Suz's Nats Recap

[Suzanne]

So I have wondered about giving my recap of my last few weeks and my time at Nationals...For some reason my words and meaning seem to get twisted and i am wondering if I even want to be on the boards any more.

Example: When I post in my journal I m not worried about the competition at my shows even though I explain what i mean by that I have been accused of being arrogant and thinking I can beat everyone. that is not it at all. What I have always meant by that is I can only control one thing going into a show and that is my physique. I cannot control who else will show up, how they will look and how the judges will vote. It does no good to worry about anything outside of what i can control. My thought going into every show is to bring a better Suzanne than my last show that is all i concentrate on. That is what i mean by i don't worry about the competition. Compare it to a golfer yes they are against other people but it boils down to the golfer against the course. In years past I used to stress about other people comparing my self to them and it made me and my prep miserable. Now that i only think about brining a better me I am able to enjoy every minute of it and be happy regardless of placing.

With that said here is my recap and hopefully my meaning or intention will not be twisted..

4-2 weeks out
This time was spent in OKC. I stayed with Sherry Smith who I must say is one of the nicest most giving people i have ever met. She made sure i had the groceries i needed before i got there and drove me to and from the gym every day even though she had clients and work at the MRI clinic. She choreographed and worked with me daily on my finals posing routine. I trained with JEremy every day which was perfect timing cuz this is when i start feeling tired and tend to rest too long.

While i was there I was standing in shower with foot up on tub shaving lower leg and when i went to stand up my back completely locked up and total pain in lower very base of lower back. This has never happened before. It was painful to reach for things on the floor and if i bent over for any period of time would lock up again. Jeremy has a chiropractor client so he adjusted me 3 times that week. We got all my WOs in but had to work with and around the pain. Wednesday before i returned home I had a massage therapist come to sherry's to try to relieve it. It had started to feel better by saturday when i returned home.

2 - 1 week out
Sunday I went to train legs and was working around the back pain. I did hacks with plate per side with no prob so decided to do 2 plates per side well not sure exactly what happened but i think my back gave sharp pain so at that point i reacted by going up crooked. I was in extreme pain. There was no other leg stuff i could to. Pain was now in lower back, upper glute and hip. We decided I should try to do arms instead but nope I could not go from standing to sitting, i could not reach forward for anything. so from the gym i called my massage person and she came to my house at 8 that night. There was such pain in hip/glute that i could barely put shoes and socks on. I would have to do it a little at a time. So here i am 2 weeks out conditioning slightly behind what it was for jrs (i had been ahead or same the entire prep until 2 weeks out) so i needed to be pushing harder yet it was all i could do to get all my WOs and cardio done. We made appt with my chiro for monday night and weren't sure if i would have to pull out of the show. We didn't want me to injure anything more. He did a lot of ultrasound and stretching and said he didn't think I would hurt anything by continuing. So I went to chiro again wed and saturday. Finally saturday i was pain free. I was really upset that monday not knowing if i was going to have to pull out or not and Jeremy just told me that if I an push through this my trophy will mean even more.

I spent this week baking kept my mind off worrying about if i was goig to have to pullout or if my conditioning would catch up. Baking is my secret to dialing in.

[Suzanne]

1 week out
My body finally responded and my conditioning caught up to jrs. I dropped 4 lbs water from week 2-1. Wed flew to Miami the hit grocery store then pick up Jeremy in Ft Lauderdale then to hotel. Hit 30 min covered cardio to shed some water from flight. Thurs all on target drying up nicely. Went to Golds and J put me through chest/delts. Freaking crazy pump! We had started loading tuesday. I was just over 125 thurs evening so we decided to do fri weigh ins. I was 129.4 tues AM. I hold water like a freaking camel! Friday weigh ins 124. J put me thru quick back WO. Everything was one target friday when i went to bed.

Sat 5AM hopped on scale just for fun and shock 120!!! wtf happened i lost 5 lbs over night! and i was eating all night! So my body decided to wait til morning of show to throw Jeremy the curve ball. He came in to check me and his response was "WOW" then we saw the gears churning in his head going over what could have happened and how we can remedy it in 4 hours. I had lost the lines in my glutes, abs were smooth, and i was tiny!!! So he took a risk we had to fill me by prejudge so it was dry oats with salt and drink with it. Not alot but we needed the sodium to shuttle it fast into muscle. It was risky since we had completely pulled sodium at this point. I went to have makeup done and touch-up tan and ate my salty oats thru the morning. While i was at makeup Jeremy told chase if this doesn't work i won't place top 10. Jeremy was so upset cuz everything had been coming together perfectly before that. No one told me til after prejudging just how bad it was when J first saw me in the AM.

Prejudging
Jeremy hadn't seen me for about an hour or so and when he saw me walk out he popped up and could not believe the transformation that happened in 4 hours. I had such a great time! What a great collection of fbbers! all the weight classes. Back stage i mostly hung out with Janet, Justine, Jodie, Sally Anne. Jeremy was so happy with my top 5 after comparing pics he felt we reached alot of our goals. My conditioning was slightly better then jrs, quads lines deeper, chest, arms, delt bigger.

Finals
During the course of the last day and half my right contact had been really bothering me. I took it out after prejudging and it was ripped almost halfway across. I had to decide for finals and for shoots sunday and traveling home monday. Do i put it in and feel like glass in my eye or do i leave it out and deal with the brightness. My contacts are red and their main purpose is to filter light my eyes don't filter any at all. Example if i am outside in the sun without my red contacts and sunglasses all i see is brightness i can't even see a building right in front of me. So i decided i could not deal with the pain and just wore my left lens. So when i went out for finals all i could think about was don't squint don't squint smile don't squint squeeze glutes don't squint lol I didn't want to look stupid in the pictures if i was squinting the whole time.

After finals I had one of my PB Cup Blondies, Triple chip cookie and animal cookie fudge. I think it was too rich to have right way cuz after that i had an aversion to sweets which is totally not me. Chase, Jeremy and i went to the sports bar across the street and i had burger and pita and hummas it was yum!!

Sunday
Breakfast at IHOP
dropped Jeremy at airport

shoot with TomNine (i hope i wasn't squinting in all the pics!)

Lunch we went to Primanti Brothers I had seen it on Diners Drive-ins and Dives when they went to the original one in Pittsburgh http://www.primantibrothers.com/ We had pastrami and cheese and they put fries and cole slaw right in the sandwich and we had a slice of their thin crust pizza Both were REALLY good!

Had couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches i love pb&j!!

Shoot with badgergirl some up by hotel (they tried to kick us out of private area) then the rest on the beach
Shoot with Annie Rivieccio

Really excited to see how the pics turn out and really hope I remembered not to squint

Dinner Holywood Ale House Loaded Fires, Bistro Burger, Capn Jack Buried Treasure (Homemade Ice Cream Cake with Oreo Cookie Crust, Carmel, Chocolate Fudge, and Heath Bar Crunch) Unfortunately i wasn't feeling well so we didn't make it to Jaxson's ice cream parlor

Monday
Breakfast Moe's Bagels Sandi Stuart said i MUST go here and boy was she right! Jewish deli Had Challah French Toast, HUGE Omelette, these amazing potatoes, great bagel and coffee cake

Flew home got cuban sandwiches i the airport for the flight

I had an amazing time at Nationals!! Enjoyed it all except the going flat and contact lens ordeal! I am really glad we did the show and was happy with what we brought to the stage! It was great to see people again i hadn't seen in a long time and to finally meet some people in person and give everyone sugar coma's with my fudge.

Looking forward to 2010 and bringing even more improvements. Working on trying to get waist smaller (my biggest genetic flaw!) and increasing lats and delts. Not sure full plan will be talking with JEremy about all that.

[shankuan]

WOW is all I can say! Talk about handling the curve balls as they come!! That seemed quite an ordeal which you handled very very well! I think the BB'ing Gods were saying.."Suzanne's had too easy a time all prep, lets test just what she's made of this last 2 weeks...[with evil laugh]".

You came out on top and that's ALWAYS a great thing to see!!! Despite the challenges, the obstacles...and you've overcome so many so far, you did what you set out to do! If that's not the characteristic of being a true champ, I don't know what is!!

WELL DONE...and CONGRATS again!!!

[tammyp]

great play by play suz!

[stephaniewicked]

Wow, Jeremy's right... that trophy must have been that much sweeter for all that you went through in the final two weeks of prep. Whenever you think you've accomplished so much, you always find out there's so much more you are capable of. That was certainly a test in more ways than one, and you did amazing.

Congratulations on your performance and for succeeding against yourself, despite the obstacles.

Can't wait to see the pix!

[Suzanne]

WOW is all I can say! Talk about handling the curve balls as they come!! That seemed quite an ordeal which you handled very very well! I think the BB'ing Gods were saying.."Suzanne's had too easy a time all prep, lets test just what she's made of this last 2 weeks...[with evil laugh]".

You came out on top and that's ALWAYS a great thing to see!!! Despite the challenges, the obstacles...and you've overcome so many so far, you did what you set out to do! If that's not the characteristic of being a true champ, I don't know what is!!

WELL DONE...and CONGRATS again!!!

great play by play suz!

Wow, Jeremy's right... that trophy must have been that much sweeter for all that you went through in the final two weeks of prep. Whenever you think you've accomplished so much, you always find out there's so much more you are capable of. That was certainly a test in more ways than one, and you did amazing.

Congratulations on your performance and for succeeding against yourself, despite the obstacles.

Can't wait to see the pix!

Thank you so much! Things just clicked to get through the injury my chiro had one cancellation monday nite so they were able to get me in and I trained with Chase at nite so he did anything involving bending over like changing pin in stack, handing me weights etc Chase and Jeremy really helped me get thru that week. I only told 2 other people about it at the time and they also helped me push thru it

I really had such a great time and enjoyed hanging with the girls backstage.

this pic is from Chases favorite part of my routine

[stephaniewicked]

A good support system really is SO important!

How are you feeling now? Has your back been okay since that week?

[Suzanne]

A good support system really is SO important!

How are you feeling now? Has your back been okay since that week?

ya amazingly after 3 trips to my chiro for lots of ultra sound/stretching/adjustments/elec stim the hip/glute/back pain has been gone!!!

Right now i am so full of glycogen gonna pop!! i don't have subQ water retention no swollen ankles or fingers etc but my muscles are f-ing full! I can't hardly brush the back of my hair cuz delts so full no range of motion I feel like the girl who ate the blueberry in willy wonka but all in the muscles it's crazy and doens't feel good!

[sassy69]

These are the sorts of experiences that make for the best memories!

[Madison]

Thanks for sharing!
You are awesome.

[Suzanne]

These are the sorts of experiences that make for the best memories!

that's for sure!

Thanks for sharing!
You are awesome.

thank you!

[musclemilf]

Thank you, Suzanne! I can't wait for your next prep journal, especially reading about those killer leg workouts

[zander]

I remember years ago when you started out , about the same time I was getting right into it all ... man that was a LONG time ago lol ...

Phew girl ..... you can hold your head high thats for sure , amazing

[Suzanne]

Thank you, Suzanne! I can't wait for your next prep journal, especially reading about those killer leg workouts

It'll be awhile til i have a prep journal the earliest would be may 1 more likely june 12 but i will do my off season journal which will have the killler leg WOs as soon as i am done being sick

I remember years ago when you started out , about the same time I was getting right into it all ... man that was a LONG time ago lol ...

Phew girl ..... you can hold your head high thats for sure , amazing

thank you!