EDITOR’S NOTE:
Welcome to the Athlete Journal of Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold. Holley is part of Team USA headed to London this summer. Follow her journey here as she trains for the 2012 Olympics! Holley’s journal will be posted every Friday.
You can catch up by reading her previous journal entries!
Holley’s Athlete Journal 7:
This past week was busy, but a lot of fun. My sister flew into Cleveland Thursday so I came up to hang out with her for the day. It was great to have some sister time since we don’t get to hang out as much as we used to.
Friday she came with me to train with my coach Dan Bell at a new gym near Cleveland. He was one of my first coaches and even though I don’t get to see him very often, he’s the one that I turn to for advice. It was wonderful to train with him one-on-one! It really made me miss the countless hours we spent training and talking. Between lifts there’s a lot of downtime while resting for the next lift, so our conversations ranged from lifting drama to parenting advice – the poor guy has two teenaged step-daughters and I love to share stories from the trouble we gave my mom as teenagers. After training, I was able to enjoy the day catching up with friends in Cleveland. I miss all of those friends and had fun reminiscing about the glory days at Ursuline College.
Saturday was the State Meet in Sandusky, Ohio. It was a fun meet in the sense it wasn’t too big and I had my family and friends there. I won the snatch and was able to clean 150kg, but didn’t successfully get the jerk up. I was looking forward to trying to PR, but didn’t want to push to hard to as to prevent injury. It felt good, however, and made me even more confident for London – I perform well under pressure and know that I can make that lift.
My teammates did well, too, and Columbus Weightlifting won as best team at the meet. After the meet we went out for pizza, which I cannot have on my diet. I had to watch the whole table eat the most delicious looking pizza as I munched on plain lettuce and chicken breasts. As soon as I finished my meal I bolted out of the restaurant so I wasn’t tempted to try anyone’s pizza. Hands down, not being able to eat and drink anything I feel like is the hardest part of training. I know it will be worth it, though, so I just have to keep repeating that to myself.
Tuesday was a fun day because we were hanging out with Sports Time Ohio so they could report on my more fun side outside of weightlifting. We went to one of our favorite restaurants, Rule 3, where they had a Slip and Slide set up. My inner child leaped out! I had so much fun! We should do that every weekend! Not going to lie, I was a little sore the next day because its possible that adults aren’t supposed to be sliding full speed on their stomachs, but it was way too much fun to worry about being sore.
While there my friend Heather and I were playing Ski Ball and somebody came up to Heather, mistaking her for me. This happens pretty much on a daily basis. I feel bad for Heather that she keeps having to tell people she’s not me, but I also feel bad because Heather is built like a house and looks more like an Olympian than me. I look like the Olympian’s lazy sidekick – I’m just built bigger. That fact alone gives me the extra drive to eat healthier so I can look the part!
This weekend we will be doing a fundraiser, then off to North Carolina for a USAW level one certification course. I always look forward to being in the CrossFit environment and North Carolina should be a great trip! However, in all honesty, my scheduled events are too hectic to keep up with, so even for this blog I have to defer to my training partner and manager, Drew, for all of the details. I’ve gotten more responsible about a lot of things, but keeping the schedule straight is just one more thing I’d rather not think about.
I know I compete August 5 for my country in London, all else is just extra at this point.
