Raw Nationals 2014 Recap

I’m back! Well, I’ve been back for a couple days but I was EXHAUSTED so I haven’t felt like posting about it.

Anyway… IT WAS AWESOME!!!!

I hit my ultimate goal of going 9/9 and I could not be happier. I will admit, my strength felt a little bit off due to starting my period the day of competition (I don’t know why this keeps happening to me!) and from traveling to Italy a couple days before, so I didn’t get to attempt the weights I thought I would have. But, all said and done, I could NOT be happier with how I performed!! 9/9 – 27 white lights. Meet records on all three lifts and a personal record on the deadlift. Really doesn’t get much better than that for your first national competition 🙂 I can not say “Thank You” enough to Coach Matt Gary for the awesome programming, training, and support, and to Ross Leppala for handling me. I absolutely could not have done this well without the two of them.

 

Weigh In: Weighed in at 75K, putting me at the very bottom of the 84K weight class. Oops…

Squat:

First Attempt: 242# — Good, 3 white lights
Second Attempt: 253# — Good, 3 white lights
Third Attempt: 259# — Good, 3 white lights, Meet PR! 

Bench: 

First Attempt: 110# — Good, 3 white lights
Second Attempt: 115# — Good, 3 white lights
Third Attempt: 121# — Good, 3 white lights, Meet PR! 

Deadlift: 

First Attempt: 275# — Good, 3 white lights
Second Attempt: 297# — Good, 3 white lights
Third Attempt: 308# — Good, 3 white lights, Meet PR, All time PR! 

Outside of the lifting, it was SO MUCH FUN! Not only did I get to see all of my lifting friends from around the country AND meet dozens of amazing new people…. I GOT TO BE TRAPPED IN HOTEL WITH THEM FOR FIVE DAYS! It was pretty much just summer-camp for adults. I loved it. I can’t wait for next year.

I could probably bring myself to tears writing about how amazingly awesome the weekend was. I have never felt so welcomed and connected within a group of people in my life. Meeting my coach, Matt Gary, his wife Sioux-Z, and the rest of Team SSPT was absolutely wonderful and I continued to feel grateful for being on that team the entire weekend. I’m not sure how I finagled being associated with such an amazing group of lifters, but I did, and I am so so so thankful.

I could write 20 pages of “Thank You’s” and another 20 of funny stories, but I’m not going to do that. I am gonna post a couple pictures and a video of my lifting… and then…probably write another blog post about the awesome food I made for dinner tonight 😉

G’nigh Y’all 🙂