July 22nd 2016
Mind Dump Day 3, Part 1
Friday update
Up early for murph.
Kept the warmup short and simple, I said to another athlete “I plan on doing 305 air squats today” haha.
I paced the run, maybe a bit too slow but I was only off the leader by about 35sec. Pull-ups 7/7/6 push-ups mostly in 3s. Squats I don’t even remember . The first into the stadium off the run took the shaded lanes so I was stuck in the sun. It wasn’t too hot that early though so it didn’t factor in too much. I finished the 5 rounds just as Bridges was finishing his last mile run, that freak. I passed 3-4 men on the final run. In hindsight I might have been more aggressive on the pull-up bar to shave off some extra time. Other than that I think I did my best. It was a tough event, high rep squats and push-ups is not favourable for me. Left feeling a little Unsatisfied but not too beat up which was important.
Had a long wait, ate food, had a nap, then prepared for the squat clean ladder. I actually PR’d my clean and jerk a month ago in an EMOM a few hours after doing a murph variation. So I was feeling confident I could manage the weights and have a chance at clearing the ladder. In the warmup area I built to a few singles at 245lb, which is how I always approach these events. They felt pretty smooth actually. We were marshalled and brought out onto the tennis stadium. I was between Ben Smith and Mat Fraser in Lane 4. Not a bad introduction to my first event in the tennis stadium. I felt calm though, just ready to do my thing. First few cleans and the bar felt real heavy. Quite slow out of the hole. Some days that happens with my squats and hspu, they just get weak and slow. Since regionals all my squatting has been top notch even with the added volume, so this was a surprise. I did my best in this event, which was a bit frustrating because that was last place getting time capped at 4min haha. Sometimes you’re the windshield sometimes you’re the bug. In good spirits, excited to execute on Double DT , I’ll update that event tomorrow because it’ll be late tonight.
Thanks everyone for the support!
Part 2
Double DT recap.
Was excited for this event as I thought it had the potential to be a top finish for me. But I think everyone backstage thought the same, Which meant the times would be very competitive. The initial plan was to do 6, 5, 1/5, 4/6 on the barbell until the finish line. As I was in the tunnel getting ready to head into the stadium I heard my name shouted, I looked over amongst the crowd of people taking pictures and saw my coach. He said to me “go all singles on DLs from the start, Heppner just crushed it. Then do bigger sets halfway thru”
A good athlete listens to his coach. So I did fast.. and often awkward singles on the deadlifts. I was using a mixed grip and switching which hand was over every few reps, and one time I did a double underhand deadlift haha. Apparently my emotional shepherd (Mitch Barnard) and coach were messaging back and forth for a long while trying to decide if they should risk it and tell me to switch my strategy. I think it paid off. My coach and fans were quite nervous in the stands they said because it looked like I was going too slow. I was standing right beside Scott Panchik and for nearly the entire event I was about 8 reps behind him, which was a confidence booster as I knew this was a good event for him. Halfway thru I looked at the clock and saw I was around 6:20, and knew I could hold that pace to finish. 13min on this event would be a good time.
After round 6 of 10 I could hear my coach yelling to me to pick it up and start doing touch and go deadlifts instead of singles. I really wanted to, but I was getting really tired haha. And knew it would be a bad idea. On the tenth round I tried to do some but only managed a few doubles. Then I did the final 15 reps unbroken, which is how I like to end events like this. I just squeaked over the line ahead of a few others in my heat that were ahead of me the whole time.
If you watch the footage you can tell I was very satisfied with that event finish. I pride myself in being pretty level-headed but I definitely was a little down in the dumps after the first two events on Friday. Feeling good and very excited for Saturday.
Thanks guys for the support!!