I wanted to put something together regarding Mindy’s meet Saturday, September 28. She will put together another amazing meet write up but I wanted to say a few things too. If you don’t know that much about Mindy she is one unbelievable person. She is the mother of four, a three and four year old full time and a thirteen and sixteen year old part time, she goes to college full time, she works part time, she is a powerlifter, and the most challenging of all she is my wife…
This was her third full meet. She had done a meet a couple years back in some old too big gear for fun and I have no clue what she totaled but she had fun. This year she started training seriously and competed in June in the raw modern class. She did really well totaling 800lbs. She thought it was terrible; she served nine years in the Marine Corps and has a way of only comparing herself to men… I showed her the numbers and told her she was very close to being in the top. Reluctantly she started looking at it that way. She decided after that meet that she wanted to go to RUM VII after the knee wrap division had shown that there should be quite a turnout of top raw lifters. She needed to get an 860 total to quality so we decided to go for this September meet. Her meet prep started at about 9 weeks out. She took a week off from the June meet and pretty much went right back into prep. We tried a few new things and didn’t really like how she was responding so we went back to what had worked best last time. When she was about four weeks out her bench just crashed… that was weird because that is her best lift. She was really discouraged by it but I told her to just train with the strength she had at all out intensity and come meet time it’ll be OK. Her squats and pulls were thru the roof and we knew that was going to be some really nice PR’s. At two weeks out the black plague hit our house. This seems to be becoming a tradition at our house, the last four meets I have done this has happened including this one. She was SICK. And I don’t mean not feel good. She had a high temperature, cough, congestion, throwing up from both ends, it was terrible. We thought about throwing in the towel when the symptoms hadn’t really gotten that much better on Tuesday before the meet. That night she really went thru it and broke the fever and started getting a little better Wednesday. By Friday morning she could move around but the congestion and cough were still kicking her butt. She made the decision that she was going and we would see what happens. So, we drove over Friday evening and Saturday morning she wasn’t too bad. She was still congested but mostly she was nervous. We ate breakfast and headed over to the meet site. Warm ups went pretty well and she said everything felt good. So we stuck to the plan, we had three goals. The first was a qualifying total for RUM, the second was a 900 total, and the third was to sweep the RPS world records in the 181’s. Her opener squat was 300, easy. Second was 325 butt shot up a little but easy lift. Third was for 340 and a 65lbs PR – smoke show, best squat of the day and probably had 20lbs left in the tank. Bench, here we go. We cut her opener because of all the problems to 185 and it looked like air. Second was to 200 and it moved nice and smooth. Her third was 210 and a 5lbs PR and it was a grinder but she got it. Deads are her favorite right now. Her warm ups looked spot an and she felt ready so we changed her opener to 310 which would give her qualifying total and have that out of the way. She pulled that like nothing. So she needed 350 to get the 900 total and she took that on her second and it moved really good, 30lbs PR… She needed 375 to take the record and that’s what I called even though she said not too. She got it to her knees and that was it… I was wrong on the call but it was worth the shot. She had an awesome day. So very proud of her for going thru all the sick crap right before the meet. I am fighting the same crap right now just five days out from the XPC and after watching her I know that there is no excuse to not go and do well. She set the example that if you’ve prepared and your heart and mind are there to fight you can overcome anything. Congratulations mama and know that me and the kids are so very proud of you and love you so much.
Bert
