These were my thoughts going into this meet. It's negative. And ungrateful. And exactly how I felt.
I knew after Worlds last year, there would never, in the history of Jennifer Millican be another meet like 2017 IPF Worlds in Minsk, Belarus. In 2017, I faced some adversity, challengers, and I stepped up. In 2017, I set world records, I went 8/9, I won the weight class and I walked away as best overall lifter in my first international competition. Not to reminisce too much, but I hope I never forget how I felt that day.
Expectations are a bitch. They are the most necessary double edged sword that I am currently aware of. In some instances, setting and/or having expectations is 100% appropriate. In others, they get in the way. The most difficult part of expectations is that they are made up. Legit. Just made up by our own minds, by society, by a subculture you identify with, by your co-workers, your family, whoever or whatever. Personally, I work hard at managing my own expectations, I work hard to make clear my expectations to my children, to my clients at work, to my husband. So much energy spent around expectations.
A long time ago, in a land far far away, I went to college. I studied organizational communications. Essentially, I majored in expectations. I learned then the importance of expectations and the influence they can have over your own satisfaction, the roles they play in negotiation tactics, how important it is to understand them when providing a service or product to another person. I believe, where I have stumbled in the past has been one of two "expectation management" flaws.
One, is that I never voiced my expectations to a soul other than myself, believing somehow, that life would happen just as I had played it out in my mind over and over again. The other, is that I was almost never prepared for more than one scenario (see previous sentence). In college, I did learn those skills. I learned the importance of communicating your expectations BEFORE an event actually takes place. Communicate them with anyone involved. When I take my children to the grocery: "In the grocery store, it is my expectation that you will stay with me, ask my permission before putting something in the cart, and to be patient with me while in the pickle isle." While I believe this is helpful, it's certainly not fool proof. I've had many a melt downs in the pickle isle.
The other flaw: not preparing for all the scenarios. I've been told I'm arrogant. Maybe so. But probably, just mismanaged expectations. It's one thing to set the expectations, it's another to communicate them (and adjust them when someone you communicated them to shits all over them and you have to start over) but it's another level to be prepared for the expectations to hit the fan (the shit fan). While I believe that I set my own expectations within reason for 2018 IPF Worlds, I also believe, that I was prepared for them to hit the shit fan.
I'm going to take a few step back here. After 2017 Nationals, I took a risk and decided to go up to the 63's with the hopes of competing at Worlds as a 63. This hinged on all the females offered a spot on the team accepting. I won't bore you with the details, but not everyone accepted, which meant that I had to compete as a 57 at Worlds. Which was fine, because I knew the risk ahead of time, and another person who is fantastic at managing expectations, USA National Team Head Coach, laid it all out for me the moment I finished my last lift at Nationals.
Nevertheless, training up a weight class for the months I was able to was great. We took it slow after Nationals to let some things heal and to ensure we built some momentum. Quite honestly, it was one of the most enjoyable training cycles I've had. I was crushing everything, hitting pr's and enjoying life. Until about 5-6 weeks out from The Arnold. I start feeling weak and very low on energy. I push through and keep waiting for the turn around. One session, I failed a deadlift and I was done. Meaning, my body was done. I left the gym. I DON'T LEAVE THE GYM. I always finish. But I went home. I went home and slept for several hours. This was the beginning of a long road ahead.
I competed at The Arnold after a shingles diagnosis and round of anti-virals and managed a 472.5kg total. I went 8/9 and did well all things considered. After coming home, I continue my way back down to the 57's in body weight. Shingles come back. Another round of meds. Keep training. Get sick again, not shingles, but a cold. I take the week off because time is on my side. Go back to training, squat, tweak my glute. Take another week off. Get back to training. Feels like shit. Feel the shingles coming on again before heading out of town for my brother in law's wedding. Keep them at bay with yet another round of anti-virals until I return home. They return again as soon as I finish the meds. Go to a new doctor. Doc says it's not shingles, it's a bacteria infection. Take some tests, take some meds, this time antibiotics, start feeling slightly better but not great. Test results come back. Test positive for shingles but not an acute flare up, bacteria infection comes back inconclusive. WTF?? Seriously.
Training. Going ok, not great, but barely hanging on to my numbers. Except deadlift. Fuck that lift. Body weight is the real bitch. Just not cooperating. I'm beat down. Mentally, physically, beat down. I just want it to be over. At least at this point, whatever I was fighting seems to be staying away finally. And just to top things off, at the tail end of my heavy training I somehow managed upset my rhomboid during a squat which meant I was high bar squatting for the last few weeks of training.
As a side note, my coaches were paying attention and making adjustments. We increased fat, reduced volume and really did just enough intensity to stay afloat.
I send a first draft of attempts to my coaches. They say it's conservative and to give it another week. After another week, they agree to what we all agree are conservative attempts.
Expectations. They can be tough to swallow if you're really honest with yourself. I set my meet day goals up with a minimum goal. A pass/fail grade. For Worlds, it was to win. If I could manage nothing else, I wanted to walk away with the win.
For the record, I realize that I sound like a brat with a minimum goal of winning a World Title. But please rewind to the lengthy discussion regarding expectations. At the very least, I can expect to win. I believe that I am capable of more, but as a bare minimum, I want the win. However, because of how the training has gone, how I felt, where my body weight was and where it needed to be, I truly felt that we had created a plan that would ensure a 8/9 day. Well, I was wrong.
As I start the water load, it isn't going bad but not exactly smooth either. Fast forward to flying out. While I am traveling, I keep my water intake up. Way up. I probably drank at least two gallons while flying with a another two already in the tank before I left. And flying was horrible. I am not a good traveler as is. I get motion sickness, I hate sitting on the plane, I'm the worst honestly. Plus, all the nagging annoying tweaks are making it miserable. As I am flying through the air, I am noticing that my rings are beginning to uh, not fit so well. Keep pounding water.
Finally arrive and make it to my room sometime between 1 and 2am. P.S my Uber driver was legit driving 30 mph and I was LOSING IT. Anywho. For some strange reason, I decide to weigh myself even though I was quite aware that my hands resembled tiny sausages and it's probably not gonna be a number that I can rest easy after seeing. 135lbs (that's 10lbs over for those of you that don't understand my panic) WHAT?! Seriously. WHAT?! Worst idea I've ever had.
Go to sleep. Sleep very ok. Another thing I'm not too good at while traveling. I'm worse than an infant that just discovered how much it loves it's mother and can't go to sleep because it's scared it will miss out on loving her. I wake up with less than 24 hours until weigh ins at 129 point something lbs. So I dropped some weight over night, but still not where I'm used to being at this stage of the game.
Aaron tells me 2-3 cups of coffee (thank you sweet baby Jesus) and a light breakfast and then we'll start making calls based on what my weight does. "He's not worried" (lies). Luckily (I think?), my weight did start dropping quickly and end up at weight sometime after Noon (I think?). So I was able to have another meal and little bit of water, which put me back over but not by much (57.3). Aaron wanted me at weight before I went to bed which meant a couple of rounds in a hot bath. My old friend the hot bath....you have not been missed.
I wake up under at 56.5 or something. Aaron tells me to eat a bag of chips, but honestly, I chickened out even though I was standing on the scale with the chips in my hand and was still under. This is an instance where I did not trust the process. Probably a huge mistake.
I'm still feeling like I want it to be over. Normally, I'm a little scared at this point with anticipation but also ready to execute. For the first time, since my first couple of meets, I just wanted it to be over. It was not a good feeling.
I weigh in light. 56.0andsomething. Fuck, is actually what I thought. Too light....this almost never works to my favor. I just want it to be over.
Warming up, everything felt terrible. Really terrible. I can't get tight, I feel like I'm all over the place. Wade comes to me and tells me I need to be deeper. Fuck. I just want it to be over. Last warm up was slow. I want to drop my opener, but it's too late and I said nothing anyway, somehow believing that I was just being insecure. I was right. I should have spoke up. This is a mistake I won't make again.
Opener was slow and horrible and felt off on my back. AND I got my first ever red light on a squat since I moved to the USAPL/IPF. Kind of crushed my soul but I'm in the meet. SiouxZ asked me how it felt, I said VERY OK, she agreed. I wanted to tell her to only go up 5kgs, but I didn't. They went up 7.5kgs rather than the planned 10kgs. Second attempt and I am rattled already.
Unrack, again, feels off on my back and I re-rack. I have never done that. I always, ALWAYS, just make it work. This was also probably a mistake simply because it's not something I'm accustomed to doing. So now I'm working against the clock. Lot's of voices from all over telling me how much time I have, etc. I walk it out (horribly), get the squat command, and think "welp, this feels like shit and I am not sure I am going to be able to dig this out", TIME! I hear the word TIME and think that I don't want to burn the attempt if it's not going on the board so I re-rack it. I was wrong. I thought it was a judge that yelled time but it was someone from the back. I feel horrible. I do not feel like an IPF World Champ at all. I do not feel like a world record holder. I feel like an amateur and like I'm crumbling.
I feel quite bad in the warm up room and I'm apologizing profusely to anyone that will listen. At this point, I know that I have to have the 3rd attempt but also that my total goal is shot. Going out for the third attempt, I was able to flip the switch a bit and actually had a decent walk out. It certainly felt better than any other squat THAT DAY but also the worst 170kgs has felt in at least year. Three white lights and a slight bit of redemption.
Bench. Ok, going into bench I'm relieved that squats are over but also terrified that my bench will follow suit of not being up to par. Normally when my bench starts going to shit I can't seem to get set up right. During warm ups, my set up actually felt good, a glimmer of hope. Annnd nope. I hit 90kgs as a last warm up and it was the slowest it's been since one of the first times I ever had that weight on the bar. I hit my opener and it looked and felt like a third. Again, I wanted to suggest that we only go up 2.5kgs rather than the planned jump of 5kgs but I said nothing. I thought "I haven't missed 100kgs on the bench in over year, I'll have to dig, but surely I can make it happen". I couldn't. I missed 100kgs for a 2nd and 3rd attempt. This one broke me. On the verge of a break down, I threw my wrist wraps, and left the warm up room.
Three more attempts and I'm free. Let's get it done. Deadlifts are the easy part of a meet. I come back to the warm up room and just do my best to have a decent attitude for these last few lifts of the meet. Deadlifts have been going terrible. The worst training cycle I've had for deadlifts. The most I touched in training was 187.5kgs and it was a shit show. Just to put things into perspective, 187.5 was my 2nd attempt at The Arnold and it was butter.
Warm ups feel ok. Not terrible, which is pretty much a step up. Opener is fine. Second attempt (180kgs) moves ok, but did not feel that great. I felt my knee cave which is another thing that hasn't happened since the early early days of lifting. I go straight to the coaching staff because I know it probably looked better than it actually was. This time, I'm speaking up.
Let's just get it I say. They all turn to me and say, that's exactly what we are going to do, don't worry. But I am quite worried that they will call a 10kg jump and I don't have that regardless of what 180kgs looked like. I said, let's just get it and DO NOT be over confident in me at all. They agree.
SiouxZ comes to me and says that they all agree that I have 10kgs in me my but they only went 5kgs because that's all I need to win. Perfect, I think. Though I know I'm still gonna have to dig. While I'm waiting to take my last attempt I start to worry that I'm not going to be able to pull of a win. During meets, I never keep up with what's going on as far as placings or anything, I just focus on lifting. I broke. I asked Aaron if I was still going to win....he said yes. I asked if I had to have the last pull, he said yes. I said, I get this pull and I win, for sure? He said yes.
I go out for this pull and I know it's going to be tough. I call for some hype from the crowd and they delivered. I break it from the floor and it stalls at my knees. All I can think is to keep the bar close to me so I don't start shaking so bad that I get red lighted for downward motion. I lock it out. I know I was shaky and I've gotten turned down on deads before. THREE. WHITE. LIGHTS. It's over.
IT IS OVER and I managed to keep my title despite such a difficult day.
All I can ask of myself is to give 100% of what I have in the moment. Even though sometimes the numbers on the bar fluctuate, my effort never will.
My take aways here are that there are no surprises with Jennifer Millican. My training cycle and meet went hand in hand. For a bit, I thought I might get saved by the taper....twas not the case. I'm not sure how other coach/athletes come up with attempt selections, but I drive the bus. I draft them and get input and we lay out the plan. Come game day, I let my coaches handle it because there is already a plan in place. The mistake I made for this meet was not speaking up about how bad everything actually felt. The good news is that I won't make that mistake again.
HUGE shout out to Aaron Thomas and Wade Johnson for sticking it out with me for the entire training cycle, coming to Canada, and continuing to be proud of me even on my worst day. I would say, after a meet and training cycle like this, and still managing a gold and a third place overall finish, we have nothing to be ashamed of. We've been working together for four or so years and the best is yet to come. Of course, SiouxZ and Matt Gary being there on the weeks leading up to the meet and on game day, I can't ask for better guidance and communication.
Also huge thank you to my sponsors for all of their support not only of my own endeavors but of the sport in general, SBD, SBD USA, and Aplyft.
While this is not how I prefer to go out, that's the last time I'll be called to the platform as 57kg lifter. The party is just getting started.
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