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The Professional Side of the Mountain

          A few weekends ago, I found out that my twin had entered into a consulting case competition and put me down as part of her time. On one hand, I was excited because the idea itself seemed daunting, but as part of my push to bring myself to do more things that scared me, I was willing to do it (not just because it had to do with consulting). On the other hand, I was a b s o l u t e l y exhausted. I sent a picture of my schedule once to a friend who kept complaining that I never had any free time and that I h a d to have a hour free somewhere, and after looking at it, she just stared at me dumbfounded. People never believe me when I say I have my entire schedule planned out for me at the start of the week, but I have to because it has me going from 8am-midnight every. single. day. Frankly, it's exhausting and disconcerting, but sometimes I'll sit down and think about how far I've come in a year, and then I'm just left with quiet gratitude.     ...
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Overcoming the Mountain

        I'm sure you've heard that quote "When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place." And,so, the question I've been asking myself lately is "Why did you do it? Why did you stay if this doesn't make you happy? And if it did make you happy, what changed?" And the honest answer may be "because I was doing it for someone else."      There were such few things that I was naturally good at that when I found them, I clung to them with a passion. I think I may have actually stayed in powerlifting to impress a guy (y i k e s). But powerlifting had been good for me. With this sport, I had learned to cultivate discipline. I was working 20 hours a week, took 15 hours worth of classes, was an officer for a professional organization, and still had to find time to study, sleep, and go to the gym. I learned to wake up at 8am on the weekends to finish all my assignments due for the week and study ahead of time f...
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An Insurmountable Mountain

          A few days ago, I had my worst episode/IBS flare-up since the ER, and it left me feeling truly vulnerable and weak. Squats and deadlifts had been going well, so my coach decided that I could do a paused single on deadlifts at 285 instead of 280 and that my backdown sets would be paused sets at 265. Paused deadlifts in general are hard because while regular deadlifts themselves take an enormous amount of focus and strength, paused deadlifts entail suspending the entire weight as soon as you break the ground and then h o l d i n g it there for a second before locking out. So now, instead of having to focus on not breaking your back and staying tight throughout the entire lift, you have to worry about pausing 285lb in the air for a few seconds before completing the lift. Just a few days earlier, I had lifted 290 for the first time since August and barely pulled that off because my muscles had been so tight. Anyways, I had been feeling a bit queasy the ent...
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Musings + a Mini Mental Block

         It's been a really wild rollercoaster till here. I wrote this a few months ago and then decided to redo my blog, but felt that this was relevant enough to keep. After Southern Regional Championships in August, I was exhausted. Really and truly exhausted. Normally it takes about a week or week-and-a-half to recover and start getting back into the groove of things, but in this case, I never recovered. It seemed like the problems just seemed to flow one right after another. In the month following, my quads were so tight that I couldn't squat without my knees creaking and cracking. Squatting in my knee sleeves became painful, and I would literally waddle up to the bar to squat and then immediately sit down after sets. I rolled and rolled and cried for w e e k s because of how painful and sensitive my quads were. Every spare moment I had in between classes was consumed with me rolling on a lacrosse ball across our living room table and with my back against a...
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