 mph to start, which was a 9:30 mile.  I’ve run faster miles before (to include recently, during Murph, while wearing a weighted vest), but I needed a comfortable pace that would allow me to get in the miles without dying.  Each week, for the 6.55 mile run, I’d up the pace by .1 mph, while the distance runs remained 6.3.  In addition, I had the treadmill incline set to 1 until my very last run, at which point, I set it to 2.  My wife’s treadmill is naturally at an incline, so this meant I was running up a pretty decent incline in training.  And yes: aside from the initial 4.5 mile run and 1 run on a weekend, all of my training was on a treadmill.  With me missing 20% of my meniscus in my left knee, the treadmill cuts out a lot of pain. 

GOALS

Yeah that about sums it up

Lots of folks asked me if I had a time goal for this, and I did not.  My goals were simple: I wanted to never stop running, I wanted to take no water breaks, and I wanted to keep up with my wife the whole time.  This was ultimately a way to spend time together, and it did me no good if I couldn’t keep up.

RACE DAY

We all draw inspiration from somewhere...

15 days after taking 4^th out of 10 in a strongman competition while weighing in 15lbs under the weight limit, I stepped up to the starting line of my first half marathon, with my wife beside me.  It was a brisk 40 degrees and I made a spectacle of myself by being the only person in shorts and a t-shirt (technically an underarmor style compression shirt), but I would rather be cold at the start and breathe easy during the run than warm at the start and fading from heat during the run.  I stole a page from David Goggins playbook and wore a knit cap and some gloves, to keep my ears and fingers warm.  I also made sure to fuel up with a zero carb Rockstar, 2 poptarts and a quest bar.  You know: the good stuff.

My wife asked what I needed from her, and I laid it out that I needed her to keep pace.  I knew that my first instinct would be to sprint out the gate and then spend the whole race dying.  I don’t do well with other runners in front of me, and I always want to overtake them to get them out of my field of view.  She did awesome, as our first mile was a 9:40, and it felt very sustainable.  Apparently, we moved much faster after that first mile based off my wife’s watch.

My wife could tell I was having trouble finding my rhythm for about the first 2.5 miles, and was adjusting her speed to help me maintain my pacing.  She wasn’t wrong too: within the first 2 miles I was already wondering if I had made a mistake.  I felt very good physically, but the mental weight of having to run for so long was intimidating.  I’ve done a lot of hard workouts, but I’ve never flat out moved for 2 hours nonstop before.  Just a new kind of suck.

Rest assured: it can always be worse

Once mile 3 hit, I seemed to be in a better place.  The view was great, we were running by a lake, there was a nice breeze, and we were away from the crowd.  I was able to take in the sights and experience what I was experiencing.  I also could be more aware of how I was running.  The treadmill taught me how to lengthen my stride, and my wife kept giving me quick pointers, like keeping my head up on the uphill portions, letting gravity carry me on the downhill, keeping my arms loose, etc.  She was basically a quick reference running encyclopedia, and incredibly helpful for a first timer.

From here, it was a pretty enjoyable experience, at least as enjoyable as running can be.  I settled into a good groove of fast enough movement while still being sustainable as far as the heart and lungs go.  I had to contend with my right foot up to my knee going numb and then coming back constantly.   I imagine my shoes burned through their padding and my thudding stride wasn’t helping.  But even that was just a minor annoyance.  My wife and I seemed to be pacing off each other at this point, where sometimes I’d catch up to her and sometimes she’d catch up to me.  She’d grab water at the stations and drink it on the move and I’d slow down a touch so she had a chance to drink.

Once I hit the 10 mile mark, I had reached uncharted waters.  I had literally never run further than that in my life.  I said out loud “alright, almost there”, and my wife offered a sound that I’m pretty sure was laughing at my naivety.  She was right too, because it’s amazing how goddamn far those miles after the 10 mark are compared to the rest.  10 to 11 wasn’t awful, but 11 to 12 felt like forever.  I never experienced the infamous “wall”, but I definitely stopped having a good time at one point.  At the 12 mile point, I started grunting and growling a lot, trying to get the pain out of my body.  I was experiencing muscle cramps in my quads, which was a new one for me.  I’m sure my lack of water was at play there, but I made my choices.

We ended up crossing the finish line at 2:00:36.  I was honestly very impressed by that.  With the pacing I had set, I was anticipating a 2:10:00 finish, but somewhere along the line we had apparently picked up speed.  I never asked my wife how fast we were running because I didn’t want the mind-screw that came with it and I knew my stupid competitive side would come out at one point.  I just wanted to experience this run.  That said, I think we had a sub 2 in us that day if we set out with that goal.  A little frustrating in that we actually passed the 2 hour finish pacelead, but apparently he’s like one of those taxis with a “not in service” sign up, because he was apparently done pacing at the time we passed him.  But a minor inconvenience really.  We were ecstatic with the finish.

TAKEAWAYS AND LESSONS LEARNED

The big thing here is the value of General Physical Preparedness (GPP).  So many folks in lifting just plain don’t get what this is, but it’s your ability to perform when the need arises, irrespective of what that need may be.  I may compete in strongman, sure, but I keep myself fit across a bunch of different domains, and it meant that, when the time came to prep for the half, I didn’t need to spend much time focusing that general fitness toward a specific task.  And I’m not saying this as though I crushed a half marathon and set a record, but considering people need a 9 week plan with 3 running workouts a week to get from the couch to running a 5k, I think that I could go over 4 times that distance training in fewer weeks with less workouts is saying SOMETHING.

I also got to continually appreciate the value of nutrition as it relates to recovery.  And as much as I would love to say I ate super clean this whole time and it was all chicken breasts and salads, that just wasn’t reality.  I still kept carbs on the lower side for my day to day meals, but on my long run days it was common for me to hit up Taco Bell and get the $5 Nacho Box just to mainline calories and carbs.  Having to focus on getting bigger AND stronger AND better at running meant that overrecovery was better than underrecovery, and I put on about 7lbs in the process, some of it muscle, some of it fat.  But hey, guess what: that means you CAN get bigger and stronger while running.  But those of you that want to use running to lose weight are crazy.  You need to recover from running, and that means eating MORE.  If you want to lose weight, eat less and dial back the activity, because you’re hurting without those calories.

Good socks go a long way.  I was wearing some cheapo cotton socks and got some bad hotspots in my first run.  My wife immediately identified the issue and found me some decent running socks.  Went a long way toward letting me continue in my training.  Similar experience too with cheap t-shirts and nipple chafe.  It’s why I wore underarmor on race day.

Pain tolerance is a skill that translates across disciplines, and can compensate for a lack of ability as it relates to endurance activities.

Having a good running partner is HUGE on race day, especially if you’ve been primarily relying on a treadmill.  There’s no way I woulda had the results I had without it.  I got pushed when I needed to, and I held back when I needed to hold back.

THE FUTURE

Considering everyone already thinks I'm an Ironman when I say I'm a strongman...

I genuinely have no idea if I’m going to run another one of these.  It will always depend on how my schedule is looking.  I have a strongman competition coming up in April, and at some point I also want to run the Deep Water Badass program, neither of which is conducive toward distance running, and though I proved that you CAN accomplish both at the same time, it’s also true that dedicating yourself to one or the other will make you better compared to splitting your attention.  Still, like everything, this was an experience, I recommend everyone have it, at least once. 

    

ALWAYS PICK CHAOTIC: CHOOSING YOUR ALIGNMENT AND THE CURIOUS CASE OF LARRY SIZEMORE

Yet again we dive into the nerddom of Dungeons and Dragons to discuss the exciting world of alignment.  For my uncultured readers, “alignment” in DnD is a brief overview of how your character behaves, and is divided across 2 axis: good or evil, and lawful or chaotic.  The first is rather explanatory: is your character good, evil, or neutral (moral relativity not being a valid argument), whereas the latter is about how inclined your character is to observe law, order, and discipline.  I’ve already spoken about the virtue of evil in previous blogposts, but today I discuss the value of chaos, and specifically illustrate it with one of my favorite TV series: Burn Notice.  And within that series, one of my favorite characters in all television history: Larry Sizemore.

Seriously: if you're a fan of psychos in cinema, get to know this man

I realize I’m shifting nerd paradigms for a second here, but stay with me: we’ve moved from DnD to campy spy action/dramas.  Burn Notice was a fantastic series from 2008-2013 that featured the adventures of a “burned” spy named Michael Westen (“burned’ in this case referring to having his cover blown, rather than actually immolated).  In his quest to find out who burned him, Michael runs across several unsavory characters, and the two representing the opposite ends of lawfulness and chaos are Tyler Brennan for the former and Larry Sizemore for the latter.  (This synopsis is already getting crazy long, but the payoff is worth it for this one scene, so stay with me).

Brennan represents lawfulness because he is more the “mastermind” type of malcontent.  He plots, plans, schemes, and always has backups to his backups.  He’s never caught off guard, and has leverage on everyone, meaning he never has to get his hands dirty and can rely on others that he has manipulated to do his dirty work.  Larry, on the other hand, is a psychopath that moonlights as a mercenary, taking high paying jobs for risky work that usually ends up with a significantly higher bodycount than necessary.  Brennan takes to hiring Larry to supervise Michael on a mission, having exploited Michael to action by means of threatening to release damning evidence to Micahel’s current employer if he does not comply (an audio-file of Michael selling out his employer).  This evidence is rigged to be delivered to Michael’s employer at 5:00am every day UNLESS Brennan specifically denies it’s transmission, thus insuring that Brennan CANNOT be killed, or else all manner of disaster were to unfold.  Like I said, it’s complicated, but the point remains: Brennan had everything figured out, until this scene (at 36 minutes and 9 seconds in)

https://youtu.be/ZvzBG6boTNM?t=2168 

Once again, for my readers that cannot watch the video, here is the relevant dialogue.  Upon celebrating the victory of Michael’s first of (supposedly) many missions while being manipulated by Brennan, Larry pulls a gun on Michael, stands next to Brennan and relays the following dialogue

“You know, the interesting thing about a biometric lock”-Larry stabs Brennan

 “You son of a bitch!”-Brennan 

“Is that the owner can still open it after he’s dead.”-Larry 

“You know what your problem is Brennan?  Other than this knife in your chest?  Is that you are so busy thinking 10 moves ahead, you don’t see the move that’s right in front of you.  I knew, Michael would take care of all the hard stuff and leave me to focus on fun”-Larry 

“You didn’t beat me... Michael”-Brennan 

“No: I did.”-Larry

 “Sorry kid.  I revised your plan.”-Larry to Michael 

“Larry, what are you doing?  Now there’s nothing stopping Vaughn (Michael’s current employer) from coming after me!”-Michael 

“I was counting on that: you’re locked in now!  You NEED me to survive.”-Larry

I absolutely LOVE when these scenes happen.  If you watched the schlock that is “Under Siege 2”, you saw something similar unfold when Steven Segal shot the villain after the latter declared he was invincible.  There’s something amazingly cathartic when the smug villain who considers himself untouchable simply because they devised severe consequences should they expire encounters a lunatic with zero regard for consequences.  The lesson is simple: an alive man who has to contend with future consequences has a significantly higher chance of survival than a dead man.  No one can make themselves passively invisible: it’s a matter of being willing to take the chance and seize the initiative when the moment strikes.  And the person who has the greatest chance of seizing the initiative IS the chaotic one: the one that does not let rules, boundaries, convention or consequences intervene when the moment is right.  The one that acts: not thinks.

In training, these moments for chaos are abundant, and it’s up to us to recognize when they arrive and to jump on them before they go away.  And furthermore, observe what happens upon the death of Brennan: the world did not end, the day continued on, and now the plan needs to change.  This is what people fail to realize when they make up their own hostage situations.  People make up their own Tyler Brennan’s and say “I can’t POSSIBLY take that action, because if I do, I’ll get injured.”  Know what happens when you get injured?  It’s almost EXACTLY like the scene form Burn Notice: it happens, you stand around pissed off about the situation…and then you move on.  The world does not end, and meanwhile, THAT which was holding you hostage is now dead.  The injury has happened, and now the threat is dead and you can just move on, alter the plan, and continue LIVING.  You survived: the villain did not.

Granted sometimes death is only the first step of villainy 

Meanwhile, so many endeavor to be like Tyler Brennan in their training, failing to realize that they are setting themselves up to get stabbed by their own Larry Sizemore.  They’re so busy thinking 10 moves ahead they don’t see the move right in front of their face.  They want to plan their training cycles YEARS in advance, not taking into account things like potential injuries, life events, unavailability of the right amount of food, competition opportunities, etc.  They refuse to auto-regulate, taking advantage of the good days and backing down on the bad ones.  They refuse to experiment and find out if something new and possibly dangerous could have a high payout.  They refuse to get strong at bizarre angles with weird movements, in doing so setting themselves up to be victims when chaos arrives and they are unprepared to match it with equal parts chaos.  They just want to sit back and smugly smile as the mastermind, picturing themselves as the puppetmaster and not realizing that their undoing will be from someone or something that they consider “beneath” them.     

Pick chaotic.  Chaotic can always be lawful when needed.  Choosing to be lawful when you’re chaotic is being chaotic TO being chaotic.  It fits.  But lawful always has to be lawful.  Being lawful to lawful is being lawful, while being chaotic is being chaotic to being lawful.  Lawful is limiting, it’s restrictive and ultimately, it’s fatal.  It is choosing to be dead, because all your choices have already been made now and you’re just watching them unfold.  Be chaotic, be alive, be strong, and be ready to take the move that’s right in front of you.

 

STRONGMAN COMPETITION WRITE UP: STRENGTH GAMES @ THE BAR

BACKGROUND

I last competed in Jul of 2018.  I ended up taking a long break due to moving/starting a new job and just needing to get settled.  Also, in truth, I was getting burnt out on the sport.  Signing up for this comp, I was still feeling burnt out, but with my new move I finally had a competition only 2 hours away from me vs my traditional 6, so I felt like I needed to do it.

Plus, it had a Conan's Wheel in it, which was part of my strongman bucket list.

TRAINING/NUTRITION

I need to point out this isn't a meme: I ate a LOT of the $5 nacho box with the half-marathon prep

As part of my burnout, I'm at the point in my life where I don't really plan to train for competitions anymore.  I want to just train the way I'm training and make the competitions fit.  In turn, I stuck with my traditional 4 days of lifting and 1 day of conditioning split.  Broke out to a press day, squat day, bench day and deadlift day. 

Press day was heavily based on 5/3/1, with supplemental work including axle strict press and behind the neck barbell press as part of a 4 move giant set.  Only push pressing I did was a backoff set after my topset of strict pressing. 

Squat day was rotating between 3 squats (buffalo bar, SSB and SSB front squat) as part of a giant set that included stone of steel lap and extension and reverse hypers.

Bench day was the Deep Water bench program. 

Deadlift day was Westside style Max Effort rotating between 4 movements chased by a giant set of deficit axle deadstop deadlifts (using a 3 week ROM progression cycle), reverse hypers and alternating between SSB front squats and buffalo bar squats. 

Conditioning was farmer's walks with a turn (driveway required it due to slope/hill) and sandbag medley.  This was the first time I had touched farmer’s handles since about 2015 (minus using them for shrugs), and it showed.

During my training, I observed pain in the left bicep.  I attribute it to the stone and sandbag primarily, along with curls done during the press workout.  I also did VERY little practice with the continental, working up to 256lbs for a single on my conditioning days and doing a single set of whatever my topset weight was on my press day.  Since the comp was clean and press away on the axle, I didn't want to waste a lot of energy on it.

On top of all of this, I decided to start training for a half-marathon (scheduled for 2 weeks after the comp) about a month out from the competition, so I added about 16 weekly miles of running onto my training.  And new job had me working nights for 3 weeks solid, so was averaging about 5 hours of broken sleep a day.  I’m pretty good at making bad decisions.

This was my first time competing in the USS, which meant competing in the 220 weight class.  I knew I was coming in significantly underweight, so I quit weighing myself and just ate to recover from training. By the end of my training cycle, I had put on about 6-7lbs of bodyweight.

COMPETITION

I also made sure to wear my sweet "Bloodsport" shirt

Drove a little over 2 hours and weighed in at 204.8 wearing full sweats and shoes with wallet, keys and phone in pocket.  I feel like when I’m this much under the weight class I should just be allowed to take video of myself weighing in at a home scale and send it in, haha.

Did my traditional warm-up of 2 reps with a light implement before deciding this was stupid and sitting with the family until the comp started.  My left bicep was hurting from the light continental I did, but it seemed that, in training, the first warm-up was the most painful, and after that things got better.

FIRST EVENT: AXLE CLEAN AND PRESS AWAY 240lbs

In a first for me, I never touched comp weight leading up to this event.  Just didn’t fit my training schedule.  Heaviest I had used was 220lbs.  My biggest concern was that the continental was going to drain all of my energy and I’d have nothing left on the press.  The mark to beat was 10 reps, set by a dude that straight up cleaned the axle and wore no belt while he effortlessly jerked 10 reps.  There was a 9 and an 8 after that, and then a lotta 0s and a 4. 

Surprisingly, the continental wasn’t terrible.  It certainly looked ugly, since I never got great at the final turn over and tend to have to limbo under the axle, but part of that is because I only use double overhand on the continental because 1: I’m a big goon and trying to switch my hands mid pull sounds absurd and 2: I figure it’ll cut down on bicep rupture opportunities.

Once I got it to the chest, I had to pause for a few seconds to let all the stars go away.  This would turn out to become a mainstay in the competition, as I kept wanting to pass out on several events.  I attribute part of that to being out of competition shape, but maybe the half-marathon training is showing in there too with some fatigue.

Once that was out of the way, I went on the hammer out 6 of the ugliest reps in the competition.  I got warned on the first rep to wait for the down command before I went down, but was given the rep.  Judging was consistently lax that day, which I think is the way to go.  It’s not nationals: we’re here to have fun.  I felt like I heard “down” before going on the downward, but either way it worked.  Rep 5 felt like it may have been the end, but I still had enough juice for 6.  I honestly think the behind the neck presses went a long way on this, because I kept saving reps during the lockout portion by grinding them back to the correct path.  Once 6 was done though, I was done.  Gave 7 a quick attempt but knew it wasn’t there before it even left the rack position.  6 reps got me 4^th place, which I was happy with.

SECOND EVENT: BARBELL DEADLIFT FOR REPS 455LBS

At the rules meeting, they announced this would be a touch and go event, and my eyes lit up like it was Christmas.  That having been said, I didn’t actually TRAIN touch and go at all leading up to this event, which was some sort of bizzaro-world scenario, as typically I train touch and go leading up to deadstop events.  I got to go second to last on this one, and the mark to beat was 20 reps set by a dude with a 900+lb pull.

I’ve pulled 405 for 23 reps and 495 for 15 reps touch and go before, but the extra variable in a competition is having to wait for the down command, which tends to throw off my rhythm and breathing compared to solo.  Nothing about this felt terribly good, but I chugged away on it.  The next highest to beat was 15, and when I hit 16 I heard how much time was left and did the quick calculation on the likelihood of me grinding out 4 more reps in that time.  Realizing it was not viable, I cut it and saved my energy.  It was the right call, as the guy after me did not beat 16, so I secured a second place finish in the event, which put me in second overall in the comp at that point.  About the only thing I think I coulda done better is really slam the hell out of the bar to get some bounce, but it’s not something I’ve ever trained and didn’t wanna mess with my pattern at that point.

A quick thing I want to highlight from the video, is something I learned from Clint Darden: I get asked “competitor ready” and I shake my head.  Primarily because: I wasn’t ready.  I see a lot of competitors not do anything with the question, but it’s YOUR opportunity to get set-up.  Don’t get rushed.

THIRD EVENT: 50’ FARMERS WALK (240LBS)/50’ SANDBAG CARRY (220LBS)

Once again: never used comp weight on the farmer’s here, but WAS using the same handles I had used in training, so that was cool.  That said, I was shocked at how heavy it felt.  It started to dawn on me at this point that this competition was about as lower back/posterior chain intensive as it could get, and things that would normally be ok in isolation were soon starting to show their difficulty.  I biffed the initial pick because I was trying to pick and run at the same time, but once I realized how heavy the weight was going to feel in my hands I settled on getting the pick and then waddling it to the finish line.  All that time I spent training with a turn paid off, because I had JUST enough grip strength to make it in one go.  If you look close on the video, you can actually see that the right farmer’s handle is in my finger tips as I cross the finish-line.  The judge asked “do you have any skin left on your hands?” and I replied “Yeah, but I sold off the rest of my soul”.  He chuckled.

Stripped the belt and sprinted to the bag to regain some time.  Whereas I never trained comp weight on the farmer’s, the only sandbag I have is over 250lbs, so that’s what I trained on.  Most likely helped, because the 220 bag didn’t feel awful.  Coulda picked it up quicker, but not by much.  Got it to the end and pulled my hands off quick for a 36 second finish, which secured 4^th place and had me moved to 4^th overall in the standings.  The next closest time was 9 seconds ahead of me, which made me happy with how I trained for this, as I don’t think any amount of prep woulda closed that gap.

FOURTH EVENT: CONAN’S WHEEL 660lbs

This was what drew me to the comp, so I was excited.  That said, I did exactly zero prep for it.  I really just wanted to see what it was all about.  I picked up the empty implement twice, and both times felt my back go out on me.  This was when I realized just how much this comp was beating up my back, and started feeling my age.  Went with the soft belt under the Inzer belt for a little extra support.  In retrospect, I had 3 belts available, and it mighta actually been the smart move to wear them all.  I’ve seen stuff like that before on super heavy yokes. 

2.5 full revolutions was the mark to beat, and it was set by the dude I needed to beat if I wanted to get back into placing position.  I figured “no problem: just gotta deal with the pain, I’m good at that”. 

Nope!  There’s actually more to the Conan’s walk than just pain tolerance: you need to be strong too, haha.  Picking it up it was ridiculously heavy, and it got no better with each step.  Soon 2.5 revolutions went out the window and I was just battling for 1.  I made it with 8 extra feet before the body just shut down.  I was honestly shocked and thought I’d have more in me, but the day was just hammering me.  I ended up tying for 4^th in the event with someone who went the exact same distance, keeping my 4^th place finish.

FINAL EVENT: ATLAS STONE (275lbs) OVER 52” BAR

I was feeling pretty good for this event.  I had been training with a stone of steel and no tacky in a sweaty garage, so I figured a concrete stone with tacky would be a cakewalk.  I was half correct.  I had zero issues on the pick, which was awesome, but I biffed the load.  I’ve learned my lesson: no more competition grade spider tacky.  It’s a great product, but that’s the problem: it’s WAY too sticky, and, in turn, it’s impossible for me to get set up well.  Once the stone is in my lap, I wanna get a feel for the best angle to load it, but I instead get glued to the stone during the feeling out process and just have to go with it.  I watched the video and my hands are way too low to get a good load on.

Which then turns into the next fun part of the day: this was the closest I ever came to blacking out in my life.  I lapped the stone, went for the load, got it to the cross bar, went to push…and suddenly I wanted to take a nap.  I had the wherewithal to recognize what was going on, and suddenly went into triage mode, where the goal was to not let the stone fall on my body vs getting the stone over the bar.  I went right and left with it before I finally regained full faculties and was able to focus on pushing the stone again.  Once I finally got it over, my back spasmed HARD, which is the fish dance you see on video.  What’s funny is THAT is when people thought I was going to pass out, but at that point I was fully aware.  Thinking through it, what I imagine happened is that my body went limp when I was about to pass out, which meant losing my brace and compromising my back, and once the load was off the body and over the bar it had it’s reaction.  I now had 1 rep in, and so far the mark to beat was 2, but at this point I knew I was buried in 4^th and that it would take a miracle to change that.  I gave the second rep an attempt, but once I met resistance I shut it down.  I’ve experienced that sensation in my back before, and knew it could go 1 of 2 ways, so I played it conservative.

RESULTS & WAY FORWARD

Maybe in my future...

Came in 4^th of 11 competitors.  I’m the king of 4^th place, haha.  But given all the variables at play, I’m content with it.  And, more importantly, I discovered I still love this sport, even if I don’t care to train specifically for it.

On 4 Apr, I’m doing the “Brawn and Brews” (or is it Brews and Brawn) comp in Kansas City, which I’m excited for.  Keg press medley up to 275lbs, Car Deadlift, Hus Stone and Stone over 48” bar.  I wanna try to gain some quality weight between now and then, as I’m in a weird “fluffy yet lean” stage right now and I might as well ride that out.  Once that’s done, I’ll be training for Murph again, which will let me drop some excess chub.  However, the immediate thing now is a half-marathon in 2 weeks, so the lifting will go into a bit more of a maintenance phase until that’s done.  I actually am anticipating some sort of super-compensation effect once I’m no longer doing 16 miles of running, and I may be able to use that training time to do more strongman stuff or muscle building. 

Also, apparently it’s time to get a new camera.  Looks like it died on the Conan’s Wheel.