Thanks SCJ, Scott, and Snap! Pretty awesome time
100% RAW Worlds 2012 - Meet Recap
Ended up getting out there Thursday and got pretty tanked on the plane. I was about 8 Wild Turkeys deep before I even stepped onto the tarmac, and that was probably the most tame part. No idea how much I ended up drinking but stayed up till about 7 am boozing and playing poker (I lost).
Woke up on Friday about 1 pm with a massive hangover and went to watch the female on our team compete. She had an awesome day even after cutting from the 148’s at the last meet down to the 132’s for this one. She went 10 for 11 on the day and set a couple world records for her age group. Pretty solid performance.
Friday evening my g/f arrived and we hung out with some of the chicks that had competed that day and had some beers and grub and chilled at the hotel.
Woke up Saturday and hit the brunch buffet at the Wynn after a stroll down the strip. The buffet was banging, but they also offered us all you can drink mimosas for $12 each. Now I wasn’t planning to drink at all on Saturday, but that deal was too good to pass up so of course we spent 3 hours there housing some food and drink. Got back to the Riviera and decided to play a bit more poker to get even (I didn’t) and ended up drinking some more (theme here?).
Come weigh-in time, I was doing pretty decent at the poker table (it wouldn’t last) so I hurried up to the weigh-ins with a beer in hand only to find that the line was ridiculously long. I asked if I could weigh in before the meet on Sunday, and was told I could, but it wasn’t preferred. That was good enough for me, so I went back to the tables. I’m sure the guys in line had some laughs behind my back.
After another hour or so I was done with poker and ready for food. I caught one of the weigh-in guys on the way back up to the room and got weighed in. I was something like 291 or so. I really don’t remeber was I was a bit tanked at this point. I’ll update with the actual weight when they release the results!
For dinner, we caught a cab up onto Freemont Street to eat at the Heart Attack Grill. Basically, this place bills itself as the most unhealthy place you will ever eat. As soon as you walk in they give you a hospital gown and your order is taken by “nurses”. They put a stick of butter in the chocolate shake, had malt liquor on tap, and offered 10 slices of bacon for less than a dollar on your burger. The burger was also pretty damn delicious.
After killing ourselves with burger, we went to the New York New York for the Cirque De Soleil show called Zumanity. It was basically their erotic risque show, with a ton of boobies. Pretty cool show. Headed back to the Riviera afterwards to take it easy and call it a night.
Woke up Sunday around 10 am feeling like shit and not at all like lifting. Ate some oreos and milk, then 3 big gatorades and 3/4 of a loaf of bread made into peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and that made me feel a little bit better. That was all I ate before starting lifting at around 1:30 or so.
Opened up with 375 on bench, which was ridiculously easy. I always get so excited before lifting that I end up puking. Usually this occurs before my first attempt, but this time I managed to hold off until afterwards. So before my second one it caught up with me and I burst out the back doors and proceeded to puke all over the loading dock. It was not a pretty sight, giving my nutrition for the day.
Went back and hit my 402 second attempt, which is the weight I got red lighted on in June. It too was easy and I decided to take 419 (190 kg) for my 3rd, unsure of what to expect. Hit some ammonia, stepped up to the bench, and ended up nailing it. I am about 100% sure that was the right weight and wouldn’t have been able to get any more than that, and the video seems to confirm it. Got a bit stuck halfway up but was able to power through it and lock it out.
One of my training partners had a rough meet and only hit his opener on the bench at 306, missed his second, and scratched his third. He had been feeling rough the whole time we were there and just wasn’t able to put it together for this meet. He is a real hard worker though and I’m sure he will smoke it next time.
My other training partner, Tim Henriques, opened with 375 like me, hit 402 on his second (which was a huge PR for him and the first time he went over 4 bills), and missed his third at 407.
Another guy on our team, competing at 220, ended up going 10 for 10 on the day with a 1450 or so total and set the Open Federation world record with something like a 675 deadlift. Pretty awesome day for him.
moving on to curls, Tim and I were the only ones on the team doing them. My girlfriend proceeded to get shit faced on a bottle of wine she snuck into the meet while watching me.
I opened up at 154 which was easy, moved on to 165 for my second, which was a bit tougher so decided to play it conservatively and hit my 3rd to set myself up to break the world record on the 4th. Hit 171 pretty easily on my 3rd and went for broke at 176 for my fourth and smoked it.
I also about dumped the bar trying to rerack it after I got the command. I’m really glad they didn’t redlight me for that! It was a pretty amusing moment though.
Overall, it was a very fun experience and an awesome meet. I came to Vegas hoping to bench 420, but not really believing that I would be able to get there judging from my training cycle and how beat up I had been, but the taper was good and I peaked at the right time and hit my goal. Also left with the 308 federation curl record, which is both awesome and ridiculous considering I had never curled in my life before 4 months ago.
Gotta give credit to the awesome program Tim laid out for me (the bench portion is already on T-Nation for anybody that wants to look at it!) and great training partners and support I had going into the meet.
Not sure what to do for now, but will figure it out in short order and get back into the swing of things. Probably going to take some time off competing and really focus on bringing up my weak points and adding just a bit more mass overall before getting back onto the platform.
Here is the video:
I put some Metallica in the background so Youtube is probably going to block access to it, so if its not up, check back later!
Later bitches.
