HOTLANTA……HERE I COME!

Aside

My last post was on April 15th, way too long ago. I wrote about being discouraged throughout my training, and that I felt that the emotion of discouragement was unproductive and a waste of time. The blog post ended with these words: “I trust in this process and the results will speak for it in exactly 8 weeks!” The process I trusted was a nutrition and training protocol prescribed by two super successful trainers, my brother Pete Ciccone and his wife Meriza. 8 weeks after I wrote that post, the results did speak…and I won my first show ever!

That’s a real smile, I knew how hard I worked!

Receiving my award from beautiful Rosemarie! I never got to stand in the middle before!

Extremely thrilled and wanting to ride the excitement out, I looked to a national show 6 weeks later and made an attempt to place at the USA’s in Vegas. This would be the second time that I’d compete in this show; last year I placed 10th out of 35 and I hoped to improve on that. Plus, I would be wearing the lucky bracelet and ring that my beautiful friend Lillian let me borrow – she won 4 shows and I won the SoCals in it! I knew that I couldn’t lose, especially since I would be able to watch my brother Pete compete along with his 619 Muscle teammates, which is always amazing to see.

The amazing group of athletes I was proud to be a part of!

We don’t aways get what we want though do we? Feeling somewhat embarrassed, I did not place well – actually, I did not place at all!  A little rushed backstage, a little bit nervous, and questioning if I did enough, I did not bring my best to the stage that weekend and got lost in the group – there were 45 of us girls in Class C!  However, I do feel that I have made some improvements since last year. Some time off from running allowed me to add some muscle to my upper body. Unfortunately, it did not treat my thunder thighs so well!  Some people say that it is a subjective sport, competing in shows like this.  However, that does not really make me feel better. I would like to say that I just crashed and burned, or ran out of steam because that would mean that I went all out and I had no regrets.  But, that is not the case. I am starting to realize that training for these shows is not like training for a marathon – you don’t need to save energy for the run back home! The regret I have from not going all out, 24/7, the entire weeks of training – I imagine that is why I felt rushed, nervous, and questioned my level of preparedness. I plan not to feel that way again. Time to dust myself off and get ready for the next 12 weeks of insane intensity. Making my way to the NPC National Championships in November with the help of superstar trainer Meriza –
HOTLANTA……HERE I COME!

Striking a quick pose while trying not to fall…only 8 seconds to hit 3 poses!

With fellow 619 Muscle athletes and inspiration Francine, Figure Class Overall winner!