How do I describe a women’s fitness competition to a bunch of endurance based runners?! Let’s say it is like a marathon – you train for hours a day for months on end, only in this case the event last seconds instead of hours. My longest even lasted 78 seconds. And, oh yeah I forgot the fun part – you don’t get to eat – you diet down for those 4 months, no eating carbs, nor sugar, nor fat – you know – all the food that you run for.
Fitness competitions are all about athleticism, strength, grace and beauty. What the heck was I thinking? I must have been high to get involved. The shows consist of: obstacle course, strength/skill, speed rounds, dance/gymnastic routines, and a physique round. I competed in the obstacle course, skills and physique.
My first competition this year was a regional event in May. The obstacle course was kind to me; an indoor course (much easier). No major mishaps and I raced against a fabulous competitor that kept me moving. The skills round had it ups and downs. Thankfully, my speed on the box jumps helped to accommodate my weakness of pushups. (And, I thought 55 pushups in a minute were good – not!. Some of these girls cranked out 75 pushups in a minute.) The physique round was not so good. What can I say, I have sprinters legs and not marathon legs. And that tan, I went through bottles of fake tan only to come out not so even – so I got marked down, again. Why do I do this? I have no idea. At the end of the evening I can say I came out right down the middle of the pack. Well enough to allow myself to venture to the World Championship in Las Vegas. But, not until I ate everything in sight for about 2 days and become so extremely nauseous that I wished for the diet again.
Let me describe the World Championships to you…. Some of the most famous fitness women in the world attended and stupid me am attempting to compete against them. I dieted down another 7 weeks to come in at 9.8% bodyfat. But, this time I had weigh-in also. We had the bench press competition to do. This part of the competition requires a female to bench 60% of their weight for 50 times. Impossible task, very few athletes hit that target. In hopes of benching less weight, I dehydrated myself for 2 days – no food, no water, etc. Boy, can I get crabby, okay, down right impossible when this happens. I weighed in at a lower weight – well worth it - plus, it helped with the first round of the competition, the physique round. This time I came in leaner, tighter and more tan than I had weeks before. For the first time, I didn’t feel so bad about myself. It was a little bit easier to walk on stage and say, “Hey, Look at me!!”. Hours later, after finally getting some food into me, it was obstacle course time. We were lucky it was only about 90 degrees outside by this time – you know – “But, it is a dry heat”. My first run went through in 78 seconds without any penalties or falls. The second heat – I was able to relax and let loose beating my time with a 72 (would have been a 70 second run but I had a 2 second penalty). I will take these scores, they didn’t win me an award but they aren’t shabby and they were the best I have ever done. I would put them in the ‘B’ score category. But, hey - who cares it was time to have the first real food in months!!
Saturday morning was the routine round – I didn’t compete in this event this time but got to relax and watch some of the other ladies. This round is good to add when you get extremely competitively. Later in the afternoon came the skills round. The bench press was kind to me, I was able to rep out 10 more than the last time I practiced. Suicide/shuttle run was good also, about 5 seconds off my top score. Box jumps weren’t so kind, an asthma attack half way through caused me to slowed down more than I wished but it still wasn’t a bad time.
All the months of training equated to about 11 minutes of competition. These 11 minutes felt like I ran marathon. I felt as bad as I did when I completed my marathon (and that was way over the 11 minute mark!)
I can honestly say I’m happy with the results from the competition. I didn’t win any awards but I did well enough to say I’m hooked. I did well enough that on the flight home there was talk of when dieting starts again, talks of how I should change my body for next year’s competition, etc
But, my body needs a break from the wear and tear down. And I was reminded that I have a ½ trail marathon and a full marathon that I have signed up for. Time for the body to switch modes of strength and speed to one of endurance – this is not going to be pretty. Pick me up when you see me coughing up a lung on the side of the trail!
And hey, everyone tell Mark, ‘Congratulations.” – he survived my endless hours of training (often 4 hours a day+), my endless hours of self doubt, my endless hours of needing self reassurance and need I say anything about dealing with me dieting down for over 28 weeks?! (He ran out of places to hide the peanut butter!)