Isn’t it funny how when you totally give up on a thing, all of a sudden the opportunities pour in. Recently, I’ve had a bunch of people reach out to me about quite a number of projects I had put on the back burner and decided to forget about. It remains to be seen if any of them will pan out, but it will be fun to watch. It’s a lot more fun when you don’t have any skin in the game. I already played and lost.

So, in line with all that, I got a message yesterday from the AD for the North American Lightweight Highland Games Championships. Its in Long Beach, CA in February. At first I was like, dude, I’m too fat and I haven’t trained since December. But then I realized I had 6 weeks to lose 10 lbs, I haven’t really lost any strength in the gym, and he wasn’t going to fill the spot if I said no so had some time to ruminate on it.

First thing I did was see if my schedule was clear, and it was. In fact, my husband had scheduled that weekend off thinking we might take the kids somewhere so he’s in. Second thing I did was check in with my coach to see what she thought about it, ie, could I safely lose all that weight AND maintain my strength? She thinks I can. (For what its worth, when I competed at Worlds 4 years ago, I dropped over 20 lbs in 7 weeks while improving performance so its definitely doable.) Lastly, I had to think long and hard about whether or not I can put in a good enough performance to justify going. I think that will remain to be seen, but every time I come back to throwing after some time off, I haven’t really lost much. I do need to work on some power training to reinforce some movement patterns that I lost last year, but self-awareness will help a lot with that.

So, I will be hungry. I’ll probably need to see my chiropractor more regularly. I will probably be fighting a lot of internal battles over bakery products and added fats. But, on February 16th, I’ll be on the field at the Queen Mary Highland Games. I will make weight and be able to compete. And then my only goal will be to not come in dead last.

“who wishes to fight must first count the cost”
― Sun Tzu