Melbourne's Strongest Man 2013

Yesterday I competed in my first strongman competition at Definition 352 in Doncaster, Melbourne. It was a long day, with about 20 athletes competing across 4 men's divisions and 2 women's divisions.

I was one of 4 heavyweights.

Sled drag. Drag 100kg for 10m on a flat, deload 25kg, drag 15m up an incline, deload 25kg, drag 15m up an incline. I was a little worried about this one. When I trained for it, we dragged the 100kg up an incline aswell, and it was slooooow to move for all of us. Since they changed it to be flat for the heaviest weight, it made it a lot easier. Came 3rd.

Deadlifts. 75 seconds for biggest total tonnage. 3 regular bars loaded with 175kg, 200kg and 225kg. All the heavyweights opted to just rep out the lightest bar. These were supposed to be dead-stop deadlifts, but ended up being touch-n-go, which I'm not used to at all. I still managed 15 reps with the 175kg bar to take 3rd place.

2" Axle Clean and Press. 75 seconds AMRAP with 90kg, each rep cleaned. This was the event I felt the most prepared for, since I was doing reps on the axle every week, sometimes twice a week. In training, I managed 8 reps when I was fresh, and 6 reps when I was slightly fatigued, so I wanted 6 reps for this, and if I'd gotten it, I would've taken 2nd in the event. But the bar was a lot more slippery from all of the previous competitors, and lost concentration and dropped my last clean and ended up with 5 reps for equal 2nd place.

Medley. Prowler +100kg for 20m, 60kg keg carry for 20m, 200kg tire flip for 10m. The prowler was super fast, the keg carry wasn't too bad either, but man did my tire flips suck. I missed the first flip due to nerves, and had shit drops on 3 or 4 of my subsequent flips. Although I got a little practice with the tires, it wasn't enough and it cost me. Came 4th in this event.

Atlas stones. 75kg, 80kg, 101kg, 120kg, 130kg over a 1.2m bar in 75 seconds. I had done a bit of practice with these in the lead up, and a couple of weeks ago managed to get the 120kg stone over a 1m high bar without tacky, but man it gassed me. However this time I had tacky, which was my first time using it. My goal for this was to get the 120kg stone over the bar, and at least lap the 130kg stone. Well I got the 120kg stone over in epic, grindy fashion, but could only break the 130kg stone off the floor by mere centimetres. Came 3rd in this due to slower time.

Overall I came 3rd out of 4 heavyweights. I was the shortest and lightest heavyweight there, and the only one in his first competition, so I'm super happy with how I did, and I'm incredibly happy with how the competition was run. George Mariolis and the Definition 352 crew did a great job running, judging and scoring the competition and I'm proud to be associated with them!

A big thank you to my lovely girlfriend, Cherie, for supporting me for the past couple of months while I trained and ate as well as I could. Thanks to Definition 352 for putting on a good show, and thanks to my friends and family who showed up to support me!

I can't wait to do more competitions in the near future!

I'll upload some videos somewhere once I get them all together. They're all spanned across a couple of friends' phones.

Things Australia should steal from the US

Last year, Cherie and I went on a holiday to the US for nearly five weeks. I attempted to write a blog post detailing the entire trip, but once I got done writing up the first week, it was really long and I couldn't decide what to take out of it and I really couldn't be bothered proof-reading it again or writing equally long posts about the remaining four weeks, so I decided to scrap the idea, and instead opt for some shorter blog posts about the trip. This is one such post.

In those five weeks, we came across a lot of things I wish we had back here in Australia, or at least in Melbourne, in case other cities are smarter than mine.

Pedestrian Countdown Timers

We did a lot of walking and, despite initially being skeptical as to how useful it was going to be, it ended up being really handy. They need to make noise though; I don't remember exactly how many times it happened, but on more than one occasion, while out on my own, I almost missed the lights because I was looking in another direction.

Truck Stop Food

Breakfast burritos? 99 cent tacos? A seemingly endless selection of beef jerky? Drinks that are bigger than the size of my head? On our bus trip in the first week, there was nothing better than hitting the highway in the early morning with a cheap breakfast in-hand and a stash of meaty snacks to chew on.

Mexican Food Everywhere

The thing I liked about going into almost any restaurant was that there was always tacos on the menu. Sort of like the equivalent of our chicken parma. Except, you know, better.

Slow Cooked Meats, Better Sandwiches and Burgers, Sweet Potato Fries and Chicken Wings with Blue Cheese Sauce

Big Boy BBQ, in Caulfield, is the only decent place for slow cooked American-style meat in Melbourne, and it's awesome! We need more places like that. More Australians need to be into slow cooked meats. Slow cooked meats are better than a sausage in bread, and pulled pork tastes better in burgers than self-oiling rissoles from Woolies.

Speaking of which, the sandwiches and burgers here suck. The US loves their burgers. Whether it was in a restaurant in Chicago, a liquor store in Washington DC or an outlet mall in Nevada, the sandwiches and burgers were better than almost anything I've had here.

And they often came with sweet potato fries! We first had this (above) at Smashburger in St. George, Utah. Sweet potato fries are a golden idea and taste soooo much better than regular fries.

Now, ok. Sure. We have chicken wings here. But it's not the same. They're not cooked the same. They're not spiced the same (but we'll still call them Buffalo wings, anyway). And the blue cheese sauce is NOT blue cheese sauce.

Interstate Rail

On the east coast, we rode a lot of trains, with Amtrak, between New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC and Norwalk, and the longest train ride we had was 4 hours from Norwalk to DC. If I want to take the train to Adelaide, I'll be in transit for at least 10 hours, including lay-overs of anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, and will pay a lot of money to do it, while it takes about 8 hours to just drive there, or 1 hour to fly there for about half the price.

Our interstate train system is craptastic!

Although, I've since heard that catching trains on the west coast is a very different experience.

That's about it! We're going back to the US later this year again, so I'll probably update this in a few months.