mental toughness and blog names

I've been contemplating changing the name of my blog. I came up with the perfect blog name: podium quest. Turns out the blog name is already taken. Should i keep the name memoirs of an olympic weightlifter? Got any ideas for me? Please share.

I felt great in the gym today. I guess a large part of my problem was mental. It was caused by not sharing my feelings on my taper and peak with my weightlifting coach. That surprised me. I've always felt I was mentally and emotionally stronger than that. The only other time in my life that my athletic performance was hurt because of something mental was back in 2007. I was training for my first Iron distance triathlon, The Silverman full distance triathlon. That year my step dad died, i had a poor triathlon coach, I was over training, my wife racked up a staggering amount of debt, and i was forced to work 90 hour work weeks. That year I suffered my only DNF of my triathlon career of 86 races. With all the things happening to me in 2007 I feel it was understandable to fall apart. But what's happened the last couple weeks was a pretty small thing to come unraveled over. I'm disappointed in myself. I'm just thankfull the solution was easy. Simply talk to my weightlifting coach about it. He was so receptive and understanding. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

communicating with coaches and money

The last few days I weighed 308. I weighed 303 this morning. My weight is like powerball numbers, you have no clue what theyre going to be.

I've been horrible in the gym the last week. It's because I peaked a few weeks ago. Most people lose some strength and speed after they peak. But I don't lose a little,  I crash and burn. I straight up fall apart! This isn't surprising at all. I've known my body does this since I first started triathlon training way back in 2004. Timing my peak is the most important thing for me and my athletics endeavors. My weightlifting coach didn't know this. You know why he didn't know? Because I didn't tell him that's why. I've wanted to tell him, but i wasn't sure how. What was mostly on my mind was not making waves. I love my gym. It's one of the few pure weightlifting gyms in the nation. And the Miller Gym is the most awesome place I've ever trained. All of the coaches are incredible. Coach Shane is one of the best program builders in the nation. The other members who train there are more than just like minded athletes who also love olympic style weightlifting. We're a team. A really close team. I haven't felt a team spirit like this since my days of playing football.  I guess deep down I was just worried I'd accidentally ruffled some feathers and be asked to leave. It was an absurd fear. Coach Shane approached me today & asked me a long list of questions, trying to diagnose what was up with me and my crap performance recently. I finally broke down and told him what was up. He seemed relieved, "oh, ok. That's an easy fix. I can adjust your program for that." Seriously?  It was that easy? Dang it!

Shane's always been very approachable. Always willing to listen and work with people. I don't know why the heck I was so anxious talking to him. Once I finally bared my soul to him everything was fixed. Bam, that easy. I feel really stupid.

I got paid on Friday. It was a check with almost no overtime. We still had enough money to pay all our bills and also enough left to save some for a down payment for a home. I know that doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but we struggled something horrible for a long time. There was one Chistmas, in 2011, we didn't have enough money to buy our kids presents. Imagine how hard it would be to tell your kids Santa Claus isn't coming this year. I've had a lot of time at home with the family recently. I'm playing catch up with all the time I missed with the family when I was working 80-90 hours a week. I've taught my kids how to ride a skate board, play the game go fish, and I've been shopping for a guitar so we can all learn to play music together.  It's amazing to me how much more appreciative I am now for the good times after we struggled so much for so long. I am so grateful to be through the rough patch and enjoying  the good times now. The last few months may have been the best 3 months of my life. 

traveling for weightlifting meets

My training program is having me taper this week, which means I'll be peaking next week. My weightlifting meet isn't until Jan 16th. The last program i finished i lifted a lifetime best 91/115 which would have qualified me for the masters national championship. But I peaked almost a month before my meet. Since I peaked so long before my tournament I ended up only lifting an 88/115 at The Lift Outside The Box weightlifting meet and missed qualifying for the masters national championships. Same thing is happening now with this training program. I'm peaking 3 weeks to soon.

I've been eligible to retire from the prison since May. In addition to working at the prison my family and I live on prison grounds. I don't want to retire and leave the prison until we save up a down payment of %20 for a home. It has been more difficult to save up $40,000 than I thought it would be. If we continue to save at the rate we are currently I won't be able to retire from the penitentiary until 2020. I'm not ok with that. We need to make some adjustments. We're already on a pretty strict budget. About the only place we can make any changes is to take the money I'm saving to travel to the masters national championships in Savannah Georgia this upcoming March and add it to the down payment for a home fund. So its looking like if I qualify for the masters national championships I won't be able to go. I guess that makes the problem of my training program not match up with weightlifting meets not matter much. I don't want this to sound like a pity party. I'm completely at peace with it. I'm a family man. Nothing matters to me more. I love putting my family first. I don't need to actually go and compete in the masters national championships, simply qualifying is enough.

weightlifting and tapering for a peak

I've been experimenting with my taper before weightlifting meets. I've tried not working out the entire week before the meet, taking a few days before the meet off, and most recently just a light training day the day before. Out of all of these not training at all three days from the weightlifting meet seems to work the best. Not lifting a week before the meet makes me feel sluggish. Weightlifting light the day before makes my legs feel fatigued and doesn't let me feel explosive power that taking three days off before the meet does.

Back in my triathlon days i had a golden carrot,  a goal of beating a stud triathlete named Brian Pilgrim. I chose him because he was a bad ass and i felt that i needed to beat the best to be the best. i eventually did end up being faster than him.

Now that I'm a weightlifter i have another gold carrot. Barry Schroeder. He's a stud. He's only a 94K but he consistently lifts a 101/121/222. For as long as I've been a weightlifter i thought a 100k snatch and a 120k clean and jerk was unattainable. But yesterday i lifted a 115k clean and jerk. I now know those numbers are attainable, sooner rather than later. Possibly by January,  definitely by next summer. Yesterday after my piss poor performance at the Lift Outside The Box weightlifting meet i was feeling sorry for myself, but this morning i realized beating Barry Schroeder is possible. And now I'm super motivated. Time to lace up the weightlifting shoes and go back to training!