A Clean & Jerk Parable

One of my bits when I hosted the Monti StorySLAM on Tuesday (oh yeah, I hosted the Monti StorySLAM again last week) was that Coach Dave kept harassing me about signing up for an Olympic weightlifting meet, and you could all go ahead and wipe that skeptical look off your faces because that didn’t mean this fatty would be trying out for the Olympics. It simply meant a competition of three attempts each at the two Olympic lifts: snatch and clean & jerk.

I hemmed and hawed and made excuses about not having lifting shoes. Then my birthday rolled around, and my family got me

So then I dug my newly-clad heels in about the world’s least flattering garment, the singlet. (Just google ‘singlet’; focus on the athletic ones, not the sparkly ones you see at Pride parades.) Well, then this gym in Cary scheduled a “developmental meet”, which means yes on shoes, not necessarily on singlet.

I still hesitated, but Coach Dave, he’s a wily bastard, and he knows me. He said, “It’ll give you something to blog about.”

I guess some people, when they sign up for a competition, follow some sort of plan to prepare. I went strict on the Pretend It’s Not Happening program. Coach Dave watched some lifts, Coach Phil at CrossFit RTP helped me work on my snatch for an hour and a half [insert punch line] last week, and my buddy Liz gave me some pointers and wrote me out an extensive list of tips on yellow legal paper. Other than that, I just kept CrossFittin’ and whistlin’.

Meanwhile, my support team was rallying. My dad was thinking about driving down the mountain for the meet. My friends were conspiring about a banner. My sister was going to bring her kids. But on Thursday, when I realized I was starting to hyperventilate a little bit about the whole situation, I sent out the following email:

So, with going to Boone last weekend, the stray pit being put to sleep, the StorySLAM, and getting a foster dog, it’s just all too much. I’m still going to go and participate in the meet this weekend, but I’ve decided that no fucks shall be given by me that day. Therefore, I would not mind if you saved—nay, I would encourage you to save—your fucks for giving to some other event which might require given-fucks.

And that worked. I did not give a fuck. Until Saturday when I walked into the place. It was so quiet in there, and there were people in chairs watching, and the women in the first session (tall, skinny ones; itty-bitty ones; really fit ones) were putting up some big numbers on the board. Like, way more than I could. I mean, I knew calling what I was doing “competing” was fallacious, but I didn’t want to look like a charity case.

At that point, I got all weepy, and poor Coach Phil had to shush me and tell me it was gonna be OK.

The situation was bad. Earlier in the week, I would’ve been satisfied to hit a Personal Record at the meet. Now I had a new goal: not to shit myself on the platform.

I weighed in, 77.2 kg (170 lbs), and rolled around on a foam roll for a while. Coach Phil helped me warm up. My cheering squad did not heed my emailed advice.

Snatches first. There was one woman in my session whose three lifts were all smaller than my opener, so she went. Then I was up. I hit my opener at 33 kg (72.6 lbs) and my second lift at 36 kg (79.2), but I missed my third. I can’t even remember what it was…37? I got it overhead but crumpled underneath.

Several more women (all of them at least 20 pounds lighter than me) went, lifting enormous amounts of weight over their heads.

After that came the clean & jerk. I hit them all: 42 kg (92.4 lbs), 46 kg (101.2 lbs), and 49 kg (107.8 lbs). (Phil had wanted me to do 51 kg (112.2 lbs) because it would’ve been slightly above my PR, and I should’ve listened to him. Those clean & jerks didn’t feel very hard.) Most importantly, I did not shit myself.

Again, the real weightlifters came next and lifted some real weight.

The organizers totaled everything and called up the winners by weight class. As I was the only competitor in the Over 75 kg group,

The lesson, children, is this: Sometimes it pays to be the fatty.

[Ed. note: I feel a follow-up post bubbling in my Broca’s area. But for now, to bed!, for I rise before daybreak.]