“Kristin explained that there’s no law of physics in which what you eat somehow gets heavier once you eat it, so as long as you hold it on the scale and you are underweight, you can eat it.”

“Yes, that’s absolutely true,” Sam smirked.

“It’s completely illogical, but I’m just a little too nervous about eating,” I told him. “And I have plenty of time to refuel after the weigh in since I’m in the fourth flight.”

“Are you feeling weak or light headed right now?” he asked.

“No, I feel pretty good. The espresso and ounce of almond butter seems to be doing just fine with me,” I said. “Also, I guess we don’t know what Mystique will weigh in at.”

“True,” he nodded. “If your weight is lower, you just have to tie her total.” Mystique had weighed in well below the 72kg limit her previous meets, and I had no way to know how much stronger she might have become since the IPF World Championships.

“OK, I like it. I don’t want to eat anyhow right now, so I’m not going to.”

I instead spent most of the time before weigh-in doing stupid futzy tasks: fussing with my equipment, getting instant oatmeal ready to be quickly microwaved after weigh-in — distracting little organizing tasks that kept me occupied and not watching the clock too carefully.

The time slipped by and before I knew it, it was time to queue for the weigh-in. The hallway was filled with 72kg women ambling around and nervously waiting for the officials to call for their turn. At one point a sloppy-looking dude walked into the hallway with a personal deep dish pizza and ate it while surrounded by stressed, hungry, strong women. I shook my head and thought, This guy is begging to get punched in the nuts.

The meet director had done a great job of setting up the weigh-in room. There were lanes in front of check-in tables and scales cloaked by privacy drapes. The lanes allowed us to line up by lot numbers, which eliminated the stress of worrying that you wouldn’t hear your name called and would miss your weigh-in.

Because our lot numbers were only one apart, Mystique was just behind me. She, one other athlete, and I made small talk about how well-organized the weigh-ins were and where we were from. I smiled to myself wondering if I was on Mystique’s radar. I was pretty sure I was not -- she struck me as someone who competed occasionally as a way to test her lifting and to add a challenge to her training. I strongly suspected she was not nearly as obsessively goal-oriented as I was, which meant she was probably a better balanced human being. But goal-orientation — as long as you don’t let it turn negative — is a benefit for competition. My coaches and I were totally focused. I smiled to myself and allowed this notion to feed my confidence — we were ready and we wouldn’t be making any mistakes.

I weighed in at 70.83kg and immediately headed back up to the hotel room to drink Gatorade and eat a banana and some oatmeal. Once I was fueled up, I went to the hotel gym, which was empty save for one family enjoying the pool. I had learned this at NAPF: The hotel gym might have a bike and it would likely be quieter than the warm-up room, so I would have plenty of space to do my mobility warm-up without having to endure the noise and vibe of the other athletes. As I was finishing my mobility work, my coaches texted to tell me to head downstairs. They were getting antsy to have me on site so that we could start warming up exactly when we needed to, given that the flights were progressing a little unpredictably.

The warm-up room was enormous and held a ton of racks. But the 72kg class was the biggest of the meet, so despite its size the space was crowded and hard to navigate. I started to get a little nervous when I couldn’t find Sioux-z and Matt. What if I missed my warm-up? Then I took a deep breath, realizing that I was just absorbing the energy in the room. Even if it took a while to find them and we had to rush through my warm-up, I would be fine. I knew from running track that your warm-up doesn’t have to go perfectly for you to have a great performance.

Squat was critical for me. Although I could not predict how Mystique’s training had gone — for all I knew she blew up all her lifts by 20kg each — I knew that if she was still in the same ballpark as her performance at IPFs I needed to stay within about 20kg of her to set myself up well for bench and deadlift. I also knew that I would ultimately have to beat her total — she weighed in less than half a pound lighter than me. 

All of this meant I needed a big PR in squats. I had done 320lbs in training, and it had moved so well that I gave Sam a smug little smile afterward, but I needed to execute at the meet: no technical errors, no thinking that I couldn’t move the weight.

Before the meet, I had agreed with Sam and my game-day handlers, Matt and Sioux-z, that I didn’t need to know what the weights were that were going on the bar. It wasn’t a big deal if I heard it or saw it on the board, but I wanted to do what I could not to focus on the weight and whether I thought I could do it. I had also warned Matt and Sioux-z that I was likely to be much more introverted during this meet than I had been at NAPFs or Bench Nationals. I wanted to keep my energy internalized and to take time to visualize. They were very cool with that. It was also nice that they had a few athletes to coach, so none of us had to feel bad about not hovering over each other. 

Finally, my flight was up. As I expected, I was the first lifter and Mystique was the last, which meant I had the lightest squat and she had the heaviest. I felt good, though. My heart rate was up, I had been getting good depth on my warm-ups, and I could feel the adrenalin in my chest. The bar was loaded. 

The rack felt really high. I thought about asking for it to be adjusted lower, but I didn’t want to run out of time for the lift. I worried briefly about whether I could get the bar in the right spot on my shoulders, but then told myself to make it work. My set-up didn’t have to be perfect to get a good lift.

I walked it out. 

“Squat!” came the command from the head judge.

I smoked the attempt, stood up, and waited for the rack command and the spotters to guide me back to the rack. This is one of the ways I don’t miss a rack command: I complete a lift and just stay still because the spotters are going to give you that kinesthetic cue that it’s time to rack by putting their hands on the bar, and that’s safer than just trying to listen. 

When I walked off the stage I asked Sioux-z about the rack height. I was a little flustered by the feeling of it being so high after what my warm-ups felt like. Turned out I had made a mistake in warm-ups — I set the bar at my bench height, so the correct height for squats felt high. The ladies running the attempts desk helped me to sort this out.

I headed to the pre-platform area to sit down for a minute. My first lift was successful, and most importantly I had not flipped out when the rack didn’t feel right. I fussed over it after the lift, but did not let it affect me on the platform. Hah! All my previous competitive experiences were paying off.

When it was time for my second lift, Sioux-z put a little extra chalk on my shoulders, and I got my wrist wraps on. I roughly knew that this attempt would be about 320lbs, just like in training — no reason for concern.

“Squat!” 

At the bottom of the lift, I felt myself rock forward onto my toes slightly, which made standing up more wobbly and a little harder than it should have been. But there was no way I was giving up. I just pushed through it patiently. 

Two white lights. I got called for depth by one side judge.

Sioux-z and Matt were there. “Don’t worry about that light. That side judge has been calling everything high,” Sioux-z told me.

“I got a little unbalanced on that one.”

Sioux-z asked me if I had a sense of how big a jump I wanted to make. I totally faltered in answering and my anxiety rose.

Matt looked at me hard for a minute. “We’re going all in. You had a lot left at NAPF, and you are stronger now. We’re doing this.” He turned to the attempt desk to put in my number.

I immediately relaxed and headed over to the pre-platform seating area. Time to visualize. I ran through the lift in my mind — how squats are supposed to feel and move. I needed to be sure to initiate the lift by opening my hips at the top and staying controlled on the way down. That didn’t mean a slower tempo, but it was important for me to stay in the grove and have a balanced descent to get the lift right. 

Third lift, wrist-wraps on, belt locked in. Sioux-z put a little more chalk on my shoulders.

“Bar is loaded,” the official said. I could feel the adrenalin and energy in my body. I heard Sam cheer for me from the audience. I took an extra moment to set up under the bar and walked it out carefully, one step at a time. I knew this would be a PR. I knew I needed it to stay in the mix. This was the beginning of getting a medal. 

“Squat!”

I was better balanced and the grove was right, but it was heavier. I hit my sticking point and just kept working though it. The spotters were cheering me on. I needed to keep moving so they wouldn’t think I needed help. I stood up. 

“Rack!”

The spotters quickly put their hands on the bar and guided me to the rack. I stepped back slowly, glanced over my shoulder at the board. Two white lights. I had it. Sioux-z and Matt were cheering, and we swapped big hugs. 

“So, um, what was that?” 

“It was 342, Joah.”

That was 22lbs more than I’d ever lifted. I had hit the number I thought I needed to stay in the mix. I didn’t know what Mystique had lifted, but I felt great about where I was. I headed to the hotel room to get some more food and stretch.

When I came back, the athlete warm-up room had exploded in chaos and stress. The flights had been running long, and as a consequence the athletes competing in prime time needed to begin warming up. The refs had closed two warm-up stations for them, and the room responded like angry bees from a disturbed nest. The level of anxiety in the room was high, and I could see how it affected people. Some of the coaches responded by being more aggressive about their rotation of athletes through their warm-ups and trying to prevent others from working in on the racks. Jerks, I thought. No one would miss their warm-up if we all worked together and if the coaches all teamed up and swapped out weights quickly and communicated about the next athlete up. I saw Sioux-z shaking her head at one coach who was trying hard not to share a bench. She’s too polite to roll her eyes, but I knew she wanted to.

Part of my brain wanted to get in on that panicked action — it started squawking about the unfairness of losing the extra two warm-up racks and then yelling that my warm-up would get screwed up and mess with my bench. 

But this is where having competed in a national competition and multiple regional competitions in my past life as a college athlete gave me a huge edge. Once again, it doesn’t matter if your warm-up isn’t perfectly timed. That’s just part of giant, high-pressure meet. Things don’t go perfectly, and you still have great performances. I knew not to get attached to a perfect warm-up plan or to make my performance on the platform rely on it going just as expected. I knew I could perform regardless of whether my warm-up was exactly what we wanted or not. I had done it before. I shook off the anxious vibe, and told my brain that we were not getting caught up in this. Let everyone else panic and screw up their bench. This was just another way I could have an edge.

Mystique seemed to have the same perspective and appeared nonplussed by the chaos. I saw her come in, explained what was going on, and pointed out the bench that Sioux-z had scoped out so she could work in with us. We had shared the squat warm-up rack as well along with other athletes in our flight. It was smart — by working together our flight could guarantee that we’d all be ready to go. This may sound a little contrary to the attitude I just expressed — let everyone else get caught up in the chaos — but that is a mental trick to help my mind realize that there is no value in flipping out when things don’t go well. I don’t actually want to win because someone else fell apart. I want us all to bring our best game and push each other.

Bench warm-ups felt pretty good. I felt like I was getting a good position and staying tight. But I also know not to over-interpret how I feel in warm-ups. I joke that I tend to have a “shitty first set” except I never quite know when that shitty first set will come in at a meet because it’s a little different from warming-up at the gym. So I don’t stress if things don’t feel perfect or easy. I was also slightly lower on the adrenalin scale for bench, which is pretty normal. A bunch of adrenalin gets chewed up by the squat. But I was very focused and ready. I was the last bencher, which was reassuring — it meant I had the biggest number.

My first bench attempt went fine. I barely remember it. I do remember noticing that the spotters were really encouraging again. My second attempt felt a little off. I had some pain during the eccentric part of the movement, and it didn’t feel as snappy, but it went up. I came off the platform and Sioux-z asked me how it felt. “Meh,” was about as articulate as I could be.

“Do you think 2.5 kilos or five?” she asked, not wanting to talk about absolutely numbers and risk taking me out of my comfort or confidence zone.

“I’m not sure, but let’s stick with the plan. Whatever it was.”

“The plan was five kilos.”

“That’s fine. Let’s stick to the plan.” I didn’t want to exceed the plan based on my second lift (something had been off), but we had been conservative in choosing 231lbs as my top number because it is always there. I do 230lbs in the gym all the time. I found a seat and did some introspection. What hadn’t I done quite right that caused that eccentric discomfort? I didn’t try to visualize the screwed up second lift — that’s never helpful. Rather, I visualized how to do the lift correctly and walked through it in my mind slowly. I realized as I visualized a good lift that while my shoulder blades had been down and “in my pockets” on my second attempt, I hadn’t noticed my legs as much. That meant I likely hadn’t engaged them as much as I should have. They should be working, a lot. I also wasn’t sure that I had used the cue of trying to meet the bar with my chest by trying to raise it up to meet the bar on its decent. That might have meant that I tried to control the descent by fighting the weight instead of rowing it actively to my chest. I decided on the third lift to bring my feet back slightly more toward my head and to really think about squeezing my glutes. Take the weight with your legs on the way down. As much of it as you can. That’s how you spare your arms for the lift.

I visualized the lift a couple more times and stood up with four or five lifters to go. I did a few jumps to make sure my body was awake. I also realized that the second lift had raised a little doubt in my mind. At Bench Nationals I had a similar feeling on my second attempt, and the third had gone badly.

Instead of letting this blow up my confidence, I told myself that was just an indicator that I needed to adjust something. I honed my focus and determination to execute the lift. This is where I claw back a bunch of kilos and put myself fully in contention to win. I execute. I am consistent. I perform when I need to.

I headed out onto the platform. I could hear Sam in the audience again but didn’t look out into the stands. My focus was entirely on the platform. I gave my instructions to the young man giving lift-offs and got set up. The platform spotters were already cheering for me. One of the spotters was from the Pitt Powerlifting Team and sometimes trains a the same time as me at Union Fitness, and I could hear her yelling my name and cheering. I took it all in and let it feed my determination. I was making this lift.

“Start!”

The bar came down easily and comfortably to my chest, and I could feel my legs engaged. 

“Press!”

It moved beautifully, better than my second attempt.

“Rack!”

I waited for the spotter to put hands on the bar and helped them guide the bar back into place.

Three white lights. Sioux-z and I smacked hands, hugged, and celebrated. I had executed the plan. I was in it.

I saw Rampage briefly at the end of her squats and bench. She actually had some nerves before the competition, which was good but funny to see because she is just such a calm person. She was having a fantastic meet, though: Her coaches the perfect weights for her third attempts and she set PRs in both squat and bench. She wasn’t leaving any kilos on the platform. Seeing her so happy, relieved, and excited was awesome.

I went back to the hotel room only very briefly before deadlifts so I could stay out of the athlete bathroom. When I had been in there before squats, a young woman had walked in quickly, sobbing. Then someone, possibly the same woman, threw up. I had decided it might be better to take advantage of having my own bathroom.

I hadn’t lingered in the room, though, because deadlifts can go unpredictably quickly, and while we’ve established that I’m not worried about having a perfect warm-up, neither did I want to miss it.

That also meant I got to spend a little more time with Rampage. She was in the flight just before mine, so we shared a chair so no one would steal it while she was lifting.

“How ya feeling?” she asked me.

I found that I was actually a little nervous about whether I was really in the competition. I knew Mystique had bested my squat by 20 kilos, but I wasn’t sure how far I had clawed back in bench because I didn’t let myself look at the board. “I’m a little worried,” I said. “I’ve deliberately not focused on the board so I would just focus on executing the lifts. But now I want to know if I’m in it.”

Between bench and deadlift, Rampage had gone out to visit with her son and husband who were sitting with Sam. “I talked to Sam,” she told me. “He feels good about where you are at.”

That reassured me. Then I realized that while Mystique was among the first deadlifters, I was only two or three athletes after her. It gave me a twinge. Shouldn’t I be further down in the flight? I reminded myself that I was in a flight with open athletes, some of whom were two decades younger than me. There were some big lifts being performed.

Sioux-z came to check in on me. I don’t remember what she asked, but my answer was, “You know the goal,” I said, meaning that I wanted the win — that was the priority.

“Oh, and that is happening because I am good at my job. I’ll do my job picking the numbers, and you do yours and execute the lifts,” she said in her most intimidating voice. Then she turned to the young man who was helping her and Matt to manage all of their athletes. “Sometimes you have to be a little mean with them,” she told him.

We all burst out laughing.

I was even more reassured. Sioux-z knew how to handle a wide range of situations, and if she felt this confident, I was in a good position.

Rampage was on the platform while I was warming up. She’d had a great meet so far. I headed to the pre-platform seating area just as she was coming back from her last deadlift. She was all smiles and exclaimed, “We picked that perfectly! I don’t think I had one more kilo in me!” She had gone 9 for 9 and set another big PR. I was so happy for her, and it felt so great to see her so elated.

Although I had a moment where my brain had fussed that I wasn’t later in the flight, I was where I needed to be: lifting after Mystique.

She and I both made our first and second deadlifts. My second attempt felt a little hard and heavy, which made me nervous, but I pummeled that uncertainty. It didn’t matter how it felt. How it feels to me doesn’t matter because I will work through it. I won’t get scared off in the middle of the lift and fail the lift by giving up on it. I will work through the entire lift no matter what.

Mystique made her third attempt, and I was waiting to lift.

Sioux-z walked quickly to the officials. “Change!” she shouted as she put an attempt card on the table.

I got ready to get called to the platform. “This is only 2.5 kilos more than your second attempt,” Sioux-z told me. “You’ve done this before. Do it again!” she told me. And I knew that if I made this I would be 2.5kg ahead of Mystique’s total.

 A little surge of confidence surged through me. I had this. This was my title. I was keeping it!

I walked out onto the platform, almost feeling the determination and aggression in my arms. The platform was well-lit, and I could see the spotters and the head judge, but the audience was in the dark. I could hear Sam cheering. I stepped up to the bar and gripped it hard. I contracted my lats as I bent my knees to get into position and tightened everything before I started driving the floor away from me. The bar moved steadily, and I stood up.

“Down!” the head judge ordered.

I waited just a fraction of a moment before putting the bar down. I kept my hands on it another moment longer before standing up to emphasize that I had not dropped it and had control of it.

Three white lights.

I had done it. I had won. I took one moment on the stage to yell before almost tackling Sioux-z with a hug. Matt had dashed over for a hug between his prime time athletes, and we all took a moment to celebrate.

My final deadlift was 402lbs, exactly what I had lifted at NAPF and only 2.5 kilos heavier than my second attempt. It wasn’t a PR, but it was all I needed to win.

I cannot tell you how elated I felt. Knowing that I had stayed so focused, executing the plan and building my total through each lift, knowing how happy Sioux-z, Matt, and Sam would be, knowing that I had a strong mental game through the entire meet regardless of what was going on around me . . . it felt amazing.

I had to text Sam to bring my driver’s license so I could be drug tested, and when he arrived with it we got to hug and celebrate together. It was wonderful. He had been so thoughtful along the path with my programming, and he had a lot invested in this. I knew that the only one who could perform on meet day was me, but I also knew that he would blame himself if I missed a lift. We would be having none of that. He was officially the programming coach of a National Champion, and I was incredibly happy to be able to share this experience with him.