A few weeks prior to travelling to Colorado for the contest, I contacted one of my old college teammates who lived in the area. He was excited to learn that I'd be in town and made plans to come to the contest to hang out.
Even with the contest looming, I was as excited to see my friend as I was to compete. If he was anything like he was in college, he'd be more than happy to help finish the post-contest 12 pack I'd brought in my cooler.
One of my little quirks is that I like to have a beer as soon as I finish a contest, and by "as soon as I finish a contest", I mean I like to have it opened and waiting for me when I walk up to complete the last event. Sometimes, it's a victory beer while other times it's merely a celebration of surviving another contest injury free. Either way, it's a great way to end a long day of lifting heavy things in the sun. I've been likened to Stone Cold Steve Austin of WWF fame, except I actually drink my beer instead of pouring it all over my face.
As I finished the final event of the contest, the keg toss, I walked back to my seat and enjoyed my first celebratory beer and we exchanged lost stories of rugby revelry while I waited for the other competitors to complete their runs. Before I knew it, I was close to a six-pack in when the promoter announced that the score tally was taking longer than expected. In the meantime, they would raise the bar on the keg toss to 16' (the Colorado state record) and see if anyone in the audience, competitors or spectators, could match it.
Being full of bravado and beer, I jumped at the opportunity to show off. After all, I'd trained keg toss with Dave Ostlund a few times and was able to heave the kegs over his 16' platform. With a few beers in me, there was no way I could fail.
I hopped out of my seat, beer still in hand, and headed toward the keg in front of the bar, kicking my flip-flops into the dirt and handing my beer to one of the officials. "Hold this." I told him as I stepped up to the keg.
I gripped the keg, and looked over my shoulder to make sure my distance was good. 16' is pretty high. Being too close to the bar would force the throw to go straight up and come straight down, a rather dangerous proposition, while being too far away means that I'd almost have to launch it into orbit to send it over the bar. Once I got the proper distance, I pulled the keg back between my legs, and took a few warm up swings before heaving the 40 lb barrel skyward.
The question of whether I made it over the bar was answered with a cold, steely clank. I shuffled my bare feet in the swirling dust as I dejectedly headed back to my beer.
As I took a second to collect my thoughts, the eventual winner of the contest walked up and hefted the keg over the bar with ease. There was no way I was going to let him show me up, and I stepped back up to the keg to redeem myself. This time, however, there were no warm up swings. Just a decent beer buzz and one powerful thrust toward the heavens.
Posted by Ben Hanson at 4:12 PM