I spent August driving my dog and my belongings from California to New York. This wasn’t the average road trip as I was training for a weightlifting competition in September. This is the culmination of all of my work, enjoy!
September 12, 2018
For those of you that don’t know about USA Weightlifting, it is a national organization for weightlifters to compete in the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. You start competing for total in local meets. If your total is good enough, you move on to the American Open Series, then Finals, then Nationals. The very best of the very best of these competitors go on to the Olympics!
Now, now, I’m definitely not that good and I don’t intend to be but I qualified for the American Open Series in 2017 but didn’t compete 😦 so I was super excited for 2018. There are three American Open Series events every year and in 2018 they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Las Vegas. My friends and family are in the Bay Area so I invited my mother, her twin, Grace, my very best friend, Sarah and my good friend Olivia to watch me compete.
Coach Brian and I arrived on Wednesday morning and we went to a buffet at the Cosmopolitan. The interior looked like it was straight out of Alice in Wonderland’s tea party! I had been weighing in at 47kg all week so I splurged a little bit and got some sprinkles with ice cream hehe.
My mother, her sister and Olivia arrived on Saturday night and we took the tram to dinner at a Tequila Taqueria’s in Bally’s. I didn’t eat too much because I knew I had to make weight at 49kg in the morning but I enjoyed (kinda) watching everybody drink their margaritas.
Did I mention that Olivia is an amazing hairstylist and I desperately needed her to do my hair for the competition? I hadn’t seen her since before the road trip and I couldn’t go out on stage with my hair a mess.
Sarah arrived in time for my hair cut and I was so excited to see her, we chatted a little too long, whoooops.
Weigh in was early in the morning so I went to sleep as Olivia bleached and colored my hair. Yes, I am sleeping in these photos. How did I breathe sleeping like that? Not sure.
Sweet Natty Dee 