lite & lucid

I’m quite tardy in reporting the December trip, but don’t worry it’s mostly because I’ve been traveling across and out of the country – more on those trips later! For now here is the second installment of D.C. in December with Steven, my Brother. We went on a sibling trip of a lifetime to make some memories. First, I surprised him by letting him know we were going to go to watch the 2014 American Open, an important weightlifting (OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTING) event at the Washington Hilton. We met and watched past and future champions and Olympians, popular CrossFit athletes and many other well-knowns in the sport. I learned how accessible yet relatively under appreciated and unknown weightlifting is in America. It has been making leaps and bounds in part due to its introduction through the popular sport of CrossFit.

Greg Everett and Catalyst Athletics has also made a lot of progress in promoting the sport in America and have worked tirelessly to produce a treasure trove of information on their website and publications in many forms including a fantastic documentary called American Weightlifting. If you’re interested you can go to his website and learn more http://www.catalystathletics.com/.

My Brother and I are both mildly obsessed with the sport of weightlifting, which consists of the two lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk. Both begin on the ground and end overhead quickly. Moving the weight efficiently takes explosive power cultivated through dedicated training that results in an unbelievable strength-to-weight ratio in the bodies of these athletes.

It is an impressive sport and I’ve anecdotally noticed that it attracts an interesting if not somewhat eccentric crowd, not necessarily the ‘meatheads’ many would imagine. My interest has grown since I was introduced to the lifts at Elite CrossFit in San Antonio (http://www.elite-crossfit.com/) in 2011 and have slowly integrated this form of lifting into my workout routine since. Thanks Jeremy and coaches! I’ve listened to a podcast or two, followed some cycles from Catalyst Athletics and know some of the athletes from the popularity of CrossFit. Steven, though, is on a different level altogether both in athlete recognition and dedication to lifting. I don’t think there was a face in the crowd involved in the sport he didn’t recognize. He also wasn’t shy to go and strike up a conversation with many of them. He watches worldwide and national competitions streaming online, and quoted weight classes, competitions, and personal bests the entire weekend. I was privileged to watch a world-class event with my own personal commentator/dictionary who also knows more about food than I do.

The first conversation with a weightlifter or someone involved was with ‘Chaz’, Charles McDonald, who lifts for the United States National team and was currently training at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in the 85 kg weight class. I couldn’t believe that he was 185 lbs. I still struggle speaking kilograms, so I nearly wore my phone battery out calculating how much the weight classes were in pounds, and how much the lifters went up in weight each time they stepped onto the platform. He’s listed at 5’6” on the USAW athlete profile page, and so at first appeared inconspicuous beneath his Olympic logo jacket. I asked my Brother what he thought, and we discussed for a moment before Steven struck up a conversation and our titles as weightlifting groupies could officially be applied. On the plane we looked him up and looked around for more potential lifters. We ran into him after we landed too, talked to him more, took pictures with him and even shared a cab to the Washington Hilton (groupies, see!). He was thrilled that we were so interested, and patiently answered our questions. Riding to the hotel with an Olympic prospect!? What a fantastic way to start off the weekend! We wished him luck and congratulated each other on our first geek-out of the weekend. There were many more to come. Throughout the weekend we both accepted the groupie fact with pleasure. We kept getting asked, “who are you here watching”? Our response was usually a perplexing “everyone”? Most other spectators were family, friends, coaches or teammates. We had literally just come to watch the competition, which is apparently unusual.

When we arrived, we checked in, dropped our bags and headed to the Terrace floor to catch the action! There was an athlete training area on yet another lower level. The weights sounded like distant mortars all weekend. On our way to the party we stopped by the Doughnuts and Deadlifts stand, a ‘lifestyle’ company that from what I can tell travels around to competitions and sells t-shirts because their name is funny.

Steven discovered he could only get one of the outrageous looking doughnuts at the stand if he bought a t-shirt. So, thanks to our Mom’s combined birthday and early Christmas gift card for the occasion of our sibling trip, he bought two shirts, gave me one and we each snatched (haha) a doughnut on the way to watching elite athletes compete! I chose the crème brulee.

When we got to the giant conference room it was early in the weekend and a lot of the athletes we were familiar with were lifting in the A sessions either later that evening or Saturday. We were still more than stoked to be there and took in many sessions that day, learning more about other athletes. Friday we watched Darren Barnes earn the silver medal in the 56kg weight class, and set American junior and senior records in the snatch (112kg) and the lift total (237kg).

There’s more than a good chance he will be representing the United States in 2016 in Rio. Throughout the weekend ten competitors broke national records topped off by Jared Fleming’s gold medal in the 94kg category on Sunday. This is a big dude, and the weights were even bigger. There are way too many impressive athletes and lifts to list. Suffice it to say the weekend was phenomenal.

After arriving and watching sessions on Friday, I sat and watched 12 hours of weightlifting on Saturday, and then went back for more all day Sunday. Once Monday happened we both woke up in some kind of weightlifting hangover haze. I had booked several extra days to take advantage of sightseeing, but we didn’t even know where to start as we had been totally focused on iron. My D.C. travel book sat unopened in my suitcase. Steven had a good idea though so we traded in the groupie title for tourist, at which I personally excel, and began exploring.