March 11, 2023 - PA Dutch Strong 2023

I’ve usually not done the same show more than two times (besides Nationals) and this will be my third time competing at the Dutch. This will be the twelfth year it was held. It is one of the longest running PA shows (and probably in the country) and there is certainly some nostalgia that comes with that. The turnout seems to ebb and flow really. Some years it is packed to the rafters (like last year) and other times barely any (like 2016). I wasn’t too sure this one was actually happening this year as usually it get announced well in advanced and it wasn’t until about a month or so later than it usually was. I hadn’t really planned to do this one again but the events were too good for me to pass up on and with how tough last year’s path to Nationals was, might as well take advantage of what I can with home gym advantage and three amazing events for myself. With how things are lining up for 2023, I may just end up doing a repeat of last year of the shows as local show and then the same regional show. Nationals in Erie, PA again for this coming year so that is really close and I know what I’m doing then. So no real traveling outside of the state again to do all the things for the year. My younger sister was also doing this show with me so it was going to be a bit more of a family affair compared to last time (to be fair, it was a snow storm that had a 73 car pile up later in the day). Despite the advantages, I had my work cut out for me. I train like everyone is on point and I got to prepare for absolute monsters in everything. I feel I can’t slack off in the slightest or I will be buried.

Despite the extreme stress and pressure I had put on myself going into Nationals last year (which had been stressful to qualify for last year), things had gone pretty well for me. I didn’t get injured, I didn’t get sick and I had my best result at Nationals ever in the 4 times I’ve gone to it. I was kind of hoping that my result there was good enough to get called up as a reserve for the Arnold but set a cap at Christmas day as the last day to be notified and still give it an honest shot. But this time around, it doesn’t look like that they were calling up backups. So it didn’t pan out. Plan was to take an off season break and then start working toward a show in March. That had seemed to work out well for me going from 2021 into 2022 when I did this show last year. However, the best laid plans. I had taken off a week from training from after Nationals and was doing just light band and bodyweight exercises for that first week. Like three days into that my left elbow swelled up like a gremlin had stitched a baseball under the skin while I was sleeping. It was distracting enough that my mother didn’t notice I had shaved when I went over to visit and I was directed to go to urgent care. Elbow bursitis is what I was told and pretty much told nothing I could do for it to stop if from happening and to come back in if it fills up again. Got it drained and a corticosteroid injection. Went back to training but it started to fill up again and after the holidays I finally went back and it was an ordeal that time. Different person and they seemed annoyed to be doing it. They messed it up and I bled a lot. I almost passed out having a panic attack (I’m not good with seeing a lot of my own blood). Said it was too messed up to do corticosteroids and had me take anti-inflammatories for a month. That sucked. But I was able to keep training and eventually get it to be manageable. Training in off season felt different from last time around. It did seem to take a while for my body to not be freaking out and not to feel like my upper body was nuked from the second half of last year. About a month out from the competition I started to have hip flexor issues in the left leg that were new. Maybe I’m just getting old with the mileage I’ve put on myself doing this sport for nearly 15 years now. On top of the training stress, there was work stress as always. I also had the added difficulty of also training/coaching my younger sister for this same show. A credit to anyone that handles athletes, it is a balancing act of emotions for sure.

I was a ball of nerves the week leading up to the show. Well, probably fair to say the last three weeks really. But it was palpable that last week. Made sure to pack everything I was planning on needing Thursday (but had been getting it together since Sunday). Hypochondriac tendencies at every little ache and pain. Trying my best to visualize the day and the events when I was doing relaxing activities like going for walks and nodding off to sleep or taking a long shower to try and get those anxiety feelings under control. As kind of an exposure therapy. Find my heart rate increasing thinking about how things would go. I think I was getting most hung up on failing on things that I know I shouldn’t as well as trying to keep track of things for the first two events as those would require the most strategy. There wasn’t a lot of correspondence from the promoter as far as rules for the disciplines so a lot of it was assumptions really until the day and worries what was sent out to competitors that asked might not be the case showing up. It would suck big time if you found out you’d been training it wrong the whole time. So a good bit of it outside of initial stuff was assumptions from past competitions done by the promoter. Such as number of attempts to reach a weight being tie breaker on max events, no grips shirts and that competitor order was by reverse order of entry and wasn’t adjusted during the competition. My father and younger sister ended up being the first people there at the venue at just before 8AM when it was to start at 10AM. So a bit of dead time. But it let me have time to decompress though I feel the added time might not have been helpful for my sister to get herself to be calm like myself. She was going to have friends coming to watch and I had maybe one. There was going to be more but they accidentally signed up for overtime work Saturday. I weighted in light at 275lbs wearing my shoes. This wasn’t intentional, my weight just seems to fluctuate throughout the year (generally lighter in the winter and spring). Weight class had 6 in it so that meant top 2 would qualify for Nationals. Goofed around a bit to relax and got in the warm ups I needed before the show started.

The first event was circus dumbbell clean and press. Heavy option (180lbs) and light option (140lbs) with 60 second time limit. It isn’t unusual to have multiple options for an implement in an event but this was a bit different in how usually these play out. In most cases, any reps with the heavier weight beats any number on the lighter weight. This was not the case. Heavy option was worth 2 points and light option 1 point so cumulative score here. Could switch back and forth if needed. This isn’t the first time this has been done for this show or a show by this promoter. My own concern I think was that considering a 40lbs difference in an one arm lift that the point differential should be greater (like 3-5 points) but those are the rules set for the game being played. Initially with training, starting from near zero here. In the summer of 2021, I had fractured my left elbow falling from missing a box jump and this was my stronger side for circus dumbbell. And training at the time had been for a show with circus dumbbell coming up in the fall. Training didn’t go well. So goal at the start was to not get a zero here but really I wanted to get back to the level where I was repping 180lbs like I was before that incident (though haven’t done this weight for reps since late 2017). Off season was light and then once confirmed course of action, pushed it. I was doing +150lbs with pauses for comfortable reps once the shackles were taken off. But as I’m getting older, it appears I can’t handle as much work for upper body sessions. I started to backslide after three weeks of training this above 50% every week. Quick change in that (reduced volume of pressing) and I was feeling on form. My last heavy session I had done what I thought was 172lbs for a comfortable 4 reps but turns out was almost 177lbs when I weighed it afterwards to make sure it was actually that weight. Maybe I wasn’t going to feel like my shoulders were nuked like a good amount of 2022 had felt. However, I feel that my focus on the 180lbs did leave a gap in the plan as I wasn’t as conditioned for reps if I had to do the lighter weight dumbbell. I had felt confident I could get reps on the 180lbs and then do lighter dumbbell to make up difference if I felt tired. I got in decent warming up. I had been a little worried as my left side was feeling tight in the neck and shoulder the last week but weights were feeling comfortable in the rack and leg drive was feeling on point. I did only get to do a single with 140lbs with the actual dumbbell but kept a 130lbs dumbbell out of the way to hit singles on about every 10 minutes or so waiting to go. Points to beat was 13 (they did all reps with the 140lbs) and I knew that would be a tall order with second at this time with 9. I had setup things so chalk on both dumbbells and the light one I had setup standing so it didn’t take up as much space on the platform. I made sure to show the judge my arm and lockout so that my bursitis didn’t cause confusion. Time called and I went at the 180lbs dumbbell. It felt good and I went for the press and catch but my triceps just didn’t want to lockout. I didn’t panic just yet and I brought it down to my shoulder again and gave it another attempt and it was closer but still missed. This was not good. So I had to abandon the heavy dumbbell and try to get points on the board with the light dumbbell. I managed to get in five reps and even on this dumbbell my triceps didn’t want to lock out very well. This was a bit baffling. I made two attempts at a sixth rep but just wasn’t happening. I needed those missed reps. If I had gotten that rep with 180lbs or those two reps with the 140lbs, I’d have been in third place and if I’d gotten both situations, then tied for second. As it stood, I ended up fifth here. I was extremely disappointed with how this went for me. It was a do or die situation and I didn’t rise to the occasion at the end there. I felt like a chump. I’ve been here before many times and knew I had to let myself feel it and move on.

The next event for the day was side handle car deadlift. Max reps in 60 seconds with up and down commands. Suits and straps allowed. This was one where stuff wasn’t really known or published leading up to the competition. Now understandably, most promoters don’t actually know how much weight the implement is going to be really and just advise people to “train heavy”. With this car deadlift setup, we do actually have the formula to figure out the weight in hand on this. It wasn’t until 3 weeks out that any indication was made and it was stated it would be the same as it was two years prior (when it was a front bar attachment) and that had been approx. 645lbs weight in hand. However, the added 90lbs to make it so it wasn’t as much of a potential repfest so it was approx. 717lbs weight in hand. I’ve not had the best track record with lever deadlifts. We don’t seem to get along except for like one time but it was where the pivot point was much higher (the handles were welded to the car base). I’d bought a deadlift suit off someone because I had bombed a car deadlift at 2012 Nationals and saw people using them. And then they stopped having this event at Nationals after 2013 and generally don’t allow suits. So this would be a chance to see how that went. As with most the events here, it was kind of piecemeal figuring stuff out. Initially training had been with trap bar and no gear and then adjusting to wearing a single ply suit not cranked to the max and adjusting the height to be 2” lower with support stands I had. If a suit is allowed, I’m going to use it. Increase the odds that I don’t zero the event and tends to save my lower back for the rest of the competition. Despite the effort I put into overhead and deadlift, I am always seeming to be on the lower end. Suit work is tricky as I can get a good bit out of even a single ply suit (I can’t imagine the strain from a multi ply suit after just using briefs) but seeing as it can be like 80lbs more than I could normally do, it is a lot of stress on the ligaments, joints and muscles. As not knowing what to expect, my aim was to at least be getting reps with 650lbs at minimum for what could be the likely scenario. I was training for high reps and for low reps. I ended up getting a more secure setup to do banded pulls. Training was going well. Only time it didn’t feel that way was last heavy session when I worked up to 770lbs for a double. Up until then, I was feeling fine but this session I was just feeling every rep in my spine and bones rather than the muscles. I knew that I had pushed things a good bit too far. I was also feeling a bit dumb about it when I got messaged the weight was going to be the 645lbs figure. Most of the recovery leading up to the show was getting my spine and such to feel ok enough to not be angry at me. As far as warm ups went, they weren’t great. Not in that I didn’t feel good, just that my only warm up was the setup with just the car and no weight for a double with none of my gear on. The handles were really slippery so I made sure to chalk both sides of my straps. So no attempts at anything with the full gear on until it was my time to go. Got a bit of an upper ab cramp putting on the suit straps which had happened last year. Took a bit to get that to calm down. I had hit a huge PR on the deadlift event last year after this happened so I wasn’t too concerned with this development. Despite my poor placing on the first event, the promoter had the same order all day so I was going to be able to see what I needed to beat for the day. I was having doubts about the car deadlift plan of wearing the suit as I saw competitors go. Only one younger guy struggled to get 1 rep. Everyone else got double digits on this, even with the added 90lbs to the initial plan. Hell, leading reps was 20 reps! This had always been the one where I didn’t have any expectation of winning with how had signed up. There did seem to be guys with comparably raw deadlifts to me (maybe 50lbs better) that were doing double digits so I thought maybe a suit was too much. But I knew I could breath with how I had the suit set so didn’t want to mess with that. I was going to need 16 reps to get second here. Moment of truth. I go and holy hell is it heavy. This felt like the 770lbs I did in training. Change of plans. I refocused and got a tough rep and repositioned my feet into a better setup and went for the second rep. The commands were pretty quick here. But I was feeling that weight all down my spine and it was very unpleasant. Got the double and that was really all I needed here to not be in last place as I had tried to see with that second rep if I could get into a comfortable groove to try and do some reps. But that wasn’t happening. I would be putting myself out of the competition and possibly the rest of my career I felt if I tried to do much more as I’d need 10 more reps to get a half point more. I should’ve walked away to be smart here but I felt I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t “giving up”. A baptism by fire to get one more rep as the feeling that if I needed to do something when it mattered on the circus dumbbell had slipped through my fingers, I’d rectify it here. That extra rep was definitely not optimal and was a struggle. I guess my leverages don’t suit me well to this style of pull. I’m not sure if the that last super heavy double in training had wrecked me for this 3 weeks out or if it actually prepared me perfectly for this. Because if I hadn’t felt that awful spine pressure feeling in training, I’d not have gotten this I feel. Another fifth place finish and I was definitely wondering why I was there in the first place. Granted the next three events were my jam, it’s hard to come back from back to back disappointment. But again, I’ve been here before. At this point, I might as well set up a summer home cottage here.

I had built myself quite the foxhole at this point. In fifth place and 6 points behind first and second (they were tied at this point). My best events were up. I sat in the latrine for moment and did the math and it was incredibly unlikely that I’d be able to come back and win this show. Even if I won every event, the guy in first would need to get worse than third place average for the rest of the events and considering two of the events were in his wheelhouse as well, I put the focus on just doing what was needed and secure the second place spot which felt more possible if things went my way here. Up until this point, everything was going with two lanes at a time. The groups were split into one group doing one event and the other a different event since there was only one setup for the one event. So the next event was husafell carry. 300lbs picked from the floor and turns at 50’. No time limit, allowed to stop briefly to readjust grip. This is an event that I’m good at. The two times I’ve done this at Nationals I’ve been in the top 10 and the one time had been with a wrist injury and I had to switch my setup on the fly. Only times I’ve done poorly relatively has been when it was contested for time rather than distance. I had felt that this was too light since most times I’ve done this event, it was been 350lbs or more. I did know that someone else doing this show as good at this event so training had been built around building up for the long haul on this event. But also trying to limit biceps strain. If you’ve ever seen my pick up a husafell, you’ll see quite an interesting technique. I pick, and lap it and shift it to the side and hold it like a very large baby. I don’t move fast but it is a very secure grip with my long arms and good support grip. As far as the training, it was working on getting myself ready to go for over 300’ if necessary. My start I was gassing doing 225lbs sandbag for like 100’ so that was a big concern. But like a lot of the embrace the suck events, it comes back fairly quick for me. Sub maximal distances with short rests was helpful here. Surprisingly, backwards sled dragging for 100-150’ with like 1 minute rests held immensely on building up the leg work capacity while not being hard on the back or knees. Once I was satisfied with the lower body being up to par, had to work on the upper body holding on long enough. This was tackled with adding sandbag bearhugging holds with not leaning back. Those also fried the hamstrings and glutes. I had assumptions about which of the gym’s implements (they have like 3 loadable husafell stones). I was feeling real good with this event until my last training session with it. I got a little too amped up and overshot the lap and it slid on the fabric of my shorts and I panicked to grab it as I was feeling my lower back straining to adjust to the sudden change in the weight and center of gravity. So I was a little paranoid that would happen again. Last week before the contest I would actually hold an “imaginary” husafell stone at points (like when I was coming to a bunch of turns) while on my walks to get this feeling down. I’m sure I got some stares from other neighbors walking or driving by. However, I’m like 6’7” with long hair and a do-rag on, I tend to already get stares. I was quite surprised to see many people struggling with the implement. Half the field got 50’ or less with it. I guess maybe they underestimated the slickness and difficulty because of the weight. I was the only person who looked like a chinchilla with all the chalk I had applied to myself. The guy I knew would do well went off like a bullet but I could tell it was sliding on him and he called it at 200’. I’d done over 250’ with this on a bad day so as long as I didn’t royally mess up the pick here, this was in the bag. I got set and tried to put all those nerves down and got set. Felt a little heavy but I knew I couldn’t be super amped up here or I could have a bad time. I got set and I was off. This was mine. My style of holding it while slow allows me to have better spatial awareness so I can make hairpin turns without going over the line and adding distance that doesn’t get counted. I only had to turn at 200’ to win but I went about 10’ further (my dad was telling me on my way back from the turn at 150’ to not “show off”) and stood there and did a little Jon Paul jig with it before dropping it. I showboat when I can and I think I needed it to get some confidence back to keep the comeback train going. I also like to be entertaining. 212’1” for a comfortable first place.

There was a slight break in the action at this point. Maybe for the help to get some food or something. Maybe to rest as this part of the contest was definitely the most labor intensive of the contest with setup. I took the time to get a second protein shake in me. The fourth event was Hercules hold. 260lbs (was supposed to be 280lbs) and hook grip was allowed. I’ve never placed worst than second place on this event. I’m luck that the gym has this setup available but I find that this is one of those events where I don’t necessarily need to use the implement to maintain. General grip stuff such as rolling bar hangs and some one arm hangs would seem to be enough if I didn’t have access to the equipment. Especially if it isn’t the same setup as the other contests. Train for heavy and short and light and long really. Even with having this setup at the gym, it is by no means easy for use. It takes up a lot of space (it can only be used for one thing) and requires at minimum two other people to work the rig in a safe manner. So even if it was out (and it was since this was for the contest and other people at the gym were training it) it still was a hassle to get people to assist if I showed up too late in the day for training on Saturday. It’s not like spotting for say a squat or deadlift. This requires work and coordination for all involved. I always had a back up plan to do something else in the event I couldn’t wrangle in help on this. My social anxiety with talking to people I don’t know to ask for help made this a bit of struggle if there wasn’t someone else there at the gym that I knew. But I didn’t have to deviate from the plan at all this training cycle though. I was happy with this being somewhat substantial weight for the show. Last time they did this it was only 200lbs per hand. And this setup can be tough. I’d say that whatever weight on here would be 10% more on the setup that is used for Giants Live comparing how performances went with an athlete that had used both and times they achieved. I had no doubts of winning this one. I generally don’t have those feelings about events but there are those where I feel so confident that I can’t fathom someone doing better. When hook grip is involved, it certainly becomes that for me. My coaches only notes for this event for the day (we had talked strategy at length) was “just win it”. In training, I had been doing a minute with 60lbs more than what was used at contest in hand. I got very close to 75 seconds with 300lbs two weeks out. Warming up for this I did some chest door way stretches after the husafell to open up my chest and shoulders and biceps a little. I also did some hangs from rolling handles that were attached to the ceiling at the gym. That was going to be all that I needed. Usually with this event, I will try to get them to read out times. One for the athlete but I think it would also be helpful for the crowd to know the times to cheer on. It can be hard to tell if someone is close to another athletes time when there is like only 3 seconds between them. I notice the weight was 20lbs less than advertised but I was getting some fellow athletes telling me to “shut up”. It does sound like they lowered it after seeing the previous class struggle with it. Oh well. Everyone was performing at about where I expected them to be (which was less than a minute). Except for one guy, the youngster. Collegiate athlete with shot/track and oly lifting background that knew how to hook grip as well. I say youngster because I told him I had done my first show in 2008 (this was his second show) and he said he was 6yrs old at the time. He had to go and put up a time just shy of 85 seconds. I’d not gone that long in training because I didn’t feel I was going to need to and I had not expected the weight to be lowered either. So I was going to have to push things here. I confirmed what the time was and acted a bit braggadocio with saying “just tell me when I reach that” as I didn’t want to be holding this forever not knowing my time. This got a few laughs from the crowd. I usually will cut grooves into my thumbnails or fingernails for Hercules hold but didn’t feel like I needed to for this. I planned to put my boast on the line here. I didn’t feel terribly comfortable but just hunkered down. I think my behavior of calling I was beating the time and asking the time actually got the judges to be indicating 10 second intervals, which I think made things one better for me (as I was counting slower than that in my head) and getting the crowd involved. When there was about 20 seconds left I was getting a lot of yelling about “keep holding” and “push through” and it was distracting me as I was feeling just fine so I said “I’m good, just tell me when it’s time”. Again, some more laughs at my cheekiness. Held for 2 seconds or so longer just to make sure and then let go. Cocky Craig on full display now. Thumbs really sore but I knew they’d be good for stones. By chance, event order of husafell into Hercules hold had been what I was training so I was used to both suck events being back to back. 87 seconds for another (not quite as) comfortable first place.

With how things panned out here, I had managed to get back up to second place. There was a three point gap and seeing as how this next event was the guy in first place’s best event, there was no way I was getting the overall win. I just needed to make sure I didn’t screw up and lose my second place I had just obtained. I felt I had that after leapfrogging the guy that was in second with a 3 point lead. The final event was atlas stone for max. Load height to 51”. I had been working on the assumption this was going to be just three attempts but ended up being changed to unlimited attempts but miss and done. 30 seconds per attempt. These rules did seem to be a bit loose mind you but I think it was because people wanted to see big stones lifted. I’ve not really had the opportunity to train for a max stone. I’ve done shows twice that had it and I had ended up lifting the heaviest stone there both times. And training for both hadn’t exactly been ideal. I think the one I was competing like once or twice a month so there wasn’t really any “training” and the other I had fractured my pinky fingers a month out so I couldn’t touch stones and heaviest I had gotten up to was only 375lbs before that had happened and I still did the 450lbs stone. So I was curious to see what I could do if I was unimpeded and knowing that there was a monster stone at the gym. Stones don’t seem to be in vogue at bigger level shows at the moment as far as the amateur side of the sport. I used to chase big stone lifts because of seeing it at the Arnold years ago. So there has been generally long breaks from when I’ve done stones. There are years where there is no stone work. This time had been 18 months since I last did stones but I know it takes like one or two sessions to get back to high 90% of my ability on them. Two sessions in and I was feeling fantastic. But then switching over to the larger diameter stones seemed to cause and issue for me. Again, maybe I’m putting a lot of wear and tear on my body. I have a good bit of flexibility and balance with stones and get into a really deep squat to lap big and heavy stones. The stance has to be wider for the bigger stones and maybe that was an issue as that seemed to cause an issue for my left hip flexor/groin and perhaps even my sciatica and disc issues. I’m actually still not quite sure what it was/is but it had definitely put a damper on the prep and my training in general. It had actually had me thinking about pulling out of the contest a month out with how much it was bothering me (it had started about 6 weeks out but was manageable). On top of that, I was feeing like something was missing to my stone game. My extension didn’t use to feel so tough on these bigger stones. I’ve not really had to extend with them since like 2013 but I’ve used them in 2018 but I guess I didn’t really think about it at the time. It was likely hand position but I didn’t really figure that out until I was two weeks out and didn’t have a chance to actual test it out. I felt there were some good stone loaders here but it felt more like it was more than a friendly competition between me and the guy in first place. He had actually indicated he had done this show specifically so that he could go head to head with me on max atlas stone as I’ve got a reputation as a really good stone loader and he wanted to see who was better. And he is a good stone lifter. He’s been successful with 465lbs and a whisker away from 520lbs. I wasn’t sure what shape he was coming in at here but if the other events were an indication, it felt like he was probably feeling good. And I wasn’t. But I couldn’t show that. Try to play this game. I had more familiarity with the stones here (hell, I made some of them) and I knew he’d not been training to 51” as his setup was 48”. And I had a feeling his stones he trained on weren’t 22”. The atmosphere really changed with the stones despite spectators leaving. Because everyone just surrounded the stones. It was feeling sweltering despite it being below freezing outside. Had to walk away a few times to cool off and keep my tacky from getting too viscous. I elected to open heavy at 375lbs as I knew that attempt amount would matter for ties. Rushed this a bit for the lap and ended up being more of a lower back load than I had wanted. Only one HW didn’t end up trying/getting the 375lbs stone. This was then the next phase. See, the gym has a gap from 375lbs and then it is 420lbs, 425lbs, 430lbs, 440lbs, 455lbs. And the stones are bigger diameter. So on top of a big jump, it isn’t pleasant. I had hoped the promoter would bring their 407lbs stone but nope. I had been training to go from 375lbs to 440lbs but with how things had felt, I was going to take 425lbs. There was some commotion because me and the other guy that train here on the big stones wanted the 425lbs instead of 420lbs. It was smaller diameter and had a side that actually stuck to tacky. The 420lbs was dusty and really slick. Annoyance that we wanted a 5lbs jump. Look, trying to give everyone the best chance at this next lift. I had to adjust the stone myself to get it in the right place and lost a bit of tacky but went with it. I didn’t plan to deep lap the stone but I did and got it up there. I wasn’t feeling terribly confident for 440lbs. Just me and first place got the 425lbs stone. We both then called 440lbs. I was up first and I went for it. Trying to not think about anything bad happening. It came off the floor easy but as I went to lap and pinch, it slid and I dropped it. I tried two more times and walked away. Then he went and got it lapped and I thought it was over. He went for the extension but couldn’t get it high enough and about blacked out. However, the judges decided to give us 5 minutes to rest and go again. I noticed at this point that my stone shoes had blown out on the right side. I’ve had these things for over a decade. I got set again and went at it and got it lapped. Lots of shouting and noise. I got set and tried the hand placement that I thought might work better and it did. It felt like old times and so easy. I let out a roar to the crowd. Partly because I was happy but also because my hip was flaring up on me at that moment of triumph. If I had gotten this the first try and it actually mattered, I felt good enough to try my 490lbs stone that only myself and Mike Jenkins have ever lifted in any capacity. I passed on further attempt and the guy in first got 440lbs on his second try like me and decided to go for 455lbs for the win. I warned him it was a tough stone (I’m the only person to have lifted it) and he did get it lapped but couldn’t load it. So a draw. Fine with that. Tied for first here.

A typical Craig show in that starting out at a big deficit and then coming back to something respectable by the end of it. It really doesn’t seem to matter how many people end up competing at this show, they are always there to throw down. The friends that had come to see my sister and myself had to leave before the stones had started but they seemed to enjoy what they saw. I think both me and my sister get a little worried when non-strongman friends come as not sure if they will enjoy it or be entertained as it is hours of people lifting weird things with usually not very comfortable seating or any food or facilities. It is nice that I continue to meet new people with the sport that compete. People to keep an eye on. Wonder how long until they start beating me at my good events. I think a thing that I noticed from video is that not very often is there people I’m competing against watching me and how I’m doing whereas I’m literally in everyone else’s videos/pictures standing there with an intense look on my face as I watch. Even if circus dumbbell had gone my way, I’d still have been way too far down to realistically get back to first place with the deadlift how that felt and went. Got to keep working and adjusting the training plans for next time. As always thinking about how I can improve and make adjustments for the next time. I ended up placing second and securing my invite to Strongman Corporation Nationals and that had been the goal for this show really. My sister also got second and PR’d everything besides circus dumbbell (so we twinned today I guess haha). She also gets the nerves but always makes friends at these shows. I’m proud of her also having a zero on the first event (she’s never had this happen) and coming back to be competitive. We were out of there by 4PM and I was just so tired but too sore to be able to go to sleep. Had 2lbs of meat at Mission BBQ for dinner with my parents and younger sister to cap off the day. Need to rest a little. I took off work for Monday as I didn’t want to deal with daylight savings crap after a contest haha. Next thing is Northeast Regionals in June.