USAW Nationals

I just realized that I have a lot of catching up to do on my posting! I have been training and preparing for USA Weightlifting Nationals in Salt Lake City. I have been training with Catalyst Athletics  a few times per week to represent Team Catalyst Athletics at the national meet. I was super excited when Greg Everett gave me the opportunity to train and compete with them. It was a great change of pace for me. I often work for a few hours, train, maybe get some food or go home for an hour or two, train, and then work some more. Most days I spend around 10 hours total at the gym working and training. It can be tough sometimes to try and motivate myself to train after 3-4 hours of work because sometimes I just want to go home, I am hungry, or it's hot. So, training at Catalyst a few times per week really helped to break up my day and change the scenery. After about a 15-20 min drive (when there isn't traffic), I am refreshed by a new environment, and I find a bit more motivation to train.
Prepping for Nationals was a blast. Catalyst welcomed me on the team immediately. Everyone is super supportive, encouraging and nice. I find weightlifting to be somewhat of a more mellow crowd than CrossFit and for me, that is more fitting for my personality. I am really not a rowdy person, but I am disciplined and ready to work and get better. It takes a special kind of person to put in the time to get better at olympic weightlifting; but Catalyst is filled with many special people with the same interest and goals.
The USAW Nationals was held in the Grand American Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. The venue was incredible. It was actually held in the ball room, so there were these giant, beautiful chandeliers right above the platforms. I wondered if the hotel really knew what they were getting themselves into by hosting this event. It wasn't really the main platforms that were noisy, it was more so the warm up area. There were tons of weights and bars being dropped all day long. But with that being said, the set up was great. The warm up area was extremely spacious and well equipped. I think there were 8 platforms in each room (2 rooms, 1 for each main platform). I lifted Friday evening in the B session for 69kg. I was definitely nervous but also super excited to have the opportunity to compete with the rest of the nation's best lifters! My warm ups felt great- I made all the lifts with ease and I felt ready to go. Of course, the thoughts of missing my second 2 snatch attempts at regionals were haunting me and I was feeling pretty nervous, but I was as ready as I ever could be. There is a lot of pressure in weightlifting, but once that first snatch is over, the rest of the meet becomes more relaxed and enjoyable.
My planned snatch attempts were 79, 82, 85. I hit 79 as my opener, and on my second attempt at 82 kg my right elbow bent so that was not a good lift by unanimous decision. I did 82kg again for my 3rd and final snatch attempt and got it! 82kg was good enough to win my B session.
My planned clean and jerk attempts were 97, 100, 103. I hit 97 as my opener, and I hit 100 on my next attempt. I made the clean on the 103 attempt but couldn't quite pull off the jerk. I went 4 for 6 on my lifts for Nationals, and won my B session, I was really excited.
Overall I finished 6th in the USA in the 69kg weight class with a 182kg total. I am really happy with how I did, I think it went really well. Team Catalyst got bronze overall!
A special thanks to all the coaches that helped get me there.
Michael- For making me strong enough to compete!
Greg and Aimee- for welcoming me on the team, giving me a great opportunity to train at Catalyst with the team and fine tuning my lifts to get me ready for the meet.
Greg Aimee and Matt for making my first national experience a smooth ride! They were right by my side the whole time during warm ups and lifts!
To my family and friends and anyone else that has supported me through this!
 I will be back for the 2015 meet.