I have never won anything significant as an individual athlete. I have "won" freestyle wrestling tournaments where there was only one other competitor, so I never really counted that. Last weekend, I used 8 weeks of focused training and a fair amount of accumulated skill and competitive savvy to out-lift 4 or 5 other amateur middleweight lifters. I feel that this was a large enough field to allow myself the right to feel really, really...REALLY GOOD about myself. I won. I am a winner. And I have the championship belt to prove it. Mischief managed, now on to my next challenge...
Competing in a "for reals" PL meet was definitely an enlightening experience. Power Lifters as a breed have a reputation for being fairly slow moving creatures, and this day did nothing to dissuade me from this view. Don't get me wrong: These are diligent, hard-working athletes who are capable of amazing and admirable feats. However, I was not expecting a 13+ hour day for 3 minutes of competitive work (Gilly wins Fiancé of the Universe for being a trooper and my lone cheerleader all day). Things got behind schedule quickly and there was very little effort to recover lost time. It quickly became apparent that this was a regular, accepted thing. Now, as someone who has had the pleasure(?) of directing a high school wrestling tournament, I completely understand and recognize how hard it is to keep something like this running smoothly, especially with there being only 1 platform. It was just unexpected to see all the veteran experienced lifters be "okay" with how badly things dragged along.
Another thing that straight-up bugged me was the lack of support for the athletes by the spectators and the other athletes. I mean just simple cheering, for cripes sake. I know watching squats for 3 hours is repetitive but there were a few teens and some masters there setting national and WORLD records, and there was a mere smattering of applause, if anything. Annoying. I cheered and high fived the athletes. I can't help it. And by the time dead lifts rolled around, I knew all the guys in my heat's name, so I started hanging out in the bull pen and cheering for them before their attempts, and wouldn't you know it, other athletes started to holler for me a bit too. I just can't believe that there wasn't more of a sense of collegiality amongst the competitors. That really bothered me.
The Raw lifters were an inspiration and I give them all mad props for what they are able to do. Watching some of these behemoths squat upward of 800 pounds, with just a belt and knee wraps was incredible. Yes, I am aware that most of them are unapologetic dopers, but drugs don't lift the weights or make your food or tuck you in to bed or drive you to the gym.
One thing that I was looking forward to seeing was the "geared" lifting and it ended up being really disappointing. From what I saw, MOST (not all) of the guys in squat suits and bench shirts didn't really have good technique, and they were missing attempts because they couldn't get full range of motion in their suits and shirts! I thought it would be Ripley-fighting-the-Queen-in-the-power-loader-suit awesome and it ended up being Michael-Bay's-Transfomers lame.
In other news: First, we won the Bell Game, then we made the playoffs! We were awarded the 13th seed, so we will travel to Moraga on Friday night to play number 4 seed Campolindo. Our kids seemed genuinely excited to have a chance to be in the playoffs, and from a coaching standpoint we match-up pretty well with them. Also, I have been suckered (not really) into helping out the wrestling team at TL 2 days a week. So that means I am coaching all three sports I did in high school, at the high school where I did them. I know I'm going to be crazy busy, but I have to admit it feels pretty rad to feel "home". Now if I could just get a teaching job there......
