August 2-4: The weekend before the competition

I left work on Friday relieved and looking forward to a break from my routine, but not quite feeling like myself. After the NAPF meet in San José, Sam and I had planned some ecotourism in Costa Rica, and I was looking forward to a change in setting, perspective, and schedule. But I was carrying some strong . . .  feelings . . . with me into the weekend and found myself brooding on the decision I had made about 10 months ago to leave the federal government and take my career in a different direction. It had been a big change. 

At Treasury, I had developed a high-functioning analytics group that was creating new ways within the complex legal and policy structures of government to better identify payment errors and fraud risk. I had greatly enjoyed setting the strategic vision for the group and helping the data scientists get better at understanding the motivations and business needs of the agencies we were serving. I’d also been tapped to help develop the first-ever data strategy for the Bureau of the Fiscal Service and got to team-up with the talented team behind USASpending.gov (check it out — it’s one of the few government websites that doesn’t look like a government website). 

My future looked bright, but I was getting burned out because I cared just a little too much about work, and I had a hard time putting it down at the end of the day. My mom had also had a really difficult health crisis, and that had had stiffened my resolve to one way or another move to Pittsburgh to spend more time with her and my dad. Sam was amenable, so when I found a new position, we made the move.

I had made a big, crazy career move once before, going from the most secure sector of the economy (government) to one of the least (a technology start-up company). That was an awesome and challenging experience, and since I had done that I figured moving from a large federal agency to a large financial services institution wouldn’t be nearly as dramatic. What I hadn’t appreciated how it would feel like to leave a role in which I felt confident and successful, and within which I had developed a positive reputation, and step into a new industry as a total unknown. No one at the new company really knew what I was good at, what I could be trusted with, what I would be effective at leading. 

Let me tell you, feeling like you are at the top of your game is a way more comfortable place than starting from zero! But the top of your game is also a place in which you probably aren’t growing a lot. Growth and learning are humbling and uncomfortable, but they were additional reasons why I made the move. That was all great, and like super mature, but frankly, right before the meet I just wanted to feel awesome again, dammit!

I was stewing on this as I finished preparing for Costa Rica — and not in a good way. In addition, my last few workouts weren’t making me confident. I was moving good weight, but I was not convinced that I was hitting depth on my peak single squats, and I had developed a bit of butt flight on the bench. 

I was also aware that my weight cut was really starting to catch up with me. I’d been at it for a little more than three months, and in the last week Kristin had made a very modest shift in my macros, increasing my fat intake and decreasing my carbs to try to help with any potential water retention that might get exacerbated by a dehydrating flight. I was starting to feel it. When my energy levels started to drop off, it would hit me quickly — I’d go from functioning normally to impersonating an angry sloth. I knew what was happening, which made it a little easier to give Sam a head’s up when I was headed south, but it wasn’t fun.

Meet peak training was also influencing my mood, but I wouldn’t appreciate how much until after the meet. Oddly, I didn’t physically feel as shitty as I had before previous meets, so I had a harder time making the connection to my deteriorating mood and peaking. I blamed work and my diet, as well as the fact that my parents were in the process of preparing to move from my childhood home. They were ready to downsize and had found a nice option in a nearby neighborhood that would allow them to maintain their community. My mom was going through old boxes that primarily contained family photos that she was saving, pitching, or setting aside for me to review and determine whether I wanted to keep them. This process of going through old memories was both pleasant and uncomfortable, dredging up memories of times that had been difficult and many of the fears that come with being young and confronting the deep uncertainties of what type of life you’ll be able to create.

Their move also called up some existential angst. My parents were moving for a variety of reasons, one of which included having fewer stairs in their home to accommodate my dad’s increasing mobility challenges (three hip replacement surgeries and a potential fourth on the horizon haven’t done him any favors). My mom also talked about trying to make sure that she didn’t leave me with a house full of stuff that would take an eternity to go through when she isn’t here anymore. All of us were also confronted with the fact that I opted not to have kids. I was an only child with one first cousin and the family photos brought to light a fundamental fact: There would be no one to receive them and family history. I was the end of the line. 

It’s possible that my nephews, whom I had the privilege of acquiring by virtue of marrying Sam, might take that physical history of family photos when Sam and I age, but most of the people in the photos would have no meaning or relation to them. My nephews would never have met my grandparents or great grandparents. The photos would represent genealogy, but there would be no memories — even retold family stories — with which to recall these individuals.

Being confronted with one’s mortality is not something I would recommend layering on top of the final days of a long cut and the physical stresses of peaking. 

August 5: Travel day

As I made coffee on Monday morning, a scene from The Princess Bride was running through my mind. Our hero, Wesley, has been captured by the evil Prince Humperdink and whisked off to a dungeon complete with a creepy, evil assistant, who in response to Wesley asking where he is, replies:

“The Pit of Despair! Don’t even think about trying to escape. The chains are far too thick. Don’t dream of being rescued, either; the only way in is secret.”

This did not bode well for my mood or outlook on life.

I had booked an afternoon flight that would get us to San José by about 8 p.m. local time. That way, I could eat breakfast and lunch and down a ton of water before the flight to stave off dehydration and minimize the need to estimate food macros for the rest of the day. I had also packed a Power Bar and a squeeze pack of peanut butter in my purse, to further control my diet.

Despite this, my anxiety about eating was peaking. I still had all day on Tuesday before the meet to eat food for which I would be able to only estimate macros. 

I decided to wear my National Team jacket through the airport, as a layer against the cold on the plane and in case TSA decided that my meet equipment was weird. I hoped the consistent messaging — weight belt, odd rubber objects for muscle mobility, Gatorade, and the jacket — would ensure us smooth passage. This might seem strange, but on our way to Spokane for USAPL Nationals, Sam had a tough time with his equipment. The metal lever on his weight belt got a second look, the Supernova got dirty looks, and his pre-workout powder, which he had put in an old prescription bottle, read in the spectrometer as being somewhat similar to an explosive. He had an interesting chat with a very nice explosives expert from TSA, while I stood nervously wondering if we were going to make the flight and debating whether to be a good wife and stick around or ditch his ass to make sure I made it to the meet. I speculated that we were probably helped by the fact that Sam was wearing a gym t-shirt, had all the lifting equipment, and had a muscle-bound wife flexing angrily nearby.

In reality, the explosives expert was able to see the difference in the compounds, but I like to tell myself that the consistent messaging helped us, since it gives me a false sense of control. It’s false and I don’t care. I like it.

The National Team jacket may have helped in one very small way. Our flight to Atlanta was delayed and as we landed Sam and I were gearing up for a parkour-style sprint to make our connection. The gentleman in the aisle seat next to me had seen my jacket and may have overheard us talking about the meet, so when we were deplaning he held his ground to let us go ahead of the teeming mass of people queuing behind him. It was a nice gesture. We made the connection in Atlanta, had smooth sailing through the well-organized airport at San José, and found our transfer to the hotel with ease.

My mood was tolerable during the travel day. I had things to fuss over, like planning the most efficient way of packing and carrying my bags and focusing on whether we would make our connections. 

August 6: The day before the meet

I woke up in the hotel bed with a scene from The Lord of the Rings in my mind — a scene that someone once described as Galadriel with a bad case of PMS.

“Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and DESPAIR!”

I was miserable — so miserable that Sam realized quickly that it would be best to try to minimize interactions with the dark storm that was Joah. I could not blame him at all. I wanted distance from me too, and no amount of deep breathing or attempts at redirected thinking were pulling me out of my miserable funk. I even wrote a pathetic email to Kristin, who reminded me that she usually feels like garbage during meet peak: It’s not you, it’s the peaking. Had I been an evil queen and not a data nerd, many, many of my subjects would have lost their heads on Tuesday.

When we chose our trip itinerary, we decided it was too risky with weather and other potential flight delays to leave the day before the meet. We wanted a day of padding in case we missed a connection or if something else happened. I would not have changed the itinerary in retrospect, because I know I would have been truly miserable if something had caused me to miss the meet, but I was nevertheless regretting the extra time. Regretting it very much. I was hungry and terrified of eating. My weight was already just below 72kg, but I was waiting for a freak weight spike from food I couldn’t control or from my body retaining water after getting a little dehydrated on the flight.

I was also stressing about the coaching situation. Greg Simmons had stepped down from his post as the head coach of the U.S. team for NAPF a few weeks before the meet because he was battling cancer — a fight he tragically lost shortly before the meet. I hadn’t met Greg, but his emails leading up to the meet had been warm and welcoming, and I had developed an attachment to him that made me look forward to being coached by him at the meet. Greg had been extremely well-regarded by the strength community, and he was so passionate about it that he spent the last weeks of his life helping us to get ready for this experience. His replacement, Paulie Steinman, another very experienced and well-respected coach, signed on at the last minute, and there had been no time to connect with him. In my charming meet-peak mentality, I was convinced he would hate me, that the feeling would be mutual, and that I was going to have to figure out how to keep my warm-ups on time and make my own choices about attempts. It was fabulously, brilliantly irrational, and the antithesis of the thinking of a mature athlete. Which I am, dammit! Just not that day!

I continued to worry that I wouldn’t squat deeper than a quarter squat and that my butt would take off from the bench like a rocket launch. I fretted. I fussed. I was convinced the meet was going to be awful and that I would never get out of my funk in time for the vacation part of the trip. Neither Sam nor I would want to spend anymore time with me, and my mere presence would terrify the wildlife for miles, causing a mass extinction among the smaller, more nervous creatures and a panicked stampede among the larger creatures.

And then I realized that our hotel room did not have a tub. I stood on the brink — no tub meant no makeshift sauna if I woke up at 5 a.m. and discovered I was a bit over 72kg. 

Panic. 

Anger. 

Panic. 

Depressed acceptance that I would fail to make weight and wouldn’t even get to step foot on the platform.

I finally ate some of the groceries Sam had gathered from a nearby store. My mood improved magically. During this brief return to rationality and diminished desire to lay waste to all of humanity, I managed to say to Sam, “I feel better. It won’t last. You probably get reasonable Joah for about 90 minutes and then you’d better tune me out.” He smiled, gave me a hug, and at about 75 minutes after I had fed myself, wisely plugged back into some podcasts.

I had my last meal at about 6 p.m. and stopped drinking then as well. I got ready for bed, wanting nothing more than for the day to please just end. 

August 7: Game day

One useful thing I did during my day of embodying the Goddess of Despair was to compare my scale to the weigh-in scale so that I would have an accurate reading of whether I was under or over 72kg. This was advice Kristin had given me for Nationals, so I now always travel to meets with a scale.

157.6 lbs, the scale said.  71.5kgs. I was underweight.

I was so relieved — and also surprised. Cutting off food and water about 12 hours before weighing myself had shaved off a little extra weight, and that, coupled with a successful cut and a shift to calorie dense (and lightweight) food over the final few days, had done the trick. 

I was going to be able to compete! 

The equipment check and official weigh-in went smoothly, and the officials were really nice. I had plenty of time to get coffee and eat the instant oatmeal I had ready for the second I got off the scale. Within about an hour I had also put down about 32 oz. of Gatorade and a banana. 

And I felt like a new woman. Everything looked different. I met Paulie, who was delightful, as well as the gigantic staff of coaches that traveled with the U.S. team. Paulie introduced me to the woman was competing at 72kg in the open class, and my heart soared because I had a teammate! I had gummy bears and Gatorade and bagels, and Sam weighed in five pounds under and we were . . . happy!

I belabored much of this story and shared a lot of the specifics that were going through my head (even though part of me is a little horrified at being so open) for a carefully thought-out reason: When the world hasn’t changed, but it looks completely different to you than it did the day before, something is going on with you. In my case it was temporary -- the fatigue of a long cut, the physical stresses on training and travel, and the neurological drain from meet peak had manifested as despair. My world had not changed. I had been in the same job for almost 10 months, and my decision to ask Sam to make a big move with me predated even that. Very little had changed in my environment, but my outlook and feelings changed dramatically.

One of the difficult things about the experience of negative feelings is that they feel utterly unique to our lives and who we are as individuals. My brain was telling me that it was these things in my life that were making me miserable -- things unique to me, choices unique to me -- and that uniqueness tricks us into thinking that these feelings stem from our inner selves and personal weaknesses. It makes us think that these feelings are a manifestation of who we are, not just the result of physical stress. As soon as I had some carbs in my system on meet day and opened a bag of gummy bears, my outlook totally changed. My thinking changed. And while I was periodically able to gain some perspective on my feelings while I was impersonating Galadriel-on-PMS that the diet and meet peak process were screwing with me, it wasn’t enough to make me feel better. 

This was probably the worst meet peak experience I’ve had in terms of my mental state, but I hope that if you are new to meet peak that this helps you to maintain some perspective to tolerate the experience and yourself during this phase. Sometimes we just have to be patient with our feelings and know that they will change.

And if you are not in the midst of meet peaking but are having some of these feelings that seem like they are true assessments of your life and who you are but your world hasn’t really changed, consider whether those feelings might be caused by something else physical. Maybe it’s not something wrong with who you are. Maybe it’s something that can be solved by a different change. Talk to someone about those feelings. 

At the time I couldn’t believe that my temporary despair would be alleviated by some Gatorade and gummy bears. Your solution might be a little more complicated, but a solution exists. Don’t be afraid to ask someone for some help finding it. Whether you are in the throws of meet peak or, if something else is going on, be sure that you open up to someone and ask for some support. I had Sam with me for every step of the way. He couldn’t fix me (and I did not expect him to) but his presence helped me to periodically gain perspective through the days before the meet. And remember, feelings change with time — and, sometimes, with just a few gummy bears.