I am now three weeks less a day away from the biggest competition I have been a part of in my ten years of powerlifting. There are 479 athletes registered for this 4 day event. While it isn't my first time competing at Western regionals, this will be my first time competing with two platforms going at the same time and my first really significant competition since herniating a disc in 2017. Actually, there will still be a lot of firsts for me, even though I am an experienced lifter. There are two other women in my age/weight class, which is something that I don't think has ever happened for me. Usually I am the only one in my group or there is one other woman. Assuming that something catastrophic doesn't happen to me, I still have the opportunity to come home with a medal, but it isn't automatically going to be for 1st place. Honestly, I don't even know if finishing first is within reach here and that's okay. This will be the farthest I have travelled for competition, having never competed outside of my own province. This will be my longest flight, although I have only flown once, a round trip roughly 25 years ago with only an hour in the plane each way. This trip isn't terribly long, only a couple hours each way, but it will still feel like a first time flying experience. My weigh in/competition times are the latest I will have ever had before. It is looking like my husband will be my handler, which means he'll submit my attempts, chalk my back, help load weights in the warm up area, and basically act like my coach. He's never done that before, and I am not sure how it will go or how I will feel about it in the moment, but at least I don't need to worry about doing all of that myself. This won't be my first competition without my actual coach in my corner, but there haven't been many such instances and I really wish I could fit my coach into my carry on and bring him along. With my husband behind the curtains with me, that means for the first time ever I won't have someone specifically cheering me on amongst the spectators. Wow. Typing out that sentence hit me harder than I thought it would. When I am on the platform, I don't even look at the crowd, barely even look at the judges. I focus on what I am doing and not much else, so it has never actually bothered me if I had many supporters there to cheer me on. During this competition, it is quite possible that I can beat my all-time personal bests from when I injured my back. If training continues to go as planned, then I can break those personal bests in the gym. It is all terribly exciting, amazing, and terribly nerve-wracking.
The deadline for changing weight classes was last night, and I made no change. I will remain in the 84kg class and continue to track my calories and macros to ensure I come in under that at the time of my weigh in. As much as I am not loving the process of tracking and I am definitely growing sick of certain foods, my efforts are producing the results and I am currently sitting rather pretty in my weight class. Since the late weigh in is the biggest obstacle, we want my weight to get low enough to allow room for eating prior to weigh in. So far my weight loss is tracking well and that allowed me to feel confident about ignoring the weight change deadline last night.
Training is going well. The weight cut is going well. The body is feeling fairly decent right now, although there are always little (or not so little) aches and pains and discomforts. My sleep has been good and my energy is still reasonably high. The last few weeks of competition prep can have you feeling tired and beat up, so I am pleased with how decent I am still feeling at this stage.
With just under 3 weeks left to go, I am slowly beginning to plan and prepare for the days leading up to competition and the travel there. Of course, that means I began with writing out a couple of lists. I have packed my gear into my carry on to make sure it all fits, and I have been measuring bags and backpacks in an effort to ensure we have properly sized carry on and personal items, so we do not need to check any bags. Travel sized toiletries are being piled on my dresser in anticipation of packing into a ziplock bag. I have been mentally figuring out what clothing to wear during the flight and how little clothing I can get away with needing to bring. I have reviewed the carry on baggage information several times, and I wonder if I will be permitted to pack a small screwdriver for adjusting my lifting belt. If not, it's not a big deal, but that's an item not directly mentioned on the website, maybe because most people don't need to fly with a screwdriver. There are a lot of things that can't actually be checked off my to do lists until closer to departure, like washing my knee sleeves (mandatory for equipment check but pointless doing it until I am finished training).
Mostly right now, I just have intangibles to stress over. The sun is shining here today, but what if there is a delay with our flight when we leave and we miss our connection? What if I can't access a scale in Moose Jaw until my weigh in? For the record, the weigh in scale will be available but only when not in use for competition weigh ins and the schedule for my day doesn't allow for very many opportunities. How are the last couple of training weeks going to feel? Am I going to be able to perform as well so late in the day? What will be attempt selection be? How is Kane going to do as my handler? How am I going to stay focused with announcements for two platforms at the same time? What if I don't do as well as I hope? Too many what ifs and too much time to be distracted by them.
So I need to pull myself back to this moment right now. Did I want to eat my salad for lunch today? Absolutely not. The thought of eating another slice of deli turkey or cottage cheese or chicken breast or an egg white omelette is enough to make my stomach turn, but I had my omelette for breakfast and my salad with turkey and cottage cheese for lunch. Because I can do hard things. I can do what I need to do to reach my goals. This morning I had a really good training session that I am quite proud of, because my bench press is moving well and feeling good and making me feel like 2024 might be the year of the bench press for me. Actually, the entire training week was really good. I am right where I need to be.
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