videos from last week...

Sorry these didn't come up earlier! Here are videos from last... Tuesday?  Another Blog post to follow.

Getting back in the swing of things…

After the meet this weekend and the tomfoolery and shenanigans (which were amazing!) Saturday, Sunday and Monday, it was time to get back into the swing of things and practice. J   OHHH before I get to practice, I have to say I am the proud owner of a NEW winter jacket… it’s a double edged sword because I am excited about my jacket and kindof want to wear it, buuut wearing it means it’s going to be FREEZING.  Not excited.  I also bought a cooling rack and a much nicer spring form pan for all the baked goods I won’t be making because I’m dropping weight. Not excited.  Getting back into the work schedule. Not  excited. But all of the things I’m not excited about are necessary/inevitable, so I guess I need to get excited.

Practice for me, wasn’t at Kelly like it usually is.  I got to train with Ellyn in her basement gym and it was probably one of the more (if not the most) productive training session I’ve had.  I was focused, refreshed from the shenanigans, purposeful with each lift and each rep, driven and motivated by the fresh memory of the competition, and where I ended and most importantly... where I want to end up.   

Here are videos from todays practice.  Everything felt really good and I think a switch flipped with me because I can now feel (or maybe I'm just paying more attention) what my body is or isn't doing.  Taking my time setting up off the floor, being tight all the way through the lift, being purposeful, everything came together nicely.  I guess all my complaining these past 5 weeks about wanting to get better may have been slightly skewed... because I am getting better and I am better.. WAY better than I was before I got here.  Thanks for all the hard work by my teammates and coach for pushing me to get better and helping me learn the lifts!  Enjoy the videos...

Meet update! Beast of the East

Woahhh!! I'm so far behind on my blog!! Sorry for those of you who have been checking in on a daily basis and have been left high and dry with my (lack of) typing.  Here's what I started typing on Friday, but never finished..

"Friday before the "Beast of the East" meet.  My first meet "officially" with Robinson Weightlifting, a team, a consistent and available coach.  Ellyn says she doesn't expect too much from me this meet because so many things are 'new'.  She's also mentioned that this meet should be more like a practice for the American Open in December. Hahhh all of those things drive me crazy to hear, but the more I've thought about them, the more sense they make...."

Fast forward to the meet (Saturday).... Leading up to the meet, I wasn't really excited or even looking forward to the meet, even up to the morning of, and once we were in the "cow palace" (more on that later) the feeling didn't really change.  After introductions and once warmups started, things got better, I was getting excited, focused, and ready for the competition.  Before warm-ups started, I asked ellyn to put me into the right starting position for the snatch and when I got into position, she said it looked perfect. Ha. I'm getting better! The nervousness about the meet and not having Ellyn right there with me was eased by the fact the competition platform and the warmup area were practically inches away from each other.  Lorie was in charge of warming me up and telling me when to go and when to wait, and that worked well.  There weren't any bumps or hiccups with the warmup process. We (Ellyn and I) talked about the speed of the warmups from nationals and I felt like there was too much time between the sets, so we sped up the warm-ups.  I liked it a lot better because I had to stay focused on the lifts and there wasn't a lot of (any) time for my mind to wander and for me to be unfocused.  When it was my turn to go, I was ready and from what everyone says, the first two attempts looked easy. yay for that.  I was just happy I made the first two attempts! The third attempt came and Ellyn had put 72kilos on the bar and out i went.  Another successful lift. 3 for 3.  Only the second time I'd done that... ever.

When snatch was over, I had a long time before I even started jerking. So I ate, waited, and just relaxed before it was time to turn the switch back on and get ready for clean and jerk.  I was the last lifter to go for the clean and jerk so I followed myself after each lift.  I opened at 96 kilos, made it. went to 100 kilos. made that one. and then Ellyn asked me what I wanted to do next, and I said it was up to her.  We went to 103kilos and I made that. My second meet where I went 6/6.  The only other meet I've gone 6/6 was almost a year ago, so it was about time I had another one.  :)

All of my warmups for the meet felt great! Everything that I've been working on seemed to have come together when I needed it too.  Ellyn even said I didn't have any crazy feet!! HUGE! :) I wasn't sure what to think about snatch warmups (because I'm still learning the technique, positions, and feeling of the lift) and maybe not thinking about it all was what I needed to do for snatch. . .  Clean and jerk was a different story.  I have a little more experience and confidence with those lift, and I can do a better job feeling what the lifts are supposed to be like.  My cleans were tight, my jerks were fast and solid- and they were so much easier! :)  I think over the past few weeks I've had good clean days and I've had good jerk days, but I don't think they've ever come together as nicely as they did this weekend. yay!

Here are a few pictures of the team and my teammates from this last week (most of them are at the meet), but here's Joooooh and I stretching together in Kelly the week before the meet.  If I would have been on top of my blogging, this would have been up sooner!

3 days...

What have I gotten myself into?

4 days

4 days until my first meet with Robinson Weightlifting... ohh I'm not sure if I officially mentioned I switched teams when I renewed my USAW (usa weightlifting) card.  For those of you new/unfamiliar to weightlifting, the club aspect of the sport I'm still trying to figure out! There are clubs (teams) and you lift for whatever team you want or however people pick their teams... But sometimes coaches from other clubs can and do coach athletes belonging to other clubs, but the coaches themselves are part of a different club... anyone following..? Maybe this will help if anyone is confused.  Athlete 1 (A1) belongs to club A (CA).  A1 has a coach who belongs and coaches for club B (CB), but also coaches athletes belonging to CA... lines are crossed and mixed and mingled and the club line (for me anyway) gets confusing.  Regardless of my explanation and lack of understanding about clubs, I have officially switched from East Coast Gold to Robinson Weightlifting.  boom.  moving on.

Practice today was another day of 'clusters' today was snatch.  Again, it was the same format as the cleans where I would do 5 singles one each at 75%, 80%, 85%, 80%, 75% while teammates loaded and unloaded the weights.  Ehh. They went okay today.  The positions didn't feel the best,  I made all the lifts, but They weren't as nice, crisp, quick, tight, or on point as I would have liked them to be.  They were all over the place.  Here's the video.  the first part of the video the lifts are in full speed and the second half, I slowed them down so everyone can see how wiggly my feet, toes, knees, back and uhh pretty much everything else..  (it's not supposed to be like that) 

**YouTube is being awful and not done processing my video, it's too late to still be up, so I will add this later** aka in the morning. 

After the clusters there was some light strength (?) work (pulls and RDLs).  My pulls got better today.  I had a big CLINK off the hips instead of my usually baby clinks... yay. progress. My good friend the PVC pipe helped me stay in the right positions and my knees (on the big CLINK) didn't snap back. wooh. RDLs got pretty crazy today.. a new max of 60kilos. yes, i said it. 60 big, freaking huge, kilos. be intimidated and jealous. ha! But I'm doing them right, so I'm getting better. slowly. Here's a little humor for the day.  Jooooh was getting a nice stretch on the jerk boxes, so Ellyn and one of the other athletic trainers decided to join in!! it was pretty freaking hilarious.  :) 

Look at all that stretching!!!

New and exciting News!!

Well, I still can't edit videos because... somehow... my flip videos got transferred onto Ellyn's computer and deleted from my camera.  Oops. I think I have some videos from Friday's workout saved on my computer and will probably add them on here just so everyone doesn't have to just read my (not always interesting) analysis of my practice.  But this is exciting news that I am surprised I haven't mentioned yet... My first meet with Robinson Weightlifting is this Saturday! Yipes! This will only be my second local meet- my first meet having been almost a year ago.  The next 4 meets I had were National level meets and then I moved to Bridgewater, and here I am.

I've told Ellyn and a few other people that I'm more nervous for this local meet with 13 lifters than I am for Nationals.  Weird. It doesn't make sense, but I think part of the nervous-ness about this meet is not having my coach right next to me.  I'm used to the 1 on 1 attention and I won't have it this meet- yes she'll be there and be taking care of me and watching me lift, but she'll also have 5 other people. I've already been told I'll get less of her time because I'm one of the last lifters.  Patience...? I will be fine, but I'm just a little bit nervous. Sometimes... usually a little bit of nerves are good for me.

Practice today was shorter than usual because of the tapering for the meet- which was weird- I didn't have to rush around like a mad woman showering, eating and getting ready for work! It was a nice change of pace! :)  Today we did clean and jerk "clusters" which were new to me! With the clusters you take a percentage of your lift (today it went 75, 80, 85, 80, 75) and you do each rep right after each other.  Teammates help load and unload the weights so the lifting goes quickly.  I made all the lifts. yay.  My cleans feel good. Better than they have ever(?) they are getting closer, tighter, and faster.  I am still working on keeping the bar close and not snapping my knees back, and I think I'm doing a better job.  Jerks are still a little wobbly.  Not as fast or as tight or as crisp as I want them or that they need to be.  I've got to be better about holding my breath and staying tight through the dip of the jerk.

There's not a whole lot of negative things to say.  The work I've put in the last 4 weeks will be what makes the difference this weekend.  I've worked hard and gotten better, and now it's focusing on the the technique work this week and letting the strength, confidence and technique work I've improved upon shine and to the work! The work has been put in, now I can just go and enjoy it! Alright, I think I'm a little less nervous for the meet now!

Here's an exciting link to share.. USAWeightlifting sent me an e-mail a week-ish ago and asked for some information on me so they could put together an athlete page for me.. here it is!! http://weightlifting.teamusa.org/athletes/carly-mauch  It's an exciting and cool honor to be on the USA Weightlifting website for my accomplishments, but it also means I've got a lot of work to do.  Always more work to be done!

I should be editing videos but...

Here's my kitchen counter with a few bottles of nail polish and my test center for marbling :)

I decided to have yet another CRAZY Friday night.   My crazy night started with me missing my exit on my way home from work. amazing. and then left overs at the apartment, catching up on some bad reality tv shows and then with all my extra time I decided I would paint my nails since they haven't been painted alll week!  But because it was a friday night I wanted to do something a-m-a-z-i-n-g... I had seen "water marbling" done before (via YouTube and other blogs) but I had never taken the time to actually do it.  So tonight was the night..  The way you get the marbled effect is by putting drops of nail polish in a dish of water and then dragging the polish around to make a marbled design.  see.....

Drops of light blue and orange...

more drops..

Swirl until satisfied...

Dip one or more nails in water/polish mixture..

The first time it was awful.. looked like this:

What a Mess! (they alllllll looked awful!)

The second time the marbling came out a lot better and my nails, although the colors are gross, looked kinda cool! Here's a the second time I 'painted' my nails...

The thumb I used the same orange as the rest of the nails, but instead of light blue I put dark blue in the water. Im not sure what the trouble was with the first time, but the second time turned out so much better! (don't mind the excessive amounts of nail polish on my skin either!!)

Well, I'm sure these nails will help me lift more! 

Practice today was... hilarious.  Everyone seemed a little bit crazy, giggly, odd, random, goofy and amazingly funny!! Somehow conversation (in the middle of practice) turned into confessions of emotional eaters.  ALL of the boys confessed they were emotional eaters and it was so hilarious to hear each one come to the center of the gym and tell their story.  Derek with the doughnuts, Jooooh with the chips, Bill with the ice cream- some of the most hilarious expressions on their faces as they were talking about their 'emotional eating'.  There were a few odd ones in the lifting group that said when they are emotional they are 'non-eaters'.. weird.  I can't relate to that nonsense :) Oh and if anyone is interested there is now an "emotional eaters" support group/phone tree with our first meeting being next Sunday after the meet.  But more on that later...

Again at practice, the whole team took a vested interest  in my lifting.  Today was pulls.  Snapping the knees back and snapping them forward.. (I'm trying NOT to do that) Yesterday I said it would be hilarious to record Ellyn (and others) trying to snatch (or in today's case, pull) like I do, but yet again I dropped the ball with recording the attempts, but there were a few more participants.  Again- HILARIOUS! I think i laughed more at this practice than I ever have... especially when I was being a spastic and not doing the lifts the right way (usually I'm frustrated and/or more focused).  For some reason today everyone was feeding off of each other and the mood and atmosphere was great! Jokes, laughing, picking on everyone, laughing at how awful I can be at some of the technical parts of the lifts, facial expressions, comments, pretty much anything and everything ANYONE said got a laugh...  


I did fix (i think?) some of the knee swinging (which leads to crazy feet) today.  At times I feel ridiculous for having a PVC pipe in my hands and sweating like no other because I'm trying to get in the right positions for a pull or a snatch... but the feelings of ridiculous don't last long because I'd rather do it right at zero weight than keep the weight the same (or add more) and be doing the same crazy things with my feet/knees in ANOTHER 3 weeks... no thanks. I'd rather be feel silly and get in the right positions than continuously do the wrong thing. Fix it now or fix it later.. i choose now. I don't know if I'd ever rather wait for something instead of having it right now. (Kat made a comment about my patience .. or lack of.. when I was trying to get my marbled nails done right the first time.. oops. I guess it's not just with lifting).   


That's all the fun and excitement for one Friday night.. until next week