Look, I’m as surprised to be writing this as you are reading this. After my competition in May, I had been clear that I was going to be taking an off-season (a real one). And probably a little indulgent in sour grapes with missing podium by half a point. And I had felt a little sick by the time I got back home and I spent that first week back just kind of getting my air back. So my plan for at least 9 weeks of off-season prep was to start with looking at next year. Then a day later I get an e-mail congratulating me on qualifying for Natural World’s Strongest Man. Of course my first instinct was that this was sent to me in error. Then worry that someone at the show failed the drug test and I was called up. But it was neither of those things. They meant to send me an invite and said it was due to how close the contest was I had just done that an additional invite was being extended to me. I’m even closer to 40 then I was three months earlier and no clue if this opportunity will be within my grasp again. I’ve been trying to qualify for a competition outside of the US since 2013 and it has finally happened.
As I mentioned in the previous write-up, the competition is being held in Galway, Ireland for the second year in a row. I had done the show in Washington to kind of get used to travel for a competition as I’ve only flown once before for 2017 Nationals in Las Vegas. Kind of funny to me that this country is so vast that coast to coast is only slightly shorter distance than crossing an ocean. But I had been entertaining the trip in my head when I had the idea of even trying to qualify about the food (always food) and traveling and such. So a bit short notice for my tastes really but opportunity knocks. So my plans had to be changed. I can’t exactly do off-season if I’m going to be competing in a few months with seven events over two days. I had felt like I had a good grasp on what training for me should be with results of the proof of concept of my own training plan for the last show. And slowly but surely this seemed to be fine until about 2/3rds or 3/4ths the way into prep where I was hitting a wall and asked for a lifeline in the last month of prep. I knew I wasn’t going to get stronger with coaching in that short a time but I could at least get better conditioned and more efficient and hopefully land this plane.
Speaking of plane, I had to catch one. I’ve not had much experience with planes as had two trips to Florida when I was like high school age and then nothing until 2017 with nothing again until 2024 with Southwest. So that was all I knew and didn’t realize that wasn’t the norm until seeing the hubbub about changing their policies. This was my first intercontinental flight and while not the roomiest plane, it was a lot better than what I was used to. My father came with me with for this trip (my mother stayed home, not wanting to spend most of the trip in dorms hehe) so I was able to have someone familiar with me that made me feel comfortable. I found out quickly with the redeye flight I was not someone who was going to fall asleep on the plane. Not going to happen with the one person snoring right behind me. Too dark to read but the interactive display had options so I spent most of the about 8hrs in the air playing solitaire and Bejeweled 2. A little girl in front of me was talking about how much she like being in America for summer (she was returning to Ireland) and telling her classmates about how everyone there has a pool in their backyard. Flying into Dublin in the morning and seeing the country out the window of the aircraft, it looked not real. It was like watching the trolley go into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
The 5hr time difference was brutal for me and my dad and we figured the best option was to essentially just stay up until it was night time hours here and hopefully that one really bad day would mean smooth sailing from then on. Rather than deal with public transit and have a little more freedom of movement, we rented a car. It was about 2.5hrs drive from Dublin (east coast) to Galway (west coast) and the inverted driving lanes were a bit of a learning curve. Probably not helpful on no sleep. The car was helpful getting across the country and in Galway but became a liability with in Dublin so that ended up being Uber and Taxi if too far to walk. It was uneventful getting out to the venue but a bit with figuring out when actually there where to go and getting stuff setup for the initial stay for the competition. The competition was being held at the University of Galway and the dorms were the closest accommodations (students were going to be back in two weeks). Convenient but spartan. Which was fine for the most part. I had some understanding of differences such as recycling, bottles and things like central air but some not really aware to consider with planning. The lack of A/C almost made the first night intolerable. We attempted to locate fans but stores were sold out. But we made do. Those living quarters felt like the best sleep ever after being up for 31hrs straight as slept for 12hrs and felt like I was completely adjusted to the time shift.
The competition this year was being held of three days in a staggered way to accommodate the number of athletes (about 250 from 26 different countries). Most competitors were going to be competing on 2nd and 3rd day of the competition with the 1st being for weigh-ins/check-ins (also staggered). First day of competition was for the junior and master divisions with them doing 5 of the 7 contested events with them finishing up the remaining 2 on the second day in the early morning. As open heavyweight class, my check-in wasn’t until 6PM so was able to do a fair bit of exploring in Galway (had done some the day before but a bit out of it). It is very nice place and I can see what is meant by a “walkable” city. Some of the places we had wanted to eat were booked out until after we were leaving which was a shame but thankfully able to eat at a lot of places with great food. The only meal I regretted the entire stay was the late night gas station sandwiches I had after the first day of competition as it was way too late to get food anywhere else. Check-in went smoothly (I was mistaken for 105kgs and it wasn’t the last time this comp) and I had to take pictures for the competition service and got two competition shirts. This was starting to feel very real.
Day 1
With how the competition was running for the 2nd day of festivities, I was in the last group of the day consisting of 105kgs men, open HW women and open HW men. Starting at 6PM and plan being to get in 4 events. I’m actually ok with training this late (even if I didn’t end up adjusting to the time shift) as that is generally when I can start training after work. It is probably a good thing that it didn’t start until later in the day because I was a nervous wreck. Such as accidentally locking myself out of my dorm and needing to get a new keycard. I was contemplating withdrawing from the competition with how much I was stressing out. I ended up doing the same thing honey badgers do when bitten by venomous snakes and took a nap to sleep it off. I also packed the wrong shirt for the first day so I had to walk back to the dorms a second time so I did get a decent warm up and work off some excess nervous energy in the process. Of the 31 competitors that had signed up, there were 26 that made it to the show. I was one of six Americans competing. I knew Murphy from the west coast qualifier and I had meant to compete against the three that qualified at the southeast qualifier before having to drop out for various reasons. My aim here was to do my best and show I somewhat belonged. And hopefully not be last place.
I tend to know what I can do and that meant being smart with things. Which meant not attempting the deadlift. 661lbs/300kgs was not happening as I was likely built back up to 585lbs/265kgs for my max now. I’ve put in work here but no sense wasting effort at the show when there are six more events that I actually have a shot at getting points. So borrowing from the Oberst playbook and taking a tactical zero on the first event. Or am I taking one from Benni Magnusson by skipping the first rep and going for the second? In either case, this tied with last place with several people.
So the second event (but the first for me) was the yoke into power stairs. 60 seconds to go 50’/15m down and back with a yoke and then end with taking a power stair implement up 3 steps to finish. 750lbs/340kgs the yoke and 485lbs/220kgs on the power stairs. This had been a bit more of beast than I thought it would be with training. I kind of knew this would show up somewhere after they had a variation of this at the Rogue Invitational last year. I’ve done yoke enough but haven’t really been heavy in a good while and power stairs I’ve not tried more than 420lbs/190kgs before this prep. I had kind of hoped that I could build up my work capacity here with initially doing EMOMs into EOMOMs with alternating the implement before putting them together. This did end up being challenging even when paired together and I was kind of at a loss when I wasn’t able to really hit the yoke and then have time or ability to do a heavy implement. Many sessions of bruises in my knees and thighs and only really started to get things to click when I brought on a coach (despite having to not do my last heavy workout). This was possible and my hope here would be that I tolerate the yoke and travel and that the power stair setup would be a little more forgiving than what I had been enduring. The implements were a brand I’ve never heard of before. Power stair implement pretty standard. The yoke had a thinner cross bar than most I’ve used but it handled quite smooth. The floor was quite grippy and we had to do yoke heights the day before. I was in the early heats due to deadlift scoring. I was still incredibly nervous but I got in the warm-ups I wanted and needed here (probably helped skipping deadlift). There was a bit of delay as they had my height wrong (miscommunication with order) so while they fixed it, I chalked up the power stair handle. One part to have the grip good (in the event I lost all my chalk on yoke) and the other a confidence thing to say I will be finishing the yoke and doing this implement. I get set and the commands given and we are off. I’m not fast but this feels comfortable. Not like something I can’t finish. I rushed my second pick a little and the front dipped and clipped the rubber mats (ribbed for pleasure I guess) but I held strong and corrected and finished. It was time now for the power stairs. I went at it but it became quite obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to do the swing and pull style with this kind of weight after the yoke run so I pretty much just deadlifted and duck walked it up as it was thin enough plates and I was tall enough to do it. This was draining but time hadn’t expired and I just kept at it. Third step and it’s not quite there so shove it on there and beat the buzzer. I was so exhausted but just felt relief and elation that I finished this. With a time of 58.32 seconds, this was enough to get on the board with 15th place.
Third event for the show was the Hercules hold. 221lbs/100kgs added per side to the implements and having it be those lovely 2”/50mm thick rolling handles. Hold until you can’t no more. Generally this event comes in two flavors, too light or too heavy. Too light being more letting go out of boredom and too heavy being perfect, like recreating that scene in Spiderman where he’s slowing down the train or trying to keep the boat together. Whichever works best. The last show as to have this but didn’t happen and I did see how devilish the handles being used were compared to mine so I decided that I needed to get handles like that and potentially work grip a little differently. Training was either rolling handle hangs or doing crush gripper training. I was a little worried with how much tougher the handles were that I did setup the actual Hercules hold at the gym for 250lbs/113kgs per hand (200lbs/91kgs added per side) and that was a comfortable 45 seconds so my fears were alleviated. But didn’t do anything in the last month of prep as working the other stuff as this tends to be always a good one for me. This could be my best showing on the world stage honestly. I was feeling pretty good after the previous event and this is one I’m comfortable with. The handles were a bit used so there was some grip to them. Warming up was pretty much doing one hand picks with the handle attached to some weights on a loading pin. It’s not really something that you can really warm up for in the traditional means. I was out fairly early again but just not as much. Standing and facing the crowd with three other competitors in the same setup with chains locking the apparatus in the back. Soon the levers would be released and I’d find out what kind of day I was going to have. Release. Hmm, hard to say. This feels like a decent weight. In the moment, I wasn’t sure how long I was holding or if it was a good time honestly. I know that people like to yell encouragement on these kind of hold events but they do come off as more distracting than anything. I know that it is more people being supportive but usually I have a bit of tunnel vision and don’t hear much. Eventually the person on the far left lets loose and I hear the chains clang. One down, two more to go. At this point, I start singing. I tend to get “showboaty” when it comes to something I’m good at and I’m not entirely sure what compelled me to but I went with it and started singing Yes Sir, I Can Boogie by Baccara. Guy to my right goes next with the last person to the left succumbing an instant after that. Still standing and singing like an idiot. I start shimmying a little too. Then I start to feel my grip in my left hand start to go and I try my best to finish up singing without speeding up the tempo. Finally losing the grip and thrusting my hands up. Again, I had no idea of my time. But 50.66 seconds which ends up being second place (winner was about 7 seconds longer but withdrew from the comp after this event).
Fourth and final event for Day 1 was bit of something old but something new. Sandball dash, carry and load. Run out 50’/15m and pick up the “sandball” and carry it back to then load over a 52”/1.32m yoke for reps. 60 seconds time limit and a 287lbs/130kgs implement. The kids these days with their different shaped sandbags. But it is a round sandbag that is supposed to be like stone. The actual product is called a “sandstone” but this show is calling it “sandball” so whatevs. So initial training for this had kind of been doing sandbag carries into a load for part of another event at the show EMOM and EOMOM style as well as doing loads EMOM style. I wasn’t sure exactly how this would feel and I had a feeling that this will show up elsewhere so I ended up getting one for the gym. Underfilled the largest one as I generally have no issues with firm sandbags compared to floppy ones. It do be a round sandbag but reps with it was a little odd in that I was feeling like one orientation was feeling easier to pick up vs another. But my second touch with it felt better. Bringing on a coach the rest of it was just sandbag stuff and working on moving quickly as loading tends to not be so bad for me. Warming up for this was just kind of doing the minimum to stay fresh and primed. Doing too much here with knowing that another day of events would be detrimental. So just doing occasional singles to load but most of my time was spent doing sprints. I knew I wasn’t going to be very fast running back with the sandball so I should try to be the fastest going out to get it at least. It was a good choice to get the largest bag and underfill it as that is what we ended up having here. Never again with floppy bags not prepped for. With how I placed on Hercules hold, I was in the last heat for this event, which was also the last heat of the day. By this point, the stands were pretty much empty. I get it, people have been here over 12hrs potentially at this point and the next day is an early start. But while the audience is nice, I’m not doing it for them. Rarely is the audience there for the day in and day out. This is for me and always has been. Commands set and we are off. I get out to the implement first as planned. Then I end up being the slowest one back with it. Not great. I had to slow myself a little as I got a tad lightheaded about halfway down the course. Really eating into my time but I finally get to the other guys and can finally start the loading portion. A change that was made to my technique here from new coaching was go under the bar. I generally don’t because usually the load height is low and I worry about it slipping me up. But training had proved that it cuts down the time considerably. I could hear the announcer this time saying I have the height but do I have the gas. I made sure that each pick of the bag counted as I knew from training that it can be a wily one. With 15 seconds left, I knew I had only one more rep left in me in the time limit as the rules were that it has to have landed on the ground in the 60 seconds for it to count. When the dust settled, I had gotten 5 reps. A three-way tie for fifth here (there was a four-way tie for first).
Day 2
So first day had gone to plan and I did what I was hoping/planning to do here. But it was really, really late at this point and unfortunately, the next day would be a rude awakening. All the groups would be competing together and were expected to be there at 10AM the following day. So talking less than 12hrs to eat dinner, clean up and go to sleep and then wake up, eat breakfast and be ready to lift things. This did not end up a restful sleep but I knew that was going to be the case after doing two moving events the day before. Encountered the messy roommates finally that were cohabitating in the apartment with the other 5 dorm rooms after eating a very disappointing dinner of gas station sandwiches. Equally disappointing was morning coffee, which seemed to be a quest at this point in the trip for finding worsening cups of coffee each day (we did get if figured out after this day lol). The amazing bathroom lighting in my dorm did nothing to dissuade the joint aches (namely stiff ankles) from competing the night before and the many steps put in on foot walking around the city. A bit more packed with everyone in the same space and a bit warmer with all the bodies. I apparently misplaced my chalk the evening before and couldn’t find it but I did have liquid chalk on hand. It turns out that despite being asked to be there at 10AM, it was going to be closer to 1pm before I actually needed to warm up for the first event. But it was probably good that I was up and there as it gave me time to get myself to loosen up from being all tight. I was frequently shirtless (I got referred to as a shirtless terminator) and not due to exhibitionist tendencies. I sweat a lot and trying to keep my competition shirt dry, especially since I didn’t have a lot of chalk. I also had to adjust my eating plan for the day (during contest and after) as this ended up being a long day.
The first event of the second day was axle clean and press. Rising bar for max. 5 attempt limit and could skip attempts. But you missed and you were done. 30 seconds to make the lift (2 attempts allowed in that time). Opener at 287lbs/130kgs with 22lbs/10kgs jumps. And setup on metal wagon wheels roughly 13”. This was the event I was stressing out the most. Like déjà vu from 3yrs ago with the same circumstances. My overhead has not been where it has been at its peak for quite some time and it has just gotten more finnicky with age. Missing weight that was planned in training a month out was the main reason I reached out for help to navigate training for this kind of show as I knew that bombing two events and getting zero wasn’t a good one. Already did that with the 2018 Arnold. My training had initially been having the clean and press separate so that I could work on my clean as I was having issues above a certain weight. I think that was beneficial for me getting that a bit crisper but the press was lagging. Like it will click for a session or two and then be like everything is terrible. Even if this couldn’t get resolved for this show, hopefully I can correct it with an off season. Initially, warming up was feeling good. But then it started to feel off after I was doing 85kgs/187lbs, which is not a good sign. I was feeling pressure with some guys commenting that no HW can miss the opener now that Angeline Jardine just did over that on the axle for a new WR (which was amazing by the way). But I was still hopeful. I got to my last warm up which was to be 253.5lbs/115kgs and that was a disaster. In training, I had gotten some comfortable singles at 256lbs/116kgs but that was also the most I was successful with hitting this entire prep and the most I’ve hit this entire year. I went and missed it. Devastating. And I had to go out there and do 33lbs/15kgs more. I didn’t want to treat this like the deadlift as this should be something I can do. It also wasn’t necessarily going to be draining as it would be something that warms up for the final event. I was going to make an attempt, even if it was going to be massively disappointing. Time to go. First try and it doesn’t quite get the height to catch on my belt/midsection and it slides back down and that counts as my first attempt. Great, I’m not even going to get this cleaned today. I put in a bit more effort and I’m able to get it up to the belt but I just don’t have it today to catch it on the shoulders. Just shows how much of a hit I take from the first day of events. I guess I should’ve had an idea after seeing how my last heavy session went on overhead after doing my heaviest run of the same yoke and power stair event. Hopefully I do not end up with this kind of overhead performance again as it is getting old. Tied for last with a few people here.
Moving on to the next event, sandbag toss. 5 bags over 13’5.5”/4.1m bar from 9’10”/3m. 44lbs/20kgs to 62lbs/28kgs in 4.4lbs/2kgs jumps. 45 seconds time limit. This had been an event that gave me stress this prep as well. But I kind of knew it would as I’m great with bag toss when it is more than one bag and it isn’t the first event of a competition. Going into this, I knew that finishing the series (even with a lower than usual height) was not happening and aim would be getting what I can. Training had been initially a mixture of doing actual tosses one week and then doing a toss variation to work on the triple extension. I’m not good at that. I usually seem to have issues if I do bag toss every week. I had to change this plan to more of a lighter session vs heavier session as perhaps I wasn’t quite ready for the volume I had planned with the clean pull variation. Then the last month with coaching was drilling overload priming with heavy swings and aiming for the first three bags in the series. I can get the first two consistently, but not so much the third. But using 5lbs vs the 2kgs so maybe that makes the difference on the day. I got in very minimal warm ups here. I just needed to feel loose and hit a few tosses that felt good so that I wasn’t feeling like crap or dwelling on the axle performance. My worry was that my first day was what I got and that I wasn’t going to show up on the second day at all. Another reason perhaps for not doing a lot here was that someone slipped doing warm ups and banged their head on the setup in the training area and started bleeding from the back of their head profusely. That was scary. With not doing good on axle, I was out in the first heat here. My plan was to do the first bag as normal and then grab the next two bags and walk them back as I was finding trying to do the backwards shuffle and throw I was inconsistent after the first bag. First bag went over and a ditched my doo-rag to the side as it was sliding off my head. Went and got the next two bags. Plan of execution was to do one swing on this bag. Up and over. So far, so good. Third bag was where I was having issues. I was not consistent with this bag weight. I was good at 52.5lbs/23.8kgs twice as part of a series and not getting it when bumped up to 55lbs/25kgs. Plan was to do a double swing and hope for the best. One and a two… yes! Up and over. And I still had about 15 seconds left. But I was slow with these and by the time I got the fourth bag, I had less than 5 seconds to throw it (same rules as the sandball with needing it to land in the time limit) and I wasn’t able to get a double swing like before. But it was darn close. Overall, this wasn’t great placing wise (22nd place) but it was a good result for me.
The final event for the whole shebang was going to suck the most suck possible. Zercher carry a yoke 32’10”/10m and then run back to the start to get a sandbag and carry that 32’10”/10m to load of the yoke’s crossbar and then do all over again. 75 seconds time limit here and dealing with 595lbs/270kgs on the yoke and 287lbs/130kgs on the sandbag. Initially I had been training this with it being 50’/15m but that apparently had been a typo at some point. I had not anticipated how awful this event was going to be as I thought doing it in parts like with yoke and power stair with EMOM and EOMOM before merging together would cover things. Nope. I should also mention that zercher carry with yoke or Conan’s wheel has not been good for me at competition. In training I seem to be ok but come competition I tend to get lightheaded and pass out briefly. I think though I’m a little less leery with the yoke zercher thing as it’s not a one and done like with the Conan’s wheel so I can keep going when I regain consciousness. But training this was in no way enjoyable and most of the training was actually trying to get to the point where I could even do both halves without rest and then under the time limit with any appreciable weight. It’s a brutal event to end a show on but honestly, it was going to be terrible regardless of where it was. But at least the show is done after this. Same yoke being used here so thinner crossbar. This potentially boded well for me as I tend to better with thinner crossbar for front carry. Had to do yoke heights for this one as well (done with yoke at check-in). I think some people were nervous about pick height and such with gamesmanship with having a lower pick height make an easier load. I had to make sure I had mine right so that I could do repicks if needed and not have it dragging on the floor, especially with the rubber flooring. Even more so than the sandbag toss, I was trying my best to just keep from having things tighten up on me. Just enough to know I could do this. The warm up setup was outside on blacktop with a slight slant and one yoke to spec and the other not. Pretty much everyone suspected the one 265lbs/120kgs bag was mislabeled and was actually heavier but could also be that this is the last event of seven over two days and getting close to 8hrs for this day. With how points were, I couldn’t move up in placing unless I did really well here but I could definitely lose placing here if I didn’t hold it together. I was having my heart in my throat waiting and my anxiety was having my sweat off the chalk on my arms I had reapplied twice already just waiting in the queue to go. Slight delay with someone needing their yoke height fixed. Last one. Timer goes and I’m moving. Please don’t pass out. First leg done. Run back for the bag. The orientation was such that the Velcro would be in the way if I went at it from the side so I went behind it so that I could have a more secure grip. I fiddle around with it a bit at the end for the load as I was trying to have the bag go over in a way as to land sideways so that it wouldn’t land on the plates and be in position so that I could run up to get this sideways on the return back. Still didn’t land how I wanted and I had to shove it off the plates before going the second half of this. I was able to get up and go with the zercher and I had a decent amount of time left by the time it was to do the sandbag. But I was feeling beat and I knew this was the toughest part of the damn thing. If I dropped it, I was done. I just had to budge this a few feet to keep my place. But I was going to give my all. The bag had landed in the worse way as the Velcro strap was right there. I went for the pick up and it just seemed to get stuck and start to head back down but I said no and powered it back up and lapped it. I had 10 seconds left to finish it. Slow walk and I get to bar and not quite get the load. I’m pushing and time expires and the bag falls over about a second or two later. Look, I wasn’t stopping until I finished this thing as this had been hell in training. I got the distance but not in the time limit. Scoring was based on split times with finishing each leg and then distance. So credited with finishing the third object in 47.54 seconds and 30’7”/9.8m on the fourth object. So either the most distance without finishing or the slowest to complete. 12th place finish here.
Tired, sore and bruised but enjoying myself. In the end, I placed 16th out of 26 with competitors from 12 different countries. Considering the scale of things, this ran as smooth as it could’ve. I had been worried it would be run in not so professional way (just from doing this sport for nearly 20yrs). Other than axle, everything went to plan from training and I’m optimistic for the future. Heck of a way to put a cap on number 50 for competitions. I got to go to a different country and got to hang out with people from several countries that do that same dumb thing that I do. I also got to meet people I’ve only known from Instagram and Reddit at this competition as well as new friends. I do want to come back and hopefully put together a better athlete when the time comes.
My trip in Ireland didn’t end with the competition as also went to one of the Aran Islands and then back to Dublin for a few days before flying back home to my own bed. I’m not entirely sure what the next adventure in this sport will be for me but I will be trying my best to do the things I want to do as I have been. But I really need to actually take a true deload so that I can keep on keeping on.
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