Virtualmeet.net

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 (http://www.kraft.is) and the IPF for the WPF.

Great job on hitting a PR Helgi.

Getting all three attempts is also a great job and builds confidence.