This year was really interesting. My nephew came into town a week before the show to visit from Hawaii. He also plans to visit some people on the continental United States and that plays a bit of a role in the story.

The week before the show he went along with me to do some hill training since i’m still training for the Big Sur marathon. The weekend was going really well for both of us, however later in the weekend things kind of took a turn for him emotionally. One of the reasons he was visiting me is that he planned to also go to South Carolina to visit a woman he is romantically interested in. Well either on late Sunday night she decided to friend zone him.. and his mood plummetted. Relationships are hard and he was very interested in her so i understand why he felt bad.

I knew i had to lift him up, i also felt bad for him and it started to curb my excitement for the upcoming week. I tend to be pretty empathetic. In any event i was also very busy at work the first 3 days so had to focus very hard. It was exhausting to be honest and i was worried at how i was going to feel for the ASF which is an exciting and inspirational week for me.

I was off on Thursday March 5 already and had originally thought about seeing amateur bodybuilding shows. However, time was a bit compressed and i ended up just going to pick up my Expo VIP pass and a couple shirts i was able to preorder. While i was there i saw young children my daughters age Olympic lifting which was pretty impressive. Later, when i looked at the results, i saw that there were children as young as 9 doing Olympic lifting. I then looked at my age group and bodyweight category and saw that there were no competitors, so it gave me a crazy idea that i might try to progress my Olympic lifts and enter a meet sometime haha.

I ended up only being there a little over an hour as i needed to pick up my daughter. I saw that the Pump lounge was open and Christina Jacobs was in there setting up. They added an official cooler stocked with energy drinks which was nice. I saw that Momentous had their booth setup and there was an area for deadlifting and bench pressing as well as a pullup bar.

On Friday i made sure we got back down there early again, there was some talk of meeting at Pro’s gym but Ray Martin decided against it (when we went last year it was insanely packed and we were pretty sure it would be again). What was really cool is that my nephew was able to get a free VIP expo pass from a member who wasn’t able to go.

We immediately saw some people we knew, Jeremy Derenfieldt and his family and we talked for a while. I knew i wanted to make the 10 AM talk with Momentous Nutrition and Jens 11 AM coaching call so we made sure to get the lounge early.

The Momentous talk was pretty interesting, the CEO was a former National Football league player for the Carolina Panters. Adam brought up how he thought Momentus was a more ethical and evidence based supplement company and how they had cancelled a supplement that was ready to ship when they found out the evidence of it really didn’t back it up. It was something like a 6 million dollar loss for the company but he wanted to maintain the companies reputation for quality products that work.

Coachs Jenns in person coaching call was nice. I know she said they were streaming it so people could see online. She always has so much energy so it was really nice.

This day was really action packed with events, we tried to see Jeff Hoopingarner compete in worlds strongest fireman but i don’t think we got there in time. We did see Coach Nic set the world record in the Animal Cage. That was really great because both sides of the cage where he was competing were full of Pump Club members and inside Adam, Daniel and Jen were in there cheering for him.

I think at that point we hurried to get a late lunch and got back a few minutes late to see Daniel interview Frank the Tank on stage. And then we had dinner with the after school all stars.

One really cool highlight of Friday was that a woman i know stopped in the Pump club room and it was a big surprise. She was someone we trained at the hospital and she works as a medical physicist too. She is a pump club member now! Her name is Shelby and she had gone to the sports festivals a few times over the years also because her best friend Leanne (who i was also introduced to and is a pump club member) has a brother who used to compete in Olympic lifting. We all said we need to train the olympic lifts and also compete in a meet sometime. As i mentioned earlier seeing kids my daughters age compete inspired me.

Friday finished with a group meetup for dinner and fundraising for after school all stars which was great.

Saturday we got there real early because we kind of new everyone would want a seat for the Arnold talk. We were there around 730 am and more and more people kept showing up. We tried to get the same table we got the previous year, but they had that one reserved for a bit.

Chef Rush was in there making wraps for us. If you haven’t seen him, he is super muscular with huge arms. I think Adam and Ketchell and Jen took some questions while we waited for Arnold to come in. Finally he came into the room and started talking. It was nice that he specifically mentioned Chef Rush and the work he did with the military and preventing military suicides. Arnold only had time to take a couple questions and was on to the next event though, so it was on the order of 15 minutes or so.

Then we immediately broke into two groups for PR’s. The lines for both were long but i wanted to PR if possible. After several warmups, i kind of ran out of luck on my final warmup before PR. I started to deadlift and the bar kind of slipped out of my left hand and i felt a little bit of a pop and pain in my left arm. I was able to setup again and pull a rep at that warmup weight (it was 275 lbs at this point), but i decided to not go back into line again. I was looking for a modest PR since my max is only 300 lbs currently and i havent been doing heavy deadlifting. I then sat down and one of the women suggest i ice my arm with a can of energy drink and that actually worked pretty well.

We ate the wraps and i cheered for the others getting PRs then we decided to get some more lunch at a restaurant. I don’t think we got back in time for Nics coaching session, but he was very helpful in coaching us in line when we were deadlifting so i liked that. He told me to keep a more narrow stance with my feet and point my toes out. I was a little disappointed that i didn’t get to attempt a PR but also worried that my injury would effect the pump and run the next day.

I think we went out to the expo again for a bit and eventually went home. It was really enjoyable talking to everyone but i knew i wanted some extra rest for the Pump and Run 5K the next morning.

The next morning i weighed in for the pump and run, my weight was a little higher than i wanted but i was prepared to bench press that weight and i had practiced at home to make sure the left bicep injury wouldn’t impact it. Fortunately since bench mainly uses chest and tricep, i didn’t see any noticeable impact. I was able to get 13 reps which was good for me (next year i hope to get the maximum of 30 but its challenging as my triceps fatigue and limit me). It was nice to see several other pump club members doing the pump and run and also the 5k and ruck which they added this year.

At 930 we all met for a group picture and then at 10 am, Jen Widerstrom led us in a group warmup before the running event. Arnold was there at 1030 am to call the start of the race. My run went pretty well too. Technically the run and the reps were my best i have done in my 5 years or so of the pump and run event, so i was really happy with that.

After it we briefly went to the showcase and heard Arnold talk and mention some movie roles he will be appearing in (King Conan) and also possible another Predator and a third movie. He is so busy, have no idea how he does it all.

Then at 12 a strongman came in and talked about his experiences. It was pretty interesting to hear him talk. Later Thomas Leikham who is from Germany originally (I met him the first year but he wasnt there last year) and i walked the expo.

It was such a quick but fun weekend. My left bicep is feeling better but still will take while to heal. Some of my runs last week were challenging but i felt better last weekend.

Oh I forgot, my main vehicle which is a Red Toyota Sienna which i drove to the festival each day started having issues that Sunday night as my nephew and i drove out to eat. So all last week i’ve been going to car dealerships looking for a new vehicle and i have a rental car now for the second week. So its been busy.

We surely missed our friends from Finland. I will write more. I’ll send this to you from my blog directly first since personal email access is blocked at the hospital.