Although crossfit is my main sport, I participated in my first powerlifting meet yesterday. I was super nervous and hesitant to do it because I was surrounded by girls that held world record lifts, but I thought it would be good to venture out from what I am used to. I was the first lifter in my flight of squats and I was terrified. I went up there and did not take my time like I should have, and I ended up falling forward onto my toes and I failed the lift. I was super upset because I had hit that weight in the gym multiple times. My coach, Katie, calmed me down and reassured me that I could do it. I went up the second time and I nailed a 155-160 pound lift, which felt good. The weight increased and went up there again for my third and final attempt at squat, and I ended up missing it for depth. At this point, there were so many thoughts going through my head about how I should not have done this meet and about how I had failed even though I had two more lifts. After I calmed down and talked to my coach and other girls, I was determined to not miss another lift. I ended up PRing my bench by 5 pounds with a 105 lift, and my deadlift by 23 pounds with a 248 lift. This is a video of my final deadlift. It was such a cool experience and I met so many people through this experience. I am sharing this with you because we all struggle and we all have those little voices in our head that tells us we are failures or tells us to quit, but don’t. We may fail, but we are not failures. We must learn from those failed attempts and get up and try again. Get out of your comfort zone, put yourself out there, and never quit. You are a winner, but you have to believe it.
