Battle of the Badass VIII - Wallkill, NY - 05/28/2011

It has been eight months and ten days since the last time I did a contest. This was not by choice mind you. I didn’t have the funds for Nationals last year and I ruptured my hamstring training for a contest at the end of January. That’s a bit of a lay off and it showed. I was instructed to keep the mindset of this being a comeback contest and that “surviving” the show was the main goal. Hard to say I’m doing it just to do it and not going for the win. I don’t like it, and I tried my best at this contest.

Three days before the contest, a storm went through where I live and my house was without power until Saturday afternoon. Not the most pleasant two days leading up to the contest, especially with waking up at 5:00 AM for the drive up to New York. I spent most of the ride napping and the rest trying to ignite the fire in my belly for competing. Saw a truck decal that read “fat people are harder to kidnap” and while odd, probably true.

It was very nice outside and I signed in with Joe Farino. I was in the over 265lbs heavyweight class so they didn’t bother weighing me in but I checked anyway and I was 269lbs with my shoes on. Five competitors were in the heavyweight class including myself. Two of them were from Canada. There were actually a lot of Canadian competitors. I was very interested in competing against them as I like facing new opponents (sorry Justin and Harley, it’s not you it’s me. We’ve done this dance before haha) and it would be a chance to face some “international” competition. Other countries tend to have different focuses when it comes to their events. In the US, the big ones are deadlift, overhead and stones. Also Gerard Benderoth was there. Christ is he a large land mammal. I walked around and took photos of all the equipment as per usual. Things move quickly at these contests so I knew I’d have very little if any time to warm up for the events. Press medley was up first.

The first event of the day was a press medley. 12” log of 270lbs, axle of 285lbs and a 13.5” log of 300lbs. 60 seconds to complete all three and split times for each implement. I have been putting in a lot of effort into my pressing. After my last contest in September of last year, I made the decision to switch from jerks to push pressing for my overhead as per suggestions from Dave Ostlund. It took a while but the week before this contest I finally got my push press to beat my previous jerk PR. This strategy worked well for me as my legs felt dead today. Not lively at all. My last warm up weights were 230lbs on the 12” log and 235lbs on the axle for a single each. My goal was not to rush it and give the 300lbs log my best effort. I got the first two easy (but I was slow moving between them, conserving my strength) and went for the 300lbs log. I didn’t realize it was a 13.5” log at the time. It went too far forward and my legs weren’t helping. I took a break and tried again but missed the clean. It would have been huge for me to get the 300lbs 13.5” log as my PR on that size log is only 265lbs. Then again, my PR push press on a log is 285lbs so it would have been something. Not a bad effort for me but I got fourth out of five here.

Up next was a simple event; yoke. 800lbs for 60’ in 60 seconds. The catch of course being that these were on Joe’s yokes. Wide and unstable. My only warm up for this was moving back one of the light weight’s yokes like 10’ from a low pick (maybe 700lbs). I had been training all this cycle for this implement by using my friends’ crappy yokes and doing them beltless. This was of course my downfall. One is that none of the yokes I had trained on were this wide, not by a long shot. I would have been better off using a chain yoke. Second was not at least introducing a belt into my training sometime before the contest. This was an avoidable mistake that I had actually planned into my training but I was more concerned that it would affect my deadlift training (which had fallen the farthest behind after my hamstring injury). I get set under the weight and I start at a good pace, then I lose my air (belt!) and the yoke shakes me and I go down. This happens again and I drift to the right side. My dad was worried I was favoring that side due to my hamstring but I was not. I picked it up again and finally finished the course in 40.07 seconds almost 20 seconds behind the fourth place guy. Incredibly frustrating as I had done this weight, beltless for 100’ with no drops in training. Obviously last place on this.

Then came the event, the one that had interested me enough to do this show; axle keg drop deadlift medley. Empty frame, then 160lbs keg, 175lbs keg, 240lbs keg and 250lbs keg for five total reps in 60 seconds. I’ll be honest, the other events have been done before (and most at this contest are my weak events) but this one was special. Luckily, I had a car frame deadlift to train on and I did a few sessions with it to get ready. At least I thought I’d better ready for it. The height was 18”, which is awful for me since it is just above midshin. Also with it being an axle, there was no flew in the bar. I had been training from a much lower height and with flexing bars. This height meant my legs wouldn’t be much help. The empty frame felt tough and when I asked how much it was, I found out it was only 325lbs. Great. If I wanted to get any real points, I’d need to get four reps. I got three reps and barely broke the fourth off the ground. To make matters worse, Gerard Benderoth goes in, adds 140lbs to the axle in front, does all the lifts and does a double with the final weight. Another last place.

Ok, intermission time. At this point, I got this song “Chasing Pavements” by Adele stuck in my head. Well, at least the lines “should i give up or should i just keep chasing pavements even if it leads nowhere” (I think it was playing over the speakers at one of the gas stations we stopped at or something). Actually it was in my head for all of the events so far. She has a nice voice. But really, I was frustrated. Even with the improvements in my weaknesses, I was still weak. I was debating whether to stop competing for the year and just chain myself to rack and squat, deadlift and press until I’m not terrible at these things. I’m actually still think this over as I’m writing this write up. Ok, back to the contest.

Now I was solidly at the bottom. This was Viking Fest 2010 all over again. But the show goes on. Up now was the yoke front carry. 575lbs for 60’ in 60 seconds. You could hold it any way you want but it had to be in front. No one wanted to do this event. Most held it in the crook of the arms like a conan’s wheel while a handful did it front squat style. Again, not much warm up on this and I on this, it’s important to me. I can go and drop it 10’ in to a run, come back and go 50’ easy. I had trained this event like twice, once heavy and the other light for distance. I think that made me the most experienced haha. This went decidedly better than my regular yoke run. But I started to see the darkness and just kept moving, trying to out race it. It caught up to me about 15’ from the finish line and I just dove back under it and stumbled to the finish line. But I had to cross it so I just picked it again and tossed the yoke over. My run was good enough for third out of five.

The final event was atlas stone over bar. I guess I was feeling a bit better after the front carry. I was definitely being more sociably as I was cheering on people for the stones in the other classes before I went. I prefer being in that mood as opposed to the woe is me funk I had found myself in earlier. 350lbs stone over a 48” bar in 60 seconds. Actually, a bit higher as it had a rubber mat on it, like they have at the Arnold. Stones are my thing. Probably why I have a concave chest and my abs have the words “place stone here” engraved on them in Celtic runes. But this time, the stone was light for me (I’m getting death stares just writing that haha) and my worry was not fatigue but speed with the short time limit. In training, I had done seven and watching a recent Pro show in Washington state, the most there was eight with the same weight stone but with a 75 seconds time limit. I went a bit earlier than I had expected (we had been going in the same order the whole day) but I did my thing. I have used this stone in competition three times before so I knew its name, its every secret. Ok, simply that it was a dusty side. I had a good pace and only hesitated before going down for the eighth rep. I had less than two seconds left after that load so I called it there. I wasn’t tired, just no more time. Harley matched my reps but got his eighth rep just before time expired so I won it by virtue of a faster time. First place on the final event.

Well, I ended up in fourth place out of five competitors. Not exactly the result I was hoping for but I did survive the day which I guess was the main goal. I lost points on some things by seconds and in some cases, fractions of seconds (I believe by .2 in one instance). As far as training, my switch to push pressing/focus on strict press and benching strength has been beneficial in that my overhead is consistent now and I’m not so reliant on leg power. Even with less stone training, my stones are still spot on and I think I owe that to reps on goodmornings and bent over rows. Frankly, I’m embarrassed of my deadlifting. I really only had “fun” when it was time for stones, cheering on others and when it was over and I was talking with other competitors. I’m not too sure when my next contest will be. I’ve been enjoying my training. Guess I need to keep pursuing strength. It is an elusive mistress.