Well, I competed yesterday in the 2008 Icelandic Deadlift Championships (kraft.is, IPF). I weighed in at 92.6kg (204 lbs), so I lifted in the 100kg division.
I set my opener at 220kg (485 lbs).
The warmup room was a little chaotic and I grabbed the odd warmup, 3x150kg a couple of times, then 3x170kg. A little later I came back. A friend told me there were 160kg on a bar with a complicated mix of mismatched plates so I picked that up. Ugh. Heaviest 160 I ever pulled. Maybe I had overestimated my opener. I added a couple of 10s and was a little crestfallen. If 180 was that hard, 220 was much to high an opener. I recounted all the different plates and found that what I thought was 160 was really 190 and what I thought was 180 was really 210. I felt a lot better about my opener!
In the event, 220kg went up pretty easily and so did 230kg on the 2nd round. I chose 235kg for my 3rd but thought long and hard about 240. It was very tempting, but in the end I chose a safe PR instead of the more ambitious weight.
235kg (518 lbs) went up, but it was hard and I almost gave up at knee height, but didn't. With hindsight I was glad I hadn't opted for 240 because that was unlikely to succeed.
My previous bests were 220kg in competition and 232.5kg in the gym.
I captured 1st place in my division, but the meet was unusually weak this year. Usually 270-300kg+ would have been needed to get the 100kg title. The powerlifting scene in Iceland has been rather fractured lately with many strong lifters leaving
kraft.is and the IPF for the WPF.
