Conclusion of the National Championships-Sarah

Well, I have internet and a few minutes so I thought I'd tell you about how the National Championships turned out for me. I suppose when Jessica is ready, she'll do the same. Because I love Clint Eastwood so much, I will write this in "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" format. I'll do the "ugly" part first so It's not a buzz-kill at the end.

The ugly:
*I am fairly sure I spoke to not one person who had anything nice to say about our competition venue. It's hard to take the competition seriously when it felt like you were at Napoleon Dynamite's 8th grade prom location.
*There was not enough equipment to go around in the training hall. The plates also weighed bizarre amounts and made loading weights difficult.
*Traveling to Cincinatti was not easy and what was particularly frustrating was the shuttle service. The meet director kept announcing to reserve your shuttle from the airport. When I did, the company told me it was cancelled. It was very short notice and left me a little stressed at not being informed of this even up to the day before a lot of people were traveling.

Competition Platform

Training Hall

The Bad:
*My flight to leave PHX was delayed therefore, I was going to miss my connecting flight so the next flight that was available was through another airline and did not leave until another 8 hours later. I didn't get to my hotel in Cincinnati until 10 am the next day.
*The medal for Women's 75+ total medal was missing but, it's not too terrible of a thing. It will be sent to me in the mail.
*Finding a hotel for the entire weekend was nearly impossible but, I managed to find something.

The Good:
*My hotel room was like a palace to me. It had a full kitchen.
*I brought cake with me for my cake party all the way over from Az and it survived long enough for me to eat it at the end of the cometition.

Stater Brothers cooler bag carrying my precious cake cargo.

*My friend Elizabeth, from Tucson, was a life saver at this meet! She drove me around, we listened to the Spice Girls as she braided my hair before the meet. She provided me with sparkles for my hair. Besides that, she's hilarious, and nerdy.

Me and Elizabeth Bartlett at Steak and Shakes

*I performed the best I ever have
*There was a live webcast that had some really great commentating
*I saw lots of my friends and took a lot of hilarious pictures

Breanne Harvard, Brianna Barnett, Chioma Amaechi, and me

Spencer Moorman, Megan Murphy, Elizabeth Bartlett, me, Samantha Zimmerman and Jared Flemming

Spencer Moorman, Megan Murphy, Elizabeth Bartlett, me and Jared Flemming

Spencer Moorman, Megan Murphy, Elizabeth Bartlett, me and Jared Flemming

Breanne Harvard, Brianna Barnett, Chioma Amaechi, and me

Megan Murphy, Elizabeth Bartlett, and me.

Megan Murphy, Elizabeth Bartlett and me

Breanne Harvard, Brianna Barnett, Chioma Amaechi, and me

*My coach bought me dinner after the competition (free food!)

Me and my coach Joe Micela

 
*Because I came a day later, I saved money on a night's stay at the hotel
*My custom singlet looked really good and I got compliments!

Custom singlet of doom. It had ruffly sleeves. (insert girlish giggle)

*After the competition I left for vacation to Texas. Just one week here then, back to the grind.
*I actually enjoyed Vlogging despite how silly I felt doing it.
*I was happy to work with Hookgrip on the "Guess our total" contest and despite having the competition not go well for Jessica, there still was a winner.

 

______________________________________________________________________________

About the competition:

     I originally planned to go early to recover from the travel but, because of the travel delay, a whole day was wasted, which sucked. I was worried that I would be jet-lagged for too long.  It did take me a little bit to get over the travel but, it all worked out. We also were not peaking for this meet; we were working through it. I had a recovery week the week before and during this time, we tried to keep it as close to normal training as possible with two-a-day trainings. I was concerned that I was going to be too tired from training and traveling that I wasn't going to be ready for the competition but, I had to rely on my coach making good decisions and the fact that I am a meet lifter.

     The day of the competition finally came. I woke up, ate breakfast, had very light training with a 45 kgs snatch, 65 kgs clean and jerk, and 140 front squat. My teammate, coach, and I ate second breakfast. I rested, vlogged, got ready, weighed in, had lunch and started preparing for the competition. Preparing includes: laying on the floor laughing with friends, touching up make up, going to the bathroom 800 times because I have nervous pees, putting sparkles in my hair, THEN I stretched, moved around and tried to not feel nervous. 

     I knew during the competition at some point, I was going to follow myself so we made sure to condition for that. Following yourself means that there is no one taking the same weight as you so there is no taking turns to get more rest. I twisted my ankle in the warm up area getting ready to snatch a warm up at 85 kgs and later on I missed 105 or 110 kgs then made it. When I got onto the competition platform, I was kind of shaking with nerves. I am not sure why I was feeling that way. I tried my best to keep my cool and I rocked my opening attempt at 115 kgs. On the second attempt with 120 kgs, I over pulled the weight (put in too much effort) causing me to lose the weight behind me. I repeated that weight and made it with ease but having to take a step forward to make sure it was in the right place. The 120 kgs snatch tied my personal best. 

     In the clean and jerks, my warm ups went plenty fine. No problems. My opening attempt felt easy and I was again, following myself for the next two attempts. My second attempt at 150 kgs felt really great and I could feel a smile come across my face as I knew I was going to make this weight and have a new personal record. I had the same feelings going up to 155 kgs. With this pr clean and jerk, I also got a pr total which was really exciting to me.

     I was very excited to have such a great performance for two reasons:

1.) My weights put me even closer to breaking the American/ Pan American Records

2.) Usaw has me ranked as low as #8 on the stipend list and now with that total, I think I move up closer to #1 which will help me not worry so much about training/living for the next few months. 

To see videos from the meet, check out: www.youtube.com/prettystrongblog

Fuertisima,

Sarah