It Shows

Theres no getting around it, when you work hard people notice.  That was  completely apparent last night when we attended the 3rd annual Kenai Peninsula Natural Bodybuilding Fitness, Figure and Bikini Championships.  I suppose some of my readers are chorkling a bit right now but if you haven't attended an event like this you really should. actually I never really thought I'd be the type to engage this sport but after my conversion to life in the gym a few years ago I became to realize just how challenging and difficult a sport this is. Of all the things I've been around in my life this takes drive and discipline that is herculean even by my standards. All these athletes are competing somewhere in the 3% to 10% body fat realm when I've applied all I can and worked as hard as I could just to get to 13 or 14%.  It takes the perfect combo of aerobic exercise, weight training and clean, consistent high protein eating ....oh, and that's for 4 to 6 months before a show.

The pic above is the over all winners but I'd have to say that anybody who works that hard and has the courage to show there efforts is a winner for sure. While this is certainly on the extreme side of it, what this whole deal is really about of course is good health.  The next pic is of a guy I know real well. Its Darren Hagan who is a fitness trainer at our gym. He's the kind of guy that shares and inspires an entire community to be healthier. It's guys like Darren that help you connect the dots....if he can work THIS hard, well, I can put in some effort. to.

The next pic is us out in the lobby on break with a young guy named Chase Jensen. We've known Chases family for 30 years.  As you can seeing he's beaming with pride and confidence and so he should be. He won the Jr. men's competition and also fights in the ring with Mixed Martial Arts.  Chase is a young guy who always has time in the gym to chat with us old timers and I'm proud to have guys like him as friends.

For a small town we have a dedicated and hard working fitness core group. The next pic is of my friend Charlie MacDonald who is kind of the cornerstone of that effort. Charlie took the responsibility this year to organise the show and in this pic before the show he looks like he's in total control. Well he is. Charlie is another guy who is inspiring. He's a retired Lineman, rodeo rider and stock man, avid fitness nut and a Sturgis going/harley riding/ son of a gun. I've not met to many people who are more Alaskan than Charlie, he fishes with his boat, hunts moose with his horses and can fix anything that breaks, he's a go to guy. So, thanks Charlie for all you do.

The last body building pic I'll show you was kind of a cool deal. That gal is from our gym, her name is Amy Vincent and she recently won the Ms. Alaska title. The guy is Shawn Wolfe and he is a Pro-Natural body builder, the best of the best. In other shows we've attended you never see women and men together on stage and especially never competing. But, because we do things different on the Kenai the organizers thought it'd be fun for these two athletes to have a 'pose off '. Amy had alot of fun with it and  Shawn actually looked a bit intimidated. I guess he knew it would be kind of hard to get more applause than the hometown favorite, he was right.

So that brings us to a pic of me....no speedo, just me in the gym this morning. I came home from Mexico a little bigger than usual so I decided to use the weight to help gain muscle and then try to lean down again in the fall, that was my strategy and kind of still is. I spent March and April lifting consistently heavier, my friend Josh says if you add weight, you add muscle. Part of my goal was to bench press my own weight (200 lbs) and I did that about 10 days ago. Well.....its game over. Even though I know success means working through some pain and injury its gone to far. I've developed carpal tunnel syndrome in my wrists so bad that the tingling wakes me at night and is a constant annoyance. The tendinitis in my elbows that I worked through a few years ago is back as well. The good news is my knees seem to be better, but its time for a break. I had my last lifting session on Monday and now I'll just ride my bike and apply the effort to my cardio-areboic conditioning, then after the fishing season we'll see how I feel and plan a new goal.

So if you've read along this far you're probably wondering where in the heck are the fish.  Well, not many anglers have come through the boat launch but I've seen two gorgeous Kings caught already. I hope this bodes well for our season which starts in earnest for me real soon. But I did handle a nice fish the other day. My friend Mike Dinkel who is an award winning taxidermist called and said my Corvina was ready. It's gorgeous and just what I needed to be a touchstone to my Mexican fishermen friends. I have it hanging in my office and daily reminds me, work hard, fish hard, life ain't a dress rehearsal.