Saturday was my first Highland/Scottish Heavy Games at the Austin Celtic Festival. As I have been telling anyone that will listen, I am completely hooked now and this will be my focus in training. The idea of throwing heavy things clicked with me as soon as I tried it, and some of the techniques felt natural right off the bat.
I got to practice for a couple of hours last week with Mike Baab, the organizer and host of the games and one hell of an athlete himself. If you didn't already know, Mike was an outstanding center for the Texas Longhorns and had a long NFL career as well. He is also an incredibly nice guy and a great ambassador for the heavy games.
By the time the real thing came around, I was very happy that I had taken the time to handle some of the implements and learn the rules. It could have been pretty embarrassing to step out there completely unprepared, although we did have a guy do that and he turned out alright. I had also spent a great deal of my spare time in the last week building my own implements and practicing at Lord's Gym up the street from me; I really didn't want to fall on my face my first time out.
We started at 9:00 AM with a rules primer and we were throwing the braemar by 10:00. The stone they used was 21 pounds, and I had been practicing with 24, so lucky me. My first attempt ended up being my best, and even though I tried to crank it up for the third attempt my form just fell apart. Oh well.
Braemar - 28 feet, 1 inch
Next up was open stone. I decided to take a conservative shuffle on my first attempt, glide on the second, then go for broke with a full spin on the last. Again, my first attempt was solid, then I proceeded to throw about 3 feet shorter with a glide. I decided to forgo the spin and just try to shuffle again with more "umph," but it fell short. First throw was a winner again.
Open Stone - 36 feet, 2 inches
While I was comfortable with the stone puts, I haven't really mastered the weight-for-distance throws yet. It showed. First of these two throws was heavy weight for distance. Since I was in the novice class I got to throw the 42 lb. weight instead of the normal 56 lb. It didn't honestly make that much difference though.
HWFD - 17 feet, 7 inches
Light weight for distance I could obviously muscle a little further, but it was still ugly. Just went with a single spin, same as HWFD.
LWFD - 36 feet, 8.5 inches
Here is Mike Baab throwing the LWFD the correct way:
After LWFD we took a long break during which we got lunch and Mike did the kid's games. Extremely cute. Can't wait until my little man is old enough to try. After the break was the caber, which is always a crowd favorite. A group of at least a few hundred was on hand to witness the log-flipping madness. I fueled up with a sheperd's pie and hit the field.
There were four cabers on hand, each increasing in difficulty. Our group only got to 3 of them, and only the strongest guys turned the 3rd. My results were pretty unexpected considering I had never turned the 2nd one in practice.
Caber Toss
1st caber - 12:00
2nd caber - 11:55 (only novice to turn it)
3rd caber - hahaha no
I was fired up when I turned that 2nd caber. The crowd was into it as well since Mike told them this was my first games. Big roar from me, big cheer from everyone. Awesome. As if I needed more ego stroking. Best part though? My 2-year old boy and my wife got to see me do it.
Final event of the day was weight over bar. I felt really good about this event after practicing only a couple of times before we started. I didn't practice it all before the games, but I think it plays into some of my strengths. Plus, I was again throwing the 42 lb. instead of the 56 lb. weight. Here is some video of my successful 10-foot attempt (make sure sound is on for maximum adorable levels):
The biggest mistake I made was not listening to Mike and coming in too fast. I started at 9 feet, which meant I would have to attempt every height afterwards until I failed. I realized the wisdom of Mike's advice when I threw the damn thing 14 feet high on my 9-foot attempt. I finished with a best of 13 feet, but I know I could have had 14 if I paced myself and actually learned how to set up for the event.
Weight Over Bar - 13 feet
The games took place over two days, and as it turns out a lot of the big throwers came on Sunday. The biggest was Andy Vincent, a pro strongman and a buddy of mine from back when I was running a fitness competition website called Now You Try. We had never gotten to meet in person so I took the opportunity to shake hands and chat for a bit. Awesome guy, great athlete and extremely fun to watch. Andy also has pro football experience, so his feet move amazingly quick for such a big man. Check it:
As I sit here typing, I don't know the results of the games but Andy looked like he was on a good pace to win. I am definitely pulling for him. Andy's attitude and everyone else's at these games typifies exactly what I love about strength sports, especially highland and strongman. At the end of the day, we are really competing against our own best performances. We may win prizes based on how the numbers play out, but we aren't usually "gunning" for each other (unless it gets tight or the stakes are high). All the guys this weekend were incredibly supportive, willing to help the newbies and overall were light-hearted and genuinely enjoyed themselves. Powerlifting has a lot this too, but also it has a little bit of a problem with taking itself to seriously. Conversely, that's pretty much impossible to do when you are wearing a kilt and throwing rocks someone found while bagpipes are playing.
That, among many reasons is why I think I have finally found a real home with the heavy games. I will keep competing in anything that comes my way, but I have a burning desire to get very, very good at this.
I came away with a few notes for myself after the experience:
- Need cooler socks.
- Need tacky (sticky tar, basically) to train with on caber.
- Time to gain weight back. Get to 225 lb. at least. Grub time.
- Gotta incorporate more olympic lifting.
- Must master the spin for weight for distance. Stepping stone to a lot of the other events.
Not much in beer news this week. I wanted to bottle my cranberry ale today but I was A) sore as hell and B) thinking I don't want to bottle it at all and just take the plunge into kegging. Added to all of that, my son was sick for the past couple of days. With Ashley working today I wasn't about to leave him alone to run to the brew store. Probably the coolest thing beer-related this week was my buddy Aaron sending me some beer nerd log books by 33 beers.
Life is pretty neat. What cabers do to my lilly-white, crepe paper skin is not so neat. I look like a raccoon attacked my neck and shoulder.
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