Hamburg here I come

I did a test on Wednesday.

I had decided that if I can’t do 100 reps pretty easily I won’t go to the World Championships in Hamburg at all. But now I’m going. Aiming to 114-116 reps in total.

Can I start packing already?

Sunday

I spent the beautiful, sunny Sunday on the beach with 12 brave people who wanted to learn more about the art of kettlebell lifting. Great day, great students! Thanks everyone!

As I got home it was time to do my own exercise, so after about 3000 demo lifts I performed another 452 lifts @12 kg kb, more than 5400 kg.

Have to say I was beat after that.

Saturday

I tried twice today to start warming up for an exercise. First time I ended up taking a 90 minutes walk, which was refreshing. Especially for the brain. It was really quiet everywhere as Finns were playing ice hockey with the Russians. Don’t ask.

Second time I did 45 minutes yoga. I’m pretty sure it was the best thing to do today, I heard such squeaking all over my body. I’ve taken this weekend off from my diet, too (aka eating too much everything today). I still need to drop off some weight and I will. Next week. I’m trying not to feel guilty about this and sure hope it doesn’t spoil my preparations.

Well, tomorrow I’ll be needing energy as I’m teaching lifting basics for 3 hours. I’m expecting 16 students, some of them my old ones, most of them new. I’m really excited about it! Later, I hope to do my exercise, 12 minutes OAJ + 10 min snatch. Sounds easy…

Hangover

I did sip some champagne after the race and suffered the consequences…

Now I have a couple of races just around the corner so I don’t really have time for hangovers. Like last Autumn, it was so difficult to stop riding in the air and start working. Now it’s different: I was really anxious to get back to my routine and so today I did some working out.

It was damn heavy!

I can’t understand how on earth was I able to lift those things only a few days ago with such speed…

I’m still trying to put aside the disappointment I caused myself by screwing up the snatch. I just need to think that luckily it didn’t cost me the medal and now I will never have to do that again.

Today snatch felt pretty much as it did a couple of weeks ago. So until next time with that. Note to self: pack a timer.

I won

National Championships, 12 kg (below 68 kg bodyweight)

OAJ 211 reps

Snatch 169 reps

All results.

D-day

That’s day after tomorrow. Tonite I’ll do yoga and pack my bags. Tomorrow I’ll talk about the sport on a national radio channel. I’m really excited about that! Unfortunately they only give me a few minutes, so I need to be brief…

Everything is good. Maybe slight stiffness here and there but I guess stretching will fix that and I’m ready to break some records. The hardest part is waiting. Only two more nights…

Euphoria

Do you know what it feels like?
After last night’s snatch training, I now do!

In schedule

National Championships are just around the corner and you can almost touch the excitement in everyone’s minds. I did some testing last week and everything looks good. Unless something unexpected happens, I’m achieving my personal goals and that should bring me a medal. Which medal that will be shall remain hidden until they say ‘stop’ and I’ll put the KB down. But I’m very, very confident as always.

What’s left to do is a few exercises, some aerobics, yoga and meditation and of course laundry +chocolate shopping. And that’s about it.

Meet

We wrapped up the season by holding an informal lifting event last night, and had an amazing number of 11 debutants attending for OAJ, OALC and snatch.
It was a great meet with 13 winners, out of which 6 were members of my Kuulasauna (Kettlebell Sauna) group and I’m SO proud of them!

I actually got help from guys who came all the way from Kouvola and Hyvinkää just to judge and the third was recruited right after his wifes’ performance. Amazing really!!

I’ve been pushing for a year now to get a scheduled training group up and running, and finally it starts to look really good. We’ve had around 10 people there, 6 to 8 regulars from a group of ~15 and some new faces almost every week. Some of them stick, too, and I just hope they all last through the summer. After the Nationals May 12th we’re moving outside for a few weeks, then we shall see…

Home sweet home

I returned home Saturday afternoon and last nite I finally slept pretty normally. Hooray! Despite the jetlag, I have still had my group on Monday, yoga on Tuesday and finally some Serious Training Wednesday. Loved it! And missed it so. Yesterday I had a massage.

My KB didn’t have any problems arriving to the destination nor back, although the surrounding backpack had turned into a “Heavy object” somewhere along the way home.

Seriously guys, 12 kg plus some dirty clothes heavy??

I jerked my PR on Monday 9th at the balcony in New Orleans Courtyard Hotel. That was after I saw who I’ll be up against at the Nationals. Kinda had to at that point, so that’s no big deal really. Just a reminder, that I’m where I wanna be and still heading to what I wanna accomplish. I did exercise 5 times during my holiday and it made me equally happy and satisfied every time. This is so my thing, can’t help that folks!

And yes, the trip itself was incredible: music, food, atmosphere… I totally understand now why it’s called Big Easy! My kinda city and I’ll definitely go back one day.

I posted some photoes in my Finnish blog. (Part 1, part 2, part 3, coming up part 4-5). Do check out the video links. You may just fall in love!