Sunday, October 19, 2008

NPC Northwest Championships 10.18.08

Yesterday was fabulous and no matter how I ended up placing in the competition, nothing can take that away from me. I rocked the stage...my posing was solid, my muscles looked full, everything was in place. I felt confident. I worked it. Really, I did.

The 2-piece round was up first and my back pose was off and I wasn't spreading my lats. Worked on that between rounds and was on fire for the one piece round. I got called out 6 times. 6 times! I thought this to be a good sign.

Okay, okay, I'll get right to it and spare you the details for the rest of the post, but you have to promise to read it all. ;) Out of my class of 8, I placed 5th. Truth be told, I was hoping for top 3 and I really thought I was top 3. And the worst of it was the emcee called me Julia when he announced my placing. SERIOUSLY?! How hard is it? Julie. It's generic. It's like Bob. How do you screw it up? It took me a minute to realize he meant me...oh yeah, Michaelson, that is the last name. So, I got some corny medal with a seriously ripped figure girl on it. No tiaras were distributed, so my heart's not too broken.

Now for the details of the day. I picked up Kristie at 6:30am and we stopped for Starbucks on the way to I-5. Made it to the competition at 8:05. The spray guy had his tents all set up in the staging room where they were holding the competitor meeting. So, yep, I got to get all nakey and sprayed right there. Hah! Modesty no more. The tan could have been darker (not his fault). I just got tired of tanning everyday before Ironman and I needed a break. It was the one thing I didn't care too much about this time.

Christie Skelton (my suit designer & a former competitor herself) made her way down for the day and she was AWESOME to have back stage. My sad girls needed a LOT of glue and she made sure they weren't going anywhere. My Kristie was able to make her way back stage anytime she wanted and she spent most of the prejudging downstairs with us which was awesome too. She just walked around like she was supposed to be there and no one questioned her.

My diet was so different these last two weeks and I think that had a huge part in how I felt and how I looked yesterday. And....I did not do the whole sugar-loading crap that I did last time. HUGE difference! Had my oats in the morning and then ate about 1tbsp of my "goo" every half hour up to prejudging. But problems arose when we had Thai for lunch. I thought I was playing it safe with the lemongrass chicken breast and rice, but my poor water-deprived body just sucked every bit of sodium out of that stuff and "POOF" bloat city, baby! Fortunately for me, the bloat went down quickly and although I felt bloated for the night show, I didn't look it.

The night show was fine. Not much to say about that. The hardest thing about this "sport" is the judging and you never know what they're looking for or who you're going to get. What I have learned is that I will present the body I want to present and if they like it great, if they don't, so be it. One of these times, the panel will be looking for what I got goin' on and I will keep going and keep working until I get that panel of judges. I don't want to be soft, which seemed to be the look they chose last night. I don't want my suit to be eating my butt. What I do want is bigger legs, bigger, capped shoulders and beefier, cut arms. That means I've got a few months of eatin' and heavy liftin' ahead of me.

Bottom line...I felt great about what I presented yesterday. My intent was to do this competition as "practice" and I did that. I locked in my posing, my stage presence was on and when I see the pictures and look back at this I will feel amazing about how I did in my second competition after only 12 weeks of training for it. Most of these people have been training for 6 months to a year, so I think given that, I did pretty damn well. This "figure girl" is gonna keep on going, so stay tuned!

1 comment:

  1. I really am proud of you! Glad I finally got to come here and read the whole story....you're awesome! Keep up the good work!

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