A funny thing happened on the way to the competition...

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Actually, contrary to the title of this post, what happened on the wayto the competition wasn't funny in the least...

Let me preface this post by first saying thank you to Coach ValeryFedorenko for his wonderful coaching, and to Alex from the WKC for his help insharing my training journey. 

Back to the post, which, by the way, has two parts. Part I chroniclesthe trouble I had the night before the competition, and Part II details my grateful comeback, with videos of two new personal records! Read on...

PART I--The Day Before

Sadly, I never made it to the competition. If you have been followingthis blog, then you will know the hard work and concerted effort I put intotraining for the Ice Chamber West Coast Kettlebell Sport Classic, which tookplace in Richmond, CA (in the San Francisco Bay Area) on Saturday, February 9.I made my way up to Berkeley to stay with a friend in the evening of theThursday before the competition, and spent Friday driving around San Franciscovisiting friends and an old college professor. Everything was going well, and Iwas feeling fit and ready to lift the next morning. 

The night before the competition, my wife, friend, and I went out todinner in Berkeley, where we had a nice light meal of fish and kale (with alittle gnocchi in cream sauce on the side:) So far, so good. But then towardsthe end of dinner I began feeling the color drain out of my face, and my heartstarted beating more rapidly than normal. I excused myself from the table andwent to wash my hands, thinking that I just needed to get away from thecrowded, noisy, and somewhat claustrophobia-inducing dining room. I made itback to the table and finished dinner feeling somewhat unsettled. All was notwell, however, and as we prepared to leave I felt very lightheaded, faint,nauseous, and all-around extremely unwell. I went outside to get a breath offresh air, but this time my condition just got worse. I was on the edge offainting, vomiting, and--it seemed to me--falling down dead at any moment. Iwas simultaneously shaking with cold and weakness, and sweating from everypore. It was one of the scarier moments of my entire life.

Those of you who are able to relate to this story thus far, you mightrecognize the symptoms. For those of you who have not lived through this sortof thing before--myself included, until that night--what I was experiencing wasa full-blown panic attack. I had always (somewhat unsympathetically, I nowrealize) dismissed "panic attacks" as not being real, or at least notbeing as intense as the person experiencing it claims it to be. "What adrama queen! (or king)," I might have thought, or, "Just take a deepbreath and calm down." Well, you know what they say about not judgingsomeone until you've walked a mile in his or her shoes...boy was I wrong. Panicattacks are nothing to trifle with. I literally thought I was dying. 

I'm sure some of the extreme anxiety came from nervousness over theupcoming competition. After all, I have always trained kettlebells by myself,in the privacy of my own garage, and this was to be my first competition infront of other people, including Masters of Sport and other elite-levelathletes. Call it stage fright. But I'm sure most of my anxiety, and theresulting acute panic attack, stemmed from events of the previous six months,which I will list here but not recount in any deep detail:

• August 2012--I began my last year in law school (along with a urgent sense of needing to pass the California bar exam and get a job)
• September 2012--My mother was diagnosed with brain cancer and given 1-2 years to live. This was and remains the biggest shock of my life, of my whole family's life. She went through chem and radiation for 3 weeks.
• September 2012--I proposed marriage to my girlfriend of four years
• December 11, 2012--My mother passed away at the age of 64. She was otherwise in excellent health and very physically fit--she hiked, biked, took spin classes, ate healthy, etc. She survived 10 weeks from diagnosis. Because she was otherwise in such good health, the tumor did not manifest symptoms until it was too late to treat.
• December 13, 2012--My fiancée finds out she is pregnant. Great news, but sad that my mom never was able to share in the joy.  
• December 29, 2012--My wife and I were married in San Diego.
• January 2013--I begin my last semester in law school, and start an internship with the California Dept. of Justice.  
• January 2013--My grandmother passes away one week after falling and breaking her hip.

 Which leads us to February 2013--I'm supposed to compete inkettlebell sport?! My body, heart, and mind have different opinions onthat. 

So after an agonizing 2 hour wait in the local emergency room, thedoctors hooked me up to an EKG, gave me i.v. fluids, anti-nausea medicine, andanti-anxiety medicine, and drew blood to perform tests for other physicalailments. The EKG and blood tests all came back fine, no other problems. Just apanic attack. The medication kicked in, and by about 4:00am Saturday morning Iwas released to go home. I think I mumbled to the doctor on my way out,"Can I lift weights today?", to which he replied, "I think youshould probably just get some rest." Duh. Thanks, doc. I went home andfell asleep, and woke up the next morning at about the same time as I wasscheduled to lift, 11:00 am. Bummer. 

I was pretty upset at not being able to compete, but my friend and mywife convinced me that 1) there's always next time, and 2) it was probably forthe best, anyway. Additionally, I talked to Coach Fedorenko on the phone (hecalled me when he heard I wasn't at the competition), and he passed on thewisdom that this sort of thing happens to everyone. Not panic attacks,necessarily, but getting sick and missing competition. It's even happened tothe best of the best, meaning VF himself. 

And what matters most is that I was not dying, and I didn't lose thetraining and strength from my work over the previous months and years. Whichbrings me to Part II of this little saga...

PART II--The Day After

Luckily for me, my panic attack subsided during the night, and I was able to rest all the following day (during the competition--grrrrr. Still makes me sad). The good thing is that the Ice Chamber had a kettlebell technique workshop scheduled for the day after the competition, which I felt well enough to attempt. I told myself that I would only do as much I felt comfortable doing, and that I wouldn't over-exert myself. When talked to Coach Fedorenko on the phone the previous day, however, he suggested that, if I was feeling up to it, I ask the folks at the workshop to let me perform my Biathlon set for them, so that I could test myself and so the trip didn't feel like an entire waste of time.

Well, guess what? After the morning warm-up and technique drills, I felt hearty enough to do some lifting, so I asked Maya and Steve from Ice Chamber if they wouldn't mind watching my set--and they were more than happy to do so! After a brief warmup, I performed my Jerk set for Maya, and this is how it shook out:

My previous best with 24kg:
Jerk--40 reps in 6 minutes. I had never before lifted past 6 minutes in Jerk with 24kg.
Snatch--38L/41R in 6 minutes. Again, I had never lifted past 6 minutes.

Here's my Jerk set at the the Ice Chamber on Sunday, February 10, 2013 Unfortunately, I forgot to keep my eye on the clock, and I actually went over the allotted 10 minutes, for a full 12 minutes. I smashed my previous best (from only one week prior) and lifted 60 reps! Not quite within Rank 1 territory because I went over time, but the reps were enough. I'll try again soon to make Rank (today actually).

60 Reps 24kg Jerk

After the Jerk set I felt the all-too familiar butterflies of anxiety creep into my stomach, but I laid down, put my feet on a chair, took some deep breaths, and let myself calm down. I was fine in about 10 minutes. I rested for about one hour, and then Steve and Lorraine counted my Snatch set. Here it is: 56L/60R in around 8 minutes 30 seconds. Also a new personal best, and good enough for the Snatch portion of Rank 1 in Biathlon.

Now I just need to combine it with a good Jerk set, and I'm on my way!

56L/60R 24kg Snatch

Regarding my anxiety, I'm starting to feel better, day by day. I have good friends to talk with, and I am also starting to see a grief counselor to help with the loss of my mother. Those Biathlon sets last Sunday were for her.