So it's been awhile since I wrote, so this will be a long one. Well, in 2003 when I first stepped on stage in West Virginia, I would have never thought I would be calling myself an IFBB PRO. This goes to show that anything in life is possible if you put your heart and mind to it.
A recap of Nationals weekend, here it goes. Arrived Thursday with my mother around 1:30pm, my boy Darrell picked us from the airport along with PJ who flew in around the same time as us. Darrell not only picked me up from the airport, but he drove from Alabama to Atlanta and brought me a microwave to use along with a Foreman grill, that boy went above and beyond for me. Thanks Darrell, I can't thank you enough for all your help that weekend, made my weekend a lot less stressful. Then that afternoon started getting my protan sprayed on (my girls Nicki, Carla, Jay and Deanna really hooked up with my tan...thank you girls so much for everything.) After getting 3 coats on Thursday I weighed in at 7pm and weighed in right around 175-176. I started carbing up two meals prior to weighing in but had to cut my water and not eat for about 4 hours to make sure I made weight. Mike Liberatore and myself went to weigh-ins around 7ish, Mike and I were together all weekend, pretty much did everything together besides sleep. As soon as I weighed in it was off to my room to start my carb up until I went to bed. Dave took a look at me that night and didn't change a thing, I was on point, full, and hard as nails so I just passed went to bed and waited for pre judging the following night. Thursday night before I went to bed Kris and Jen came by to say a quick hello since they're flight got in a little late, so it was nice to see them. Along with people there, the Darren Montanari (owner of Gold's New Haven) and Kenny Wallach (my posing coach) were there as well and came down to look at me and couldn't believed how I was looking.
Friday morning, I woke up and woke up looking plain nasty, I was striated from head to toe, by far the best I had ever looked in my life. My good friend Erin showed up Friday morning along with my sister and father, so it was nice to have a good support group with me. Erin brought her little goodies which are amazing (homemade Pb cups and Oreo cookie balls), I had to watch PJ eat them all weekend until after the night show when I could dig in. So after my first meal I went to get tanned, I had three appointments that day to get tanned before pre judging. So most of my day consisted of tanning, eating, and relaxing. As it got closer to the time we had to be onstage Mike and I went to the competitors meeting got our numbers and awaited our time to get on stage. Finally after all the waiting they called for the men backstage so I got myself together, and Kenny and I went to the pump up room. Right before I went onstage I always find a quite area and say a quick prayer, then Carla Solotti one of the pro tan girls (she's the only one I let oil me-my good luck charm) made my tan amazing with the secret sauce she used. Then I pumped up for about 1-2 mintues and lined up.
We all came out did our quarter turns and 60 second routines to no music the it was time for comparisons. First callouts came and I was called out along with Kam Gallam, Ron Torres, and Jeff Cook. They didn't move anyone around they kept me next to Ronald for the first round then flip flopped everyone, so I was then on the end not the middle. They only compared us once and we were done. I wasn't sure what to think, I knew I wasn't the heaviest muscled guy on that line up, but I knew I was the best conditioned hands down, maybe best in the show. There was a lot of talk about Ronald and I battling for 1st place, but I kept to my protcall and went out to eat a burger and fries after Mike did his pre judging. He was called out 1st round as well and there was talk that it was between him and Mark Alvisi.
Friday night came and gone pretty fast, I was shot at the end of the night, very dehydrated, almost got very sick from being too dehydrated but Dave fixed that with the help from PJ, a vitamin water and some salt. So that was Friday night. I will blog about the night show tomorrow...
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