my first weightlifting meet

This past Saturday was the Rivertown Classic weightlifting meet at Myles Ahead Fitness in Petaluma, California. It was also my first time competing in the sport of Weightlifting and only my second time attending a meet in any capacity. Needless to say I was a nervous wreck.

The vibe at a Weightlifting competition is a lot different from a CrossFit competition. Most people are sitting pretty quietly, there's not a lot of commotion or people moving around. It's just an audience and a platform. The announcer says someone's name, they go out and make or miss their attempt and head back to wait for their next turn. CrossFit is all about mental drive to keep pushing forward, form doesn't matter so much as long as you're making whatever movement go from point A to point B. In Weightlifting you have to be incredibly focused, because you only get one attempt at a time and if your form breaks down you're going to miss or get some red lights.

Watching from an outside perspective is interesting as well as entertaining. Making the switch from spectator to athlete however, was rather disconcerting. All the waiting, knowing that you only have 6 lifts with a bunch of people staring at you in complete silence had my nerves completely frazzled. All the people who I would be competing with were sitting and waiting as well, so watching the other weight classes lift gave me no perspective on what to expect or how to gauge myself in my respective field. Waiting sucked.

Once things got moving I was able to settle in. A guy in my weight class had the nerve to make a smart ass comment to my coach in the warm up room, I beat him, but we will get to that later. Who goes to a weightlifting meet in California and doesn't know who Aimee Everett is? Come on! Anyway, being pissed off beat being nervous by a long shot and things felt better from that point on. If only I could harness the "pissed off" emotion on demand, things would be a lot easier as far as daily training and competition go.

Taking your warm up lifts can get complex at a meet. Since you declare an opener your coach can bounce back and forth between the cards and let you know how many attempts you are away and time your warm up sets accordingly. My coach is the shit and I also had the help of Greg Everett, which no one is going to complain about. The weights got loaded and when Aimee said lift, I lifted. I knew what was on the bar, but it really wouldn't have mattered if I didn't. By the time it was my turn to lift I had pretty much the exact same amount of rest between my final warm up and first attempt as I had between my warm ups. And of course I nailed my first snatch like nothing. Unfortunately I missed my second attempt, but came back and made it on my third attempt super clean. So clean in fact that I went ahead and threw a PR weight of 113 on the bar in the warm up room and made that too.



Sweet. Snatches over and no clue what place I was in and didn't care. I made my lifts and was ready for some clean and jerks. For whatever reason I can't jerk for shit training, but competition makes my jerk awesome. After a few warm-ups it was pretty apparent I was going to jerk whatever I cleaned. By the time I got to the platform, Mr. talks back to a national champion was trying to edge me out on the C and J. We both made 125 then he missed 130. Of course 130 went up like nothing, so he came back and did a measly 131 hoping I would miss my final attempt. Wrong! You talked shit to my coach and expected to win by 1 kg? Not happening. 137 for a PR. In your face. Thank you and you're welcome. Go get third place. Recap over.


By the end I was a little pumped, but for the most part it was just a good learning experience and a really good time. Seeing from the inside what it looks like to have good coaching and how much that helps the athlete perform to their potential despite the natural stresses of competition day was a priceless experience. Also, seeing that everyone there might not be expecting to win, but just make some good lifts and hang out was cool too. I'm so hard on myself it's easy to forget that sports are supposed to be fun and most people participating are just there to have a good time, especially at a local meet. There are a few people at Amity CrossFit  I'll be nagging to get into the next meet in our area.

Oh and I have to mention that I made the exact qualifying total for the American Open and say thank you to my coach Aimee and everyone else at Catalyst Athletics who came out and made big lifts, helped load, counted cards and shouted "Come on, you got it!"