As I sit here writing this blog post, I have just finished my last lifting workout and am 2.5 days away from my next kettlebell competition: the Orange Kettlebell Club Bay Area Kettlebell Competition in Berkeley California and I couldn’t be more excited! This has been the one event I’ve been training so hard for over the last 12 weeks and it’s about to get real.
Looking back, it has been over 2 years since I last competed in GS and won my 4th Gold medal. What an incredible feeling that was! Time flies and I really missed my kettle family, pushing kettle late into the wee hours of the morning, and simply the thrills and anticipation of competing! It felt good, I looked great, it made me feel like sucha badass, and I met some incredible lifter friends along the way who’ve always inspired and motivated me to push myself. Somehow life just got really busy with work, relationships, stressful times, a lower back injury, and other sports/workouts, which made me drop out of the GS scene for a while. Life was good but I felt there was a void that needed to be filled. I wanted to get back into kettlebell lifting but had trouble making the time commitment that the training required. Self discipline issues i suppose. I needed to change that. As my theory goes, if I don’t use the time I have to work towards a goal, work and other activities will always fill the gap.
I turned the BIG 3-2 in May and celebrated it with a huge bday bbq with all my closest family and friends at home. It was great and I had no reason to feel otherwise, but for whatever reason, getting a year older made me go through a slight 1/3 life crisis (it really didn’t last long though), thinking to myself that I should be doing more and pursuing my fitness goals. On occasion, I had friends asking me when I would be competing again and of course the Facebook invites to all these great KB competitions I wanted to attend, the most recent being the upcoming Orange Kettlebell Club competition. I love these guys and missed them so much! John Wild, Nazo, and Jason of the OKC are the most genuine, incredible people with the biggest hearts you’ll ever meet in the kettlebell world.
A few days after my birthday, Jason Dolby, my former kettlebell coach just texted me out of the blue to say hello. It was a really nice surprise and just talking to him reminded me of how much I missed the thrill of training and competing. It was like my calling to re enter the world of kettlebell sport. I decided to make that my new training goal – to lift at the OKC Bay Area KB Competition in August and win! I needed more kettle in my life and the timing on this was just perfect. Like a sign that it was meant to be. So without hesitation, I hired Jason to be my coach. To quote our conversation: Let’s form like Voltron again and be unstoppable kettle thugs!
Now that I came back from ‘Stage 5 Island’, I literally felt like I was starting all over again with my lifting. I decided that I would carry on from where I left off. To compete in long cycle with the 16kg kettlebell. My technique and endurance definitely slipped a bit over those 2 years, so I needed to work my way back up to doing a full 10 minute set.
Jason programmed all my training sessions over the course of the 12 weeks leading up to the competition, where I trained 3x per week. Living in different time zones really didn’t affect much between us. We communicated through Google Docs, texting, and email most times. The best part was that it allowed me to train whenever I want and on my own schedule, especially since I never have a set schedule I can keep to. Most times my lifting sessions would take place late at night and I loved that he would still be awake to respond to all my feedback texts and questions. I saw a steady improvement in my form, endurance, and lifting strength. One rep at a time, one set at a time. I know I can still improve, but I was getting my groove back! Everything was falling into place and I felt strong under the bells once again.
From May 22 up until now, I have done 31 lifting sessions under Jason’s coaching and this coming Saturday will mark the 32nd time lifting. I thought it was an interesting parallel to note. It’s like I’m turning 32 *again* but this time on the platform.
This girevik is about to be reborn.