by Ben Hanson

4/19/07 2:35 pm (Central time):
Right now, I'm sitting in a fancy airport bar in Minneapolis waiting to board my flight to San Francisco. The flight doesn't leave until 5:30, but it was a slow day at work so I got off a little earlier than I needed. It's nice to have a few hours to sit and relax, and God knows I need it. The last three weeks have been a blur. Between training, work, and organizing the upcoming contest I'm promoting this July, I usually get about six hours of free time a night, and those are used for sleeping. That's all behind me now. The only things on my mind are the contest that kicks off in less than 24 hours and how much these two or three beers are going to cost. My head is free of distractions. I'm more relaxed than I've been in a month and it feels awesome.

4:15 pm:
I just arrived at the gate. I should have upgraded to first class. Being cramped up this long is going to drive me batty.

8:45 pm:
Three hours into the flight at 30,000 feet, and I just had a sudden, overwhelming urge to load stones. My heart started beating heavy and my breathing quickened. I just closed my eyes and visualized myself loading all five stones tomorrow in under 30 seconds, but it still hasn't gone away. I hope it's not noticeable because I don't want to freak out any of the other passengers. It was kind of creepy and caught me by total surprise. Now I know I've been cooped up on the plane for too long. This never would have happened in first class.

8:15 pm (Pacific Time):
My flight landed in San Francisco 35 minutes late and we've still got to meet my friend, Liz, for a 3 1/2 hour drive down to Fresno. Right now, I feel crusty. I've been up since 6:30 this morning (my time) and just spent four hours in a cramped, stuffy airplane. If my luggage didn't make it, I'm going to flip out on everyone. Right now, I want nothing more than to brush my teeth and go to bed.

11:45 pm:
After a long, boring drive, we finally arrived at the hotel in Fresno. The contest site is supposed to be on campus, directly across the street from the hotel, but all I see is a Save-Mart Center and I know it's not going to be held in there. Oh, well. I'll worry about it tomorrow. I've had my shoes on for 20 hours straight and I can barely keep my eyes open. Good night.

Friday 4/20/07 9:15 am:
I just got out of the shower. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and I feel like a million bucks. I just walked outside in my shorts to watch the F-16s flying over the hotel and the weather is beautiful. There's a little less than three hours until the contest starts and I feel an unnatural calm. As soon as I get some food in my belly, I'll be at peace with the world. This is what life is all about.

11:00 am:
I just arrived at the contest site and they are still setting things up. It looks like they're running a little late, but that's fine with me. I'll just sit here and enjoy the day. The contest is on a narrow street in the shade of a four-story academic building on campus. There are plenty of trees for shade, bur no chairs or tent for the competitors, which could make for a long, uncomfortable day if it rains like forecast.

11:40:
Time to go check in . . . 17 lightweight amateurs. Eight fewer than were listed earlier in the week.

12:20pm:
The rules meeting just finished. Luck of the draw slated me last in the first event; the arm-over-arm truck pull. This is good news for me because it's widely believed that the first few competitors to go are at a serious disadvantage. I don't know the physics behind it, but the rumor is that it has to do with the axles being warmed up or something. At least that's what most of us believe, and experience tells me it's true. I certainly hope it's true.

1:10pm:
I just finished the truck pull and it didn't go so well. It was an arm-over-arm pull, where the competitor is seated and has to pull the rope to bring the truck toward them. I started out pretty well, but I think I picked up too much momentum. Ideally, I'd like to use the momentum to my advantage, but I couldn't reel in the slack from the rope fast enough between pulls. Instead of two or three quick pulls to put the slack rope behind me, followed by a big leg drive and lean back, I was getting an awesome leg drive and lean, but I was using three, four, or even 5 pulls to reel in the slack. I just couldn't find my rhythm and it really killed me when the truck came to the bump in the road near the end of the 60' course. I finished the pull in 59.33 seconds, just .67 seconds before time expired. Luckily, six other guys weren't able to finish the pull so I didn't come in last.

1:30pm:
The axle press went as well as could be expected. An axle is a 2" thick bar (your standard gym bar is 1 1/8" thick) with big truck tires and hubs attached to it. It's cool because it looks like you just ripped the rear axle off a truck and decided to press it over your head. We were running two competitors side by side, so I didn't get much rest between events (thanks to my shitty showing in the truck pull). In training, I hit three reps with the contest weight of 240 lbs and I'm always better on contest day, so I knew I was good for a few more. I got my five reps, but I failed on the sixth. I think that somewhere deep inside, I'd told myself too many times that I was going to get five reps (a PR in itself), and once I'd achieved it, I was content. Even though I wanted more, I psyched myself out. I should have been telling myself I was going to hit ten because I'm not satisfied with a 10th place tie.

2:10pm:
The car deadlift sucked balls. Of the 17 amateur competitors, only four were able to lift the ass end of the brand new Mustang GT and the event winner secured maximum points with only four reps. I was not one of the four. I'd like to give you an estimate of the weight in hand, but when I can't move it, I can't tell the difference between 700 and 700,000 lbs. The shittiest part about it is that the four guys who pulled it got points for first through fourth place, while those of us weaklings who failed to lock it out scored zero, creating an almost insurmountable gap between the leaders and the rest of the pack. There's not much I can say here. Sometimes the promoter makes a mistake. Props to the guys who could lift it. They clearly deserve the win. Like Kaz said, "If you can't deadlift, you're not a strongman." Now it's on to two of my best events.

2:35pm:
Finally, an event that went well for me. I was expecting to do well in the farmers walk because it was only 260 lbs per hand for 75'. It was the second leg of the medley that I was unsure of. Having never done the power stairs before, I had no idea what to expect. The concept was simple enough; carry a 350 lb chunk of steel with a handle up three 18" stairs. But would the execution be as simple as the concept? It was pretty damn easy for me, it turns out. Well, easier than the deadlift, anyway. I finished in 27.03 seconds.

3:15pm:
I took 5th in the medley, which moved me solidly into eighth in the overall standings. I'm only one point out of 7th, four points out of 6th, with the stones coming up shortly. I have a very good chance of moving up in the final placings, but it all depends on how much faster I can load the stones than the guys ahead of me. My normal tacky got ruined on the flight, so I'm going to have to use cool weather tacky. It's going to be a good bit runnier than the normal Elite tacky, but hopefully it will be ok. I'm just going to put a bunch of it on the back of my hands in case I need it. Time to go get tackyed up.

3:35pm:
That sucked. The 250 and 275 stones were placed away from the platform so they had to be carried before being loaded. I carried the first one all the way to the platform and loaded it with ease, but I wanted to save a little time on the 275 stone, so I tossed it from a few feet away. I guess they should've made the platform a little stronger because I bent the steel frame and broke one of the wooden 2 x 4 cross bars under the 1/2" plywood. The 300 and 330 stone were both right next to the platform and went up quickly, but on the final 360 lb stone, I ran into a few problems. I got it up to my lap ok, but when I tried to stand up to put it to rest on the platform, I had a small issue with body function control: I sharted (that's the medical term). I've had diarrhea since I left Minnesota on Thursday, and it reared it's ugly at the worst possible time. I brought the stone back down to my lap to collect myself and squeeze my ass cheeks tighter. When I tried to take it for a ride the second time, I just had nothing left in my hamstrings. I dropped the last stone and walked away feeling not so fresh. But first, I had to get the tacky off my hands.

3:55pm:
My time through four stones was 31.55 seconds, which was good enough for 6th in the event and it bumped me into 7th in the final standings. On the whole, it wasn't a bad showing. One more rep on the axle or loading the last stone would have put me in 6th. A single rep on the deadlift would have boosted me into 4th place, earning me an invitation to Nationals in Las Vegas in November. I know where I need to improve and that starts on Monday.

Right now, I need to get out of here. This is a dry campus and I've got a beer or twenty calling my name.

Posted by Ben Hanson at 10:49 AM

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Posted by: Kaci at May 15, 2007 01:54 PM

Posted by: Matt Brouse at May 17, 2007 02:34 PM

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