Hey folks. Thanks for your good wishes. They made me feel good.
Overall, I'd say that I got the meet I deserved. After all my ambivalence, I had a pretty ambiguous meet. Sadly, most of the experience was of getting steadily sicker and sicker throughout the day. I was croaking and dragging by the end of the day, just wiped out. If it weren't for the competition, I would have been in bed all day. To counterbalance the yuckiness of being sick, it was completely wonderful to see my old friends there, to have my sister see what I do, and have my gym friends cheering for me.
Technical stuff:
(Overview - in a powerlifting competition you squat, benchpress, then deadlift in that order in one day. You get to try each lift three times. It is pretty common to lift 90% of your max on the first lift, your max on the second, and try for unknown territory on the third lift. You adjust by how you feel doing each lift.)
First event was squat. I did fine. Hit all three lifts, no red flags (I'm not naturally a good squatter and always want to cheat the depth a little. Managed to do nice deep squats each time). First one was an easy 170lbs. Second one was my old max, 185lbs, which felt fine. Went up to 190lbs and hit it easy. New PR, but I started wondering if I should have gone heavier.
A couple hours of sitting around. I fell asleep in a corner for a while. Noticed that I really wasn't feeling well. Then, I blew the benchpress.
I think a lot of things went into my blowing the benchpress, all of which are different forms of "I got sloppy." The squats had been so smooth that I thought that perhaps I should have been more ambitious. So I planned large jumps for the bench press. I didn't warm up very well. The gym was chaotic and it was hard to work in, both of which are bullshit excuses. If competing well drove me harder, I'd have forced my way into a better warm-up. (That includes forcing myself to do it right, just on principle.) At any rate, I got my first easy weight (120lbs) and blew my second and third attempts (135lbs, my max). This is a large jump for me. We know that I do better with lots of small jumps. I should have adhered to that more rigorously. My third attempt took a dive towards my face, which scared the audience. I was fine with it. The spotters were right there, and I thought I had enough strength to lower it slowly, face or no. I didn't think it would hurt me or anything. But it drew a gasp.
So I blew the benchpress. Thanks goodness for conservative first lifts that guarantee you some results.
By the last lift, deadlift, I felt pretty bad. (Not emotionally. I'm not one of those people who scourge themselves for mistakes at competitions. Sick. Couldn't breathe, ached.) I re-couped and did my full warmup all over again, starting with stretching. The warm-up felt so heavy I lowered my opening weight from 245lbs to 230lbs. Did that fine. Hit 245 for the second lift. People said my lifts looked fast and easy, but they felt so hard. Decided to go for a mild gain on the third, went up to 260lbs. That's five pounds over my old max. Hit that too.
So, mixed results. Very mild gains on squat and deadlift. Pretty complete failure on benchpress.
Getting sick is a mild shame, because it would have been nice to know what I could have done if I'd felt strong that day. On the other hand, it will allow me to say forever that "If I hadn't been so sick, man, I could have totally lifted 9000lbs." At any rate, I'm done for the foreseeable future. My priority for the rest of the year is getting and being pregnant, so I'll be lifting to maintain, not to gain strength. Hopefully, it'll be a few years before I have the option to compete in a sports event.
Emotional part:
The part that wasn't ambiguous at all was how nice it was to have friends there. My old friends and my sister and the boys came and went during the day. The boys sat on my lap as we waited for my turn to lift. (The little one asked me why were doing this, and I had a hard time answering. Picking heavy stuff up and putting it down is pretty pointless. On the other hand, it feels good. Except for now, when I want to go to bed.) My gym friends were there the whole time and that was great. It was great. They cheered for me. I cheered for them (except that it ripped my throat up). I mingled and people said nice things to me as I walked through the crowd. It was basically great.
I was so grateful to my friends for amusing themselves. I felt bad that they were watching people do stuff they never showed any other interest in. But they did watch and said they liked it. Anand's new lady is some sort of sports doctor, so she was intrigued. Chris knew lots of people there. My sister said it was super inspiring, watching people try so hard. That is inspiring. My favorite moment might have been watching a mom as she watched her daughter hit a new PR. The mom was beaming, just estatic and amazed at what her daughter can do. Chris and my sister watched the giants lift crazy heavy stuff at the end, so they got a big dose of the grunting and shouting and pawing the ground and hitting each other. I didn't stay for that. My day was long enough. My plan for today is to read, nap and take a bubble bath.
Pictures:
There are pictures of me, but not on my camera. If any of them are flattering, I'll post them when I get them My sister filmed me lifting, so I might put those up. If I look good. My favorite picture was of the kids waiting: