Texas Strength Classic 2020
Hello everyone! If you’ve been reading chronologically from the beginning, thank you for sticking with us! It’s amazing how far Rice Powerlifting has come.
Due to a large advertising/recruiting push, RP gained (haha) a lot of attention after Longhorn Open 2019. We were pleased to welcome our very good friends and first female members, Rachel and Fatima, for the Spring 2020 season!
We went to the Texas Strength Classic competition in San Antonio in March, and had a great. fucking. time.
As I mentioned previously, Rice Powerlifting was able to network with Houston’s Project Strength gym through a meet our organizations both happened to attend!
Project Strength offered to sponsor us, providing things like programming and form checks.
However, the biggest thing they were able to provide was access to their gym for our members to hold a mock meet!
A mock meet is exactly what it sounds like: a practice run to hit some heavy, near-competition weights in an intense atmosphere. This was especially useful for familiarizing our new members with kilo plates and other competition equipment.
Everyone showed up in gear and worked their way up to their openers (1st attempts), while the Project Strength coaches offered technical advice here and there. It was a really fun social event too, and afterward we went to Whataburger =P
A week rolled by, and then it was go time! We piled into Rachel’s crossover, and scooted our way to San Antonio!
We had a great time running around the River Walk, ate some philly cheesesteaks and lemonade at one of the stands (ok it was just Charley’s, but enjoying it with friends *elevated* the experience), and took a lot of pictures.
Lots of social media material - get!
Here is Rachel finally posing for a shot after us bugging her to for miles…
JP and his cowboy hat, which he haz buyed at Buccee’s, molesting a statue…
Elimelek showing everyone just who best boi is…
Fatima showing interest in some local wildlife (and some clowns in the background)…
And me asking the nice Alamo defender man if I can touch his gun ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Spoiler: We could, and then some. This guy was really nice and showed us all his kit and arms, how he reloaded and used everything, and how long it would have taken, etc.
It was a shame, but if we had gotten there earlier, we could have seen a live fire demonstration. Next time!
Oh that’s right. We went to the Alamo too. Don’t forget the Alamo - or something like that haha
After we finished sightseeing, we went back to our Airbnb and chilled. We bought some alcohol at H-E-B, and over some Smirnoff Ices (hey, if you’re going to drink before a powerlifting meet, might as well be responsible and drink the weak stuff), came up with our goals for the next day.
(Also peep the handwriting, I worked hard on that T_T)
I slept here that night, but — and no joke — was woken up by gunshots. I tried to fall back asleep, but wasn’t comfortable. Eventually gave up and started watching anime on my phone at 6AM.
I can’t name the show here because my little brothers read my blog.
After everyone woke up and ate their bananas (no cramping allowed!), we packed up and left for Texas Strength Systems.
Those astute readers among you might recognize that name somewhere. Well, Texas Strength Systems is a combination gym-fabrication shop combo! Many of the competition racks and benches in previous meet recap photos have featured their equipment, marked with the bold ‘TEXAS STRENGTH SYSTEMS’ paint work.
This place was honestly so cool! The competition happened in the gym area proper, but there was welding equipment and metal stock everywhere else! It made me feel right at home.
The only bad thing was all the paint and oil fumes in the air. I know that whenever I weld at school, I can expect to feel sick for a few days afterward. Not good for a physically demanding competition…
From here on out, things were very chaotic. We had 5 lifters, all scheduled to take the platform at different times. This was difficult because ideally, those not lifting would be with someone who was, for chalk, hype, film, and general emotional support purposes. Plus, we had two new lifters, who we absolutely needed to handle for their first meet to go well. Our preflight warm up timings made everything super difficult to coordinate, but Kyle and Waleed from Project Strength were there to back us up!
They were an absolute godsend. I can’t see this meet having gone as well as it did if they weren’t there.
By the time it was time for my flight to start, we had already been in the building for some time, and I was beginning to feel sick from all the welding byproduct. It’s kind of a running joke at this point. They should make T-shirts saying ‘Brian has weak mucous membranes’.
It’s ok, I told myself. This meet was an ‘extra’ one anyway, since our main event was still the UT Longhorn one. That said, I was still going to do my best.
I had done a ton of work on my squat in the 2019-2020 school year, and so was ready to hit some heavy weights.
I originally wanted to set my final attempt at 420 for the memes, but I felt strong enough to push to 424 pounds, an all-time PR!! I texted a friend, super excited, and told her all about it.
Especially because it wasn’t too bad effort-wise, I was excited to hit maybe even 430 after properly resting after the competition. If only COVID hadn’t happened…
I was really starting to feel unhealthy by the time bench rolled around. It didn’t help that I had screamed my lungs out at Fatima’s and Rachel’s lifts, or the fact that the water dispenser they had run out of water (My bottles had run dry ages ago), and that it being an open garage gym meant I was dehydrating much quicker than I had at Longhorns before. To be honest, it wasn’t fun.
I started talking to a young lifter, named Caleb Pruett, between attempts. He was only 16 and yet had already been competing for a long time! I assumed the man with him was his dad, but he was actually the coach. I was really impressed at this kid’s level and starting so early, and told him so. I’m looking forward to going head to head someday, when he’s old enough for Open!
As for my actual bench, I ended up failing my 3rd attempt of 314 lb. My 2nd 303 lb attempt, was definitely more solid than the fall before though, so I was okay with it. That’s the one shown above/right.
Note the spotter cheesing at the camera 😂
Finally, deadlifts!
Nothing really noteworthy happened here, though I did almost get red lighted for my aging/loosening soccer socks falling down my leg on an attempt. Nobody wants to clean a bloody barbell.
Kyle had me set my expectations lower, and entered a very conservative 502 lb for my final attempt. I had wanted 518, but to be honest that probably wouldn’t have happened.
He sent me out with a reassuring chalky clap on the back, I pulled the weight cleanly, and that was that.
Sometimes the anticlimactic ending is the smart one, even if it was still a PR.
We all watched Eli’s deadlifts, and then it was time for awards!
I ended up placing second, behind Evan Judice. Part of why I had wanted to attempt more on deadlift was because the whole competition, Evan had been ahead but with me just barely behind. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my ‘top 10 anime power-ups’ moment and Evan took his rightful victory. I’ll get him next time.
The picture is of me like ‘well, what are you gonna do?’
All in all, Rachel and Eli ended up placing 1st in their respective divisions, and JP plus me 2nd. Definitely a very taxing but rewarding experience!
We ended up eating at Chipotle before starting the road trip home. This was absolutely miserable for a now-clearly symptomatic and dehydrated Brian. During a Buccee’s stop, I stumbled off to buy Nyquil and dropped my medal. I was devastated but we had to go.
Rachel dropped us off back on campus and I pretty much staggered sideways back to my dorm, and fell in bed still in my dirty powerlifting clothes. Finally fell asleep at the end of a very long (but still undeniably good!!) day.
Barely a week after that, Rice moved to remote school and urged students to go home. Plans for further RP activities were forced on hold, as were ones for further collaboration with Project Strength. In fact, as of the time of writing, this is still the current situation.
It’s entirely possible that I go through senior year and graduate without competing again. The thought saddens me greatly, but sometimes things just go wrong. And in the grander scheme of things, one undergraduate’s regrets about not being able to lift weights with friends means very little, compared to a global pandemic. Still, regrets they were, and regrets they still are.
That would have been the end of it, but…
During quarantine, I received an envelope from Rachel! Remember when I thought I had dropped my medal in a Buccee’s restroom in my delirium? Well, turns out I had unknowingly just shoved it deep into the backseat, where she found it when packing to leave Rice.
Honestly, the gesture of mailing it back (and the note included!!) brought me a great deal of joy during a the gloom and doom of quarantine, and so I was very grateful. I think this hopeful moment would be great to end this on, so thank you for reading!