We got up to Milton Keynes on Friday afternoon to give me time to relax and chill out and prepare for the next day. I was certain that I would make weight as the Friday morning I had weighed in on my scales at 81.5kg, or something like that. The Friday was spent eating salads and grilled chicken breast with olive oil. I had come accustomed to the taste of it, having eaten like this for pretty much 4-5 weeks. I was about 7% bodyfat too. Saying that, I was looking forward to having a box of Coco pops on sunday morning.
I was nervous on the Friday night, not due to the competing, but by the weigh in. I didn't want to go through the hassle of having to try and lose the last bit of weight. My nerves were unfounded though and I walked on the scales at 7.15am at 80.8kg (12 stone 10lbs). This is the lightest I have been in probably 10 years.
It was time to eat and I wanted something quick and easy to consume. I had a bottle of gatorade and a meal shake (150g ground oats, 25g ground linseeds, 6 scoop meal replacement powder). This gave me a total of 1250 calories in about 5 minutes and a massively bloated out belly. I had this by about 7.30am.
I got up from having a lie down and we headed down to have breakfast at 9am. This gave me about 2 - 2 1/2 hours for my breakfast to go down before I started lifting at 11.30am, or what I thought.
I started consuming my plate of full english breakfast and see Rick Meldon the organisor. I say to him 'so the 82.5kg category will be on about 11.30 yeah?' to which he replied, 'no, they are on now, or about to start'. I throw my knife and fork down and go and see if they are. They are, so I go and run and grab my lifting gear and start my warm up on a half eaten full english breakfast. I had basically lost a notch on my weight belt as my stomach was full, I just hoped that the full stomach would give me extra lumber support.
Luckily, the competition, like always, started late and we didn't start lifting until about 9.45am, so it gave me about 20-25 minutes to warm up. This rushing around though had not only completely thrown me out physically, but mentally too. In all it just made me more pissed off. The gist of the situation was that I was originally told I was going to be the last flight to lift in platform 1 (11.30ish) instead it was moved to the first flight on platform 2 (9ish). I should have checked on the morning after weigh in. I never like to keep things simple, miss the weight at the British and the timing at the Worlds. O well.
I got under the bar to squat 170kg, which I was pretty confident in lifting before my having to rush, now there was a bit of anxiety in whether I would lift it. This got to me and I didn't get low enough (the crease of the hips have to be below the knee) on my 1st lift. I returned with 170kg on my 2nd lift and got the depth and the lift, happy days. I put the weight up for 175kg on my 3rd lift, which would have been a PR if I got it, unfortunately I didn't, I will though.
That was the squat done and I was still in the competition. I was able to witness Paul McCaffery set a new world record in our weight category with a 241kg squat, 3 times his bodyweight. He made 220kg look like he was lifting a broom handle. Bear in mind, these are not half ass half squats, these are below parallel and it was unequipped so no lifting suit or knee wraps.
Next up was the bench press. I opened with a 120kg bench. With the bench press, you have to pause the bar at the chest and it has to be still and wait for the call from the judge to press it back up. If the bar is not still, the judge will wait, which in some instances was 1-2 seconds before calling for it to be pressed.
I went up to 125kg for my seconds lift and pressed it out and then went up to 130kg for my 3rd lift. Getting this would equal my PR. I didn't get the lift. I got the bar of the chest ok, I just couldn't lock it out at the top. More triceps strength needed.
Going into my final lift of the day, the deadlift, I was adamant that I would get all 3 lifts. I opened my deadlift account with a 210kg lift, which went up pretty easily. I then moved up to 220kg and pulled that, which seemed like I was trying to lift a house. I knew then that setting a new PR would be out of the question. I put 225kg on the bar for my 3rd attempt and it seemed to come up easier than the 220kg. Maybe the smelling salts had more of an effect on this one.
The most impressive deadlift of the day came from Stuart Ford. At a bodyweight of 67.3 kg (10 1/2 stone) he picked up 253kg setting a new world record for his weight class. This was just under 4 times his bodyweight. That would be like me pulling 320kg. Incredible.
As soon as I had done my last lift on the deadlift, we left the arena for the drive back. Sitting in a car for an hour straight after lifting, with no cool down or stretches does not go down too well with the body. Everything seized up and my deep tissue massage therapist had a field day yesterday. I feel a whole lot better for it now though.
So the final total was 520kg and 7th place overall. Once I looked past my personal disappointment of not setting any new PRs and not lifting to my potential, it was great to have made it the world stage in my first year of competition. I am very grateful to have been there and to have seen some amazing feats of strength. What is in hold for the future? A year off and then come back and compete in the 90kg category in 2011.
Time to get big and strong.
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