My 2011 American Open Experience

It didn't go down great.

First, it was the weekend after Thanksgiving, which I spent in Houston with family I don't see often. One might ask why I didn't just see my family for Christmas instead? Not an option, as my dad works on a seismic boat 5 weeks on / 5 weeks off and he was to be in country for Thanksgiving, not Christmas.

Holidays also usually mean I'm exposed to children, and children are walking petri dishes.

So as tradition would have it, after I return to California, I'm knocked on my ass by a nasty cold. Fever, chills, achy muscles, phlegm everywhere. Cancelled appointments. Cancelled training sessions. When I tried a final heavy day, I mostly succeeded in constantly coughing, blowing my nose a lot, and missing everything I tried to put over head. Awesome.

Still. I'm part of a team, and no matter how I do, I'll earn points for the team. There is no backing out now.

My lift day is on Sunday, which TOTALLY SUCKS because all my teammates are done Friday night. That means I get to watch them relax, eat, and drink and be jolly for two nights while I'm supposed to be amping up my focus and tapering down my training and calories for weigh ins. It's almost enough to convince me to drop back to being a 69kg lifter. Hell, I was a 63kg judo player once upon a time, why not?

I still don't feel 100% come competition time, and it shows. We take what should have been a no-brainer weight for my snatch, 73kg, I miss it twice. On the third attempt I think "Fuck this" and just power snatch the thing. I don't know how high I caught it, but I was told it basically looked like a muscle snatch. 73kg is too light for me to be missing.

Now I'm so amped from the snatches on top of not feeling great that I start getting dizzy. Which is weird because it's not like I had to do much cutting this time around to make weight, so it's not lack of food or water that's giving me problems. To avoid any further dizziness setting in, we start with a no-brainer clean and jerk of 90kg, and end with 94kg. Also because I'm not feeling well, I power clean all of them. I'm not going to squat in this condition if I don't have to.

Afterwards, I lay on the cold ground for a while which is the best feeling in the world at that time. Then I get a beer, drink said beer, and fall asleep on the chairs in the spectator section.

Oh well. Time to get healthy (I'm even driving to work for a week) and get back to the drawing board.