Thursday, October 12, 2017

gittin swole

Today was a first-in-life, so I'm setting it here.

I grew up as unathletic as they come. I don't think I ever ran a mile until a few years ago. I dreaded PE, was the last kid picked for anything, and carried that baggage into my adulthood.

Today I competed in powerlifting, and didn't do terribly.

I didn't take it as seriously as I would have needed to in order to "win." (the scoring was based on the Wilks formula, which is to say, if you lift heavy but also *are* heavy, you may lose to someone lifting lighter who is lighter. I *am* heavy-- the heaviest I have ever been in my life, almost as heavy as I was when pregnant. I'm also strong as hell.) If I wanted to win, I would have had to decide months in advance, and have the willpower to skip beer and cheese. I am still undecided on whether that would be worth it...

And I have yet to see the scores, to see how much more I would have had to lift, or how much weight I'd need to lose. but I hear I placed 4th in bench press, which I always thought was my crappiest lift. (presumably that was my best scoring lift because otherwise I think I would have heard about it)


But that's not the point. I tried something new today. I was baffled by the rules, missed the instructions and scored needlessly low on my favorite lift due to a miscommunication, but it was still so fun! Next time, and I hope there will be a next time, I might actually know what I'm doing, and I think I would have a shot at placing well.

In my twenties, I must have wanted to be a badass. Now that I'm 40, I'm... kind of a badass.