December 16, 2023 – Puller Express

In all this time I’ve been doing this, I’ve not done a December competition. Apparently the only month I’ve not done. Not adverse to training in cold weather, I tend to prefer it since don’t have to deal with so much sweat. Some of the first shows I did had been in January in upstate New York. I think usually December was avoided as far as competitions and usually only Christmas themed stuff. Which is what this contest was going to be. I’m not sure if this was me trying to get an early start on the 2024 season or trying to get in some extra innings for 2023 season. Maybe it’s both. I generally like to have more of a break between competitions after my first 2 years of competing, with 2018 being the year I planned it out to do a bunch of shows in short succession (and that almost didn’t happen when I pulled a biceps late 2017). My plans for doing this was because at the time I signed up, I needed to requalify to be able to compete in a Regional show for 2024. But that appears to have been dropped (though I don’t recall seeing anything official posted to that effect). So try to get qualification out of the way early. That seems unnecessary now but I don’t drop out of shows unless it is injury related. And even then it has to be pretty serve as I’m reluctant to quit. But this was a show being put on by a good group of people that ran smooth competitions (to the point where I give their shows priority over even the local shows).

Another first for me was in regards to prepping. I’ve never done a competition where I was actively trying to gain weight. At least since I decided I was just going to do HW (back when it was just over and under 231lbs). Way back then I was doing that intermittent fasting style stuff and was staying around 228lbs and then started eating like a normal person with weight gainer added and got up to 250lbs pretty quick. Heaviest being 290lbs when I came back from a hamstring injury. But diet had remained about the same and I just kind of went with the ebb and flow of my weight with sometimes being about 265lbs to 280lbs. I had to switch to a new PCP beginning of this year as my doctor since I was a child moved his practice to an inconvenient place. The new PCP gave me a bit of a health scare over liver levels (which appear to be nothing after testing) and one change to my diet was to not have beef almost every dinner. Swap in chicken (which I was already eating once day to begin with). I never tracked the scale except when I’d go to the doctor and that rarely (like once a year for physical). I’ve mentioned before that this change lead me to dropping down to under 255lbs when I was just under 275lbs at the March competition and I only noticed that halfway into my Nationals prep. I made some dietary changes (namely more small meals and carbs) and got up to close to 265lbs the week after Nationals. Stagnated there for a few weeks and added another meal and that seemed to be the push needed to get the scale moving again. Week before the competition was 272.2lbs. Keeping track along the way as far as how I was handling things as far as fitness with walking and exercising. Seemed to be handling it ok.

This would be the third time out to this particular venue in the same amount of years and it made sense to rest up by driving up the day before and getting a good meal and sleeping in a hotel bed rather than wake up before like 3hrs prior to the crack of dawn. So took a day off work for that for peace of mind even though didn’t exactly need the whole day to get out there. Honestly, this might be the most stressed out I’ve felt for a competition this year. Maybe because I know this is going to be a hard fought affair and due to the short prep. No real rhyme or reason sometimes for what feels like the most pressure. Spent the drive out talking with my dad as well as trying to hurry through the most recent book I had so that I could lend it back to my brother so he could lend it to a friend visiting for Christmas. Talk about pressure haha. Drive out wasn’t bad, made sure to avoid the route guidance that in June had us drive through Pittsburgh due to road work. Never again. Saw a man putting a diaper on a Bichon Frisé at the one rest area. So I guess I’ve now seen that. Even with avoiding Pittsburgh, the route guidance didn’t help. A closed road is not a “traffic incident”. Checked in at the venue first before going to the hotel this time around. No weigh in for me. Got contest shirt and a placard and tested out the arm over arm setup and touched the stones before heading out to check in at the hotel. Different hotel this time around. After the last year with losing my Tempur-Pedic pillow and encounter with the woman trying to get me to pay for a hotel room because her teenage daughter locked her out and just the fact a lot of the “amenities” didn’t work, it was the right call. It was the largest hotel room I’ve ever had. Could live in it if necessary. Went to the same place my dad and I had gone to after the first day of Regionals for dinner and it was amazing again. They had a wagyu beef steak and I can see what the hype is about. Had a hard time falling asleep due to nerves and stayed up to finish the book. Woke up at 7:00AM to get ready for the day. I felt ok but stiff. Not great but not terrible. But worried I’d suck and feeling like I was going to puke from nerves. I didn’t puke but I did end up using the restroom three times before the rules meeting. This was the “smaller” show that they run with it capped at 60 people this year. Seven in the HW open class and I only really knew of two to three of the competitors from past competitions and competing with them.

The first event was log clean and press, for max. Starting weight of 200lbs with 20lbs jumps. No grip shirts allowed (not allowed on anything this show). Three attempts and number of attempts mattered. So say I get just an opener and someone else matches that weight on their second attempt and then neither of us get anything after that. I’d place higher for being successful at that weight with less attempts to reach it. So it would probably be in my best interest with the people I know are here to get a high opener if feeling good. I knew that this was likely going to be something where I was going to be 4th at best. And this was before coming to the realization that my overhead pressing is still not at 100%. This is something that is going to require an offseason rebuild for sure to get that back to where it was and be smart about it. I’ve not used the Bartos style logs since they were first introduced in 2017. I don’t recall any issues I had (beyond failing to lift the 320lbs weight at Nationals that year) other than the cut out depth was quite shallow and I had ended up jamming my wrist following the log down. Will need to be mindful of that I guess. With the 265lbs and under class going with the SHW class in the same lane, it can be difficult to figure out who all is there competing with me considering I look like I could be in either really. I got in the warm ups I was planning to get mostly (I had to make a 40lbs jump near the end) to see how I was feeling. The Bartos log feels really dense on the pick and the clean but then feels comfortable for the press. So I had to keep that in mind. My last warm up was 240lbs and my hope here was to get 280lbs if not for points, to at least get better than what I did in training the last two cycles and know an actual number where my pressing was at to use to figure out for next season. I decided to gamble for 260lbs as the opener. It went up well enough but not with 100% confidence in 280lbs as the next jump. At this point, I knew I wasn’t in last place as one of the SHW had missed a second attempt at 220lbs. Apparently another missed their opener at 280lbs. So getting this would get me at least 5th place. This went up much the same. Less balance issues at lockout with the way I pressed this one. It actually felt good enough that I figured I’d give 300lbs a shot to see how that felt and went. One of the issues with not being able to press as much as your contemporaries is often having to do close to your max really fast succession. So not a ton of rest between my attempts here. Even at 300lbs there were some who had not yet done their openers. This weight did feel like something but I managed the clean well enough without expending a lot of energy. But did stumble a bit with it in the rack. It was not there today and I got it a few inches off the chest and bailed on it. My opener here would’ve gotten me the same points. Needed to do 300lbs to get a half point more. 5th place on this one.

The next event for the day was a deadlift event. Dubbed the “naughty or nice” deadlift. Two weights, a heavy (675lbs) and a light (585lbs) bar loaded. 60 seconds, strap in own time, with most reps winning. Of course, a single lift at the heavy beats any number at the light. No suits allowed. And on power bars, which didn’t really affect me since that’s how I train all the time. Deadlift is not a strong suit for me, especially without a suit. 675lbs is my PR on a deadlift bar with a suit so expecting to get to that on a stiff bar without a suit was not a realistic goal. Especially seeing as 8 weeks prior I had pulled 683bs on a slightly elevated trap bar. Training had to be a bit aggressive considering the time frame. Eye opening how difficult standard height pulls are for me as inadvertently been doing slightly elevated stuff for a good bit now and that does feel better for me positioning wise. It is something that needs to be in training a good part of the training year going forward. I hit the numbers that I needed to get to where I felt a single at the light weight was there with hopefully the ability to do up to a triple if needed. Again, this was going to be like log in that the best I could hope for was likely 4th. They would be doing the heavy weight so maybe I could save myself if it wasn’t needed here for my best possible placing. At least this is what I was thinking but apparently it was going to be reverse order of entry all day besides the last event. So since I was the second to last to sign up for this, I was going to be second all day. So I’d need to be going all in all day. Warming up on deadlifts went exactly how I needed it to. Like training, doing plate jumps with low reps since I’d be doing low reps. 585lbs is my best on a deadlift bar no suit in competition from 2018. It was very likely that I’d be the only one doing the mercy weigh here (or I guess the naughty weight). I took my time here as this was going to be a maximum effort. Got my grip set and pulled. Abs cramped up on me immediately. Very rarely has this happened on a deadlift. Or at all. I got the down call and I took a bit longer than I’d have wanted to initiate the second lift as I was making sure that my abs weren’t going to spasm further. I think I braced a bit too hard and held my breath a bit too long on this second rep as I got lightheaded and had to let go of the bar to stand up for a second to get my vision to return to normal. Judges and handlers were a little concerned and cautious. This is one of the reasons I prefer the regular style straps is the ability to bail if needed (other being I feel less lat engagement with figure 8’s). I again took my time as I felt I had just one more good shot at another rep with the ab cramp and what not so I paced out the timing so that I had a little over 10 seconds left in the event that I got stuck and had to hitch and ramp it. I ended up not needing to do that to get my third lift. A little smack talk to myself out loud saying “I got this”. This ends up being a PR for me and ties my deadlift bar reps in training from over 12 years ago. I got notifications on Instagram and text messages from people that were watching the livestream indicating they saw the deadlifts and the commentary so that was a pleasant surprise. That third rep was crucial for not getting tied for last place here. 6th on the deadlift as everybody but one pulled 675lbs.

Up next was conan’s wheel. 680lbs added to the implement. No drops and a 60 seconds time limit. I’m not a fan of this event. Just about every competition where I’ve done this event, I’ve essentially blacked out doing it almost immediately after the pick up. And it is infuriating. Such much so that I’ve said I’d be fine if every conan’s wheel was tossed into a burning pile like they did in Sleeping Beauty with all those spindles. But never shying away from doing this event if things lined up. But it was definitely not in the “pro” column when picking out a show. Most shows that ended up having this in it also had like another 1-2 events that I didn’t like (either just bad or boring) so it didn’t really work out. Not going to avoid it. Get back up and give it another try. Training for this had been pretty brutal. Log and deadlift is pretty standard stuff. Conan’s wheel is one of those embrace the suck events. Most of the training ended up being zercher yoke carries with working up to a 50’ top set and then dropping 100lbs and doing max distance in 2 minutes. I did end up setting up a conan’s wheel for one session just to see how things were and while it took forever to setup and put away, it was valuable in what I needed to be aware of for the actual time. This event left me with the most bruises and scars for this. My hope is my training paid off but this could really be something where I could get first or last one. I could tell this was not going to be one of the better times I had with this implement. The lightheadedness on deadlift (which is rare for me) not a good sign when this event I’ve pretty much also go to sleep on it very early on. There was only about 450lbs added to the thing and it was already feeling tremendously heavy for the weight in hand. The pick up height was not as adjustable as a yoke would be so my options were to either have it really low or too high that I’d be likely touching the ground if I took a step. My hope was that I could at least move with it if I could recover from the brutal start. I got about as much warm up as I could expect on this apparatus. It was a tough pick up with 540lbs added I still had another 140lbs to go. I did setup a yoke with 300lbs added to do some walking in place, which felt a good bit better with a much higher pick up. But all the preparation fell to the wayside as history repeated itself. I struggle mightily to pick it up. I try and zercher shrug it up to try and give myself a chance to fight the feeling of passing out and I feel like I’ve done so but I start walking and it is apparent I don’t got it. Even with a repick allowed, I don’t think I have the strength to repeat the effort a second time. I get 17’ before I bail. Maybe I could’ve gone a few more feet but I’d have been unconscious. I was seeing how this was catching and digging into the rubber flooring so I didn’t want to increase the risk of injury as I knew I was going down. I catch myself but I am convulsing and a bunch of people surround me to steady me and get my belt off. If I had gotten 4 more feet I’d have not gotten last place here. But even if the pick height situation could have been in my favor, I’d still at best have gotten 5th place likely with how heavy this was feeling in my arms compared to what I was doing in training. Likely need to adjust training if this comes up again and just generally avoid it most of the time. 7th place here and any shot of Nationals qualifying was completely gone. A little girl did make me a sign of support so that did lessen the sting a little.

The fourth event was arm-over-arm pull. This was TBD as the promoter felt like a weight listing wouldn’t really make sense as far as people training for it. Going to be based on surface and other factors. The apparatus was a Rogue Dog Sled outfitted to look like a sleigh with Christmas lights on it. 651lbs of weight was added to it. The sled schematics without the added material on it is 103lbs so over 754lbs and likely about 800lbs considering the construction. 50’ course with a run up and 60 second time limit. Sled on turf but the section that would be where the athlete positioned would be smooth floor. This was an event I was very confident on. I’ve only gotten second on this kind of event my very first show and the rest I’ve won by a good bit. Granted that is only a total of four times but one of those times was Nationals last year. So I was the best rope tugger in the nation at time. It feels weird to have something where I feel really confident about but then don’t want to have a big head about it. But my notes the past two times this has come up as far as a game plan has just been “win”. Very low volume training for this. Which seems to work well for me on this and let me give priority to other things in training. This was something I had tested out the day before the contest empty. My thinking with how the sled seemed to be moving on the turf was go with the short arm strokes and use the slick floor with warm up pants to slide and use mostly lower body drive. Keep the momentum going. Warm ups were done with a bit over half the weight and I did only a few pulls to see if that added weight would change my approach and to see what running up option and grabbing the rope made the most sense time wise and keeping tension. I decided to stick to my plan. I wasn’t too sure the time that went before me because I was focused on myself. I got set and was off to what I felt was a good start. I tend not like the thinner ropes as they tend to bite into my ring and pinky fingers with how I grip ropes. This was a thinner rope then what I was training on (I guess I have 2” and 1.75”). I had sense that this was taking longer than I was expecting but got the notification I was close (the sandbags obstructed view of the finish mark) and pulled a long pull to finish. Just over 30 seconds. I felt that was good enough. The person that had gone ahead of me was about 5 seconds slower and the person that went after me 3 seconds. Then the guy in fourth place was 10 seconds. So it seemed like an ok run. Then the guy in second ended up being just 2 seconds slower and I got worried that I had screwed up with my plan as far as technique on this setup. The guy in first who is not known for his grip ended up beating me by less than a second. I was not expecting that. He has obviously put in the work. So a second place here.

Final event for the first day was a stone event. The stone off that was popularized as the elimination determination for the second seed out of the groups at WSM. At least the early iteration of it. Also seems to be a thing for the paid light weight shows going on as far as an event. 277lbs stone over 52” bar. No sticky stuff allowed, only chalk. 30 seconds to get a lift. Back and forth until someone fails and then the next person comes in and it continues. Time period to reduce to 15 seconds once the athlete reaches 10 reps. Assuming the last person standing is still feeling themselves, they can keep lifting the stone under those interval times as the most reps total wins it. I’m good with stones but if there is a weakness I have, it is that I get a lot out of tacky and no tacky stones require a good bit of upper body strength. So this definitely puts me at level that would have other people that wouldn’t be that close with tackied stones be able to beat me. Training had to be both tough but limited. As I felt this would definitely be something where the winning reps would be at least 20 reps. So ended up doing two sessions with a stone of steel to slightly higher load height and slightly heavier weight for prepping. My biceps cramped up bad two days later after that first session and then no issues at all after the second time. Maybe it would’ve have been a good idea to try contest conditions with the rests but have to hope that my overall conditioning will prevail there. But I knew this was going to be a tough one and this was going to be a long day. Like grab a Snickers long time. I elected to tape up for this as while it could cause an issue with my hands later on if too tight, I was sweating a good bit in the crowded gym. Warming up I got a chance to touch the stones and see if I could pick up the contest one regardless of how it landed as that would be helpful. Obviously one position was much easier than the others. I was in 5th place overall after getting out of 7th by my placing on the penultimate event. I had a feeling that with the two athletes starting that I would be in really quick so I was ready. One of them couldn’t lift the stone and I was in. I put my chalk by the side of the yoke. My plan wasn’t necessarily to win as winning this I was still way too far out of podium. Best I could get would be 4th place overall and I just would need to beat the guy in fourth place on this event to do that. So my plan was to not pace myself initially and just pick the stone as it lay to put pressure on the competitor I was going against while showing no emotion. First guy got two reps before failing. Fourth place guy out next and is out after one rep. So at this point, I could go no higher and the guy in third would need the win to get second place. He was also the guy I expected would push me on the stones with this setup. It got difficult with the time limit then dropping after 10 reps was reached. The stone landing weird each time with the mats moving made things challenging too as it became more important to have the stone the right way for me to pick it up as my arms were fatiguing. There were times I did grab the stone at a not advantaged position because I felt it would break the momentum and that would take more energy out of me. Going for a 15th rep the stone slid on me as I was about to lap it. I called it there at that point as I had my fill and didn’t want to potentially strain my biceps at this point as it is when stones start sliding that that happens with me. However, I don’t think I’d have beaten him on the day with the conditions and format as they were. Guy in 2nd place tapped out a 5 reps and 1st place stopped after getting 3 reps to secure the win. So another second place here.

So in the end (which ended up being done by 3PM with 10AM start), I got 4th out of 7 at the competition. This not the outcome I’d have liked but it is the outcome. I knew it would be this tough with the level of competition these days that go to this shows. The top three are people that have beaten me before and put in great performances overall. I perhaps didn’t go all in on those last two events after the bombing I did on the conan’s wheel that nuked my chances. But it was always a possibility with my track record on that event. But I like doing well run shows, even if not best events and I won’t shy away from trying out stuff again and again until I get it right. Even if say everything had gone my way within expectations, I’d still be out of contention with how well they did. No injuries and I have numbers for my overhead and deadlift to build from for the 2024 competitive season. Really sore on the drive back home after eating at seafood restaurant on the way and ended up taking a nap. Plan at this point is to take a few months for an offseason prep and hopefully bring in an improved athlete for summer.