So following quite a stressful few days, on
Saturday morning everything seemed to fall into place. We had a good night's sleep and woke up early to an interesting dry breakfast and continuing the carb up. I thought I'd wake up with one hell of a dry mouth however, the water deplete was not too bad other than swallowing some large tablets dry. Was instructed for the next meal to have some steak, potatoes and peanut butter which was by far the best comp prep meal ever! Although I had to shove it in my mouth while Ali's mum was doing my makeup! Ali was such a sweetheart and cooked this for me as he was ready earlier (bit simpler for guys!) and as we were both covered in dream tan by this stage and were getting ready at Jon's house, he was chopping and microwaving and moving around with a teatowel in check wiping up his fingerprints :S
The aim was to be ready to rock and roll by 9am- super organised. So we arrived at the RSL and met my family who were already there- Dad was super paranoid about getting there early before tickets sold out (aww!) and I warned them, this is going to be a long day! The pre-judging began and seemed to be moving through quite quickly so we gathered our bags and found a spot backstage to get ready, again with plenty of time. Loretta and I were set up with male competitors and actually didn't see any other figure girls before it was stage time! I think this really helped in terms of not getting nervous- I had no idea who or how many other competitors were in our lineup until we were there! We carbed up some more, had our tans touched up until perfect and pumped up with bands- I didn't seem to get a good pump really but didn't worry. I was in a great mood, nothing was bothering me!
Carried our shoes out and behind the stage where I met up with
Kristin, marvelled again at her height in our perspex heels and we wished eachother all the best before heading out into the lights! I was really happy the two of us got to go out next to eachother, another familiar face was welcome in facing the judges and the crowd!
Made my first mistake when turning to do a rear double bicep pose, I actually forgot to move my hair- didn't we practice that?? lol. So I was sooo relieved when I got a call out into what later became the top 6 competitors, and got a second chance to redeem myself. Everything else that I had feared would be happening- eg extreme nerves, lack of mental clarity, dehydration, shaking etc did not eventuate, I still cannot quite believe how calm I was which was great as I was able to soak it all in. I smiled at and directed my posing toward the judges as planned, waved to the crowd and smiled at my family who were madly taking photos :) While I was in the backline (not tensing enough while in the relaxed pose haha) I ran my eyes over the other girls, didn't count them but was really impressed with the physiques I was seeing, these girls looked beautiful - I was so proud to be among them!
The judges moved us around a little onstage and the last thing they requested us to do was to show them the lower body only, flexing one leg at a time which I thought was a little strange- perhaps they were using this to help split us! Excitement built at that thought because I allowed myself to wonder, am I in contention for a placing here?
Ali's class was following intermission and he was in a lineup of 5. Again the standard for amateur novice competitors seemed extremely high! Ali was the only one in coloured (blue) trunks and to me (totally biased anyway) he really stood out with his presentation, posing, smiling face (amongst a lot of seriousness!) and by far the best hammies and glutes onstage :)
We were beaming and congratulating eachother and other competitors when we were done and went to enjoy a second round of steak and potatoes from the restaurant downstairs to begin the wait for the next show....