Tough Temple 2025 - A Humbling Story

Olympic Weightlifting has quickly become a big part of my life - dedicating a couple of hours 3 times a week to something will do that!

So when my life started getting chaotic (travel, moving, career changes), the preparation and anticipation for Tough Temple started to serve as an anchor of sorts. As I would start to spin out about future uncertainties, a common mantra was I’ll figure everything else out AFTER Tough Temple.

I have already talked a little bit about my fitness journey to this point – where I trained with Jason until he closed BASA (his gym) and we all moved to Exile. THEN Seth got his new job so we moved to Richmond and joined RVA Performance Training. It is an excellent gym that really doubles down on community and team dynamics. I was still training with Jason remotely, but the RVA coaches also provided lots of helpful guidance.  Even with all that support, I still ran into a few bumps along the way:

When I tell people that I do Olympic Weightlifting, I never say I am good at it. In fact, it’s a great way for me to practice being bad at something. Some are tempted to tell me that it is only because I am a beginner, but relatively speaking, I am still not that good and that is okay.

I knew this going into the competition and I managed my headspace accordingly. As a quick primer, an Olympic Weightlifting competition is structured as follows:

·        Groups are divided by gender and weight class (and sometimes by entry totals for time management purposes).

·        Everyone in the group has three chances to do a snatch on the platform and after everyone is done, everyone will have three chances to do a clean and jerk.

·        There are three judges who evaluate form. At least two out of the three judges must give you a “white” (instead of “red”) for it to be a good lift. 

·        The order people will go is from the lowest weight to the highest.

·        The competitor’s “total” is their highest good snatch + their highest good clean and jerk.  

Many who do their first competition have the goal of getting all six of their lifts. I am of the mind that if someone gets all of them, perhaps they are not pushing themselves hard enough. So, I made my goal to total my bodyweight (which ranges from 61 – 64kg). Prior to the competition, my personal record (PR) was 58kg (25kg snatch, 33 clean and jerk). These are very low totals in this sport, but again, that’s okay.

The Snatches

Before going out, there is a warm-up room where Jason was “counting” for me. Counting is when you literally count how many lifts are happening before yours so that you warm up accordingly by doing lifts in increasing weight right up to the one you want to do on the platform. Unfortunately, the session that happened before mine ended early, so the count was messed up and I ended up doing extra lifts and starting/stopping off rhythm.

In any case, I made my first lift of 26kg! However, because I was lifting so much less than the other competitors, I had to follow myself for my next two lifts and only had a limited time to rest in between. I believe I rushed myself a little too much and didn’t set up correctly for the lift, so I missed my next two attempts of 28kg and 30kg.

I really wanted to make 30kg just because 50% of 30kg is the weight of the women’s barbell, so my future programming would be a little less humiliating, but at least I have this motivating chip on my shoulder!

Here is a compilation video of my snatches. See the gif below if you don’t feel like clicking on the link.

The Clean and Jerks

My confidence was lower but I was able to warm up on pace. I decided to be a little conservative with my opening lift of 33kg – and a good thing too because I missed it. I was too wobbly. Jason gave me a little pep talk and a cue to correct it and I was able to make it on my second attempt.

I wasn’t as disappointed to end on 35kg, even though I have jerked it once in training. I was, however, disappointed when I saw the playback because I think I was too wobbly and that the judges should not have given it to me. But, they did, so I’ll take it!

Here is a compilation video of my clean and jerks. You can look at the gif below if you don’t want to click the link.

What’s Next

I would really like to get stronger and lift more respectable weights. However, I have limitations – like being a vegetarian, a terrible sleeper, and effectively juggling a bunch of other important life activities. But, I do believe if I keep at it for another 30+ years without injuring myself, I will outlast all other competitors my age and finally not come in last in a competition.

Slow and steady baby!

Is there anything you plan to do for the next 30+ years? I’m interested.

—

Do you want to be notified of my blog post and my other updates once a month? Subscribe to my free substack newsletter 5 on the 9.