Chapter Thirty-Three: The come-back stalls
The older Brandon got the harder it was to train! When he was a little baby and I was on maternity leave it was easy to park him in the gym in the pram while I trained. Once I had returned to work, I struggled with feeling tired all the time, interrupted sleep at night, then the feelings of guilt for leaving him with others while I trained. I also seemed to get sick more often, especially when Brandon started at childcare.
Mum and Steve were wonderful. Mum was semi-retired and looked after Brandon during the day, from when he was 6 to 12 months old, before he started childcare. Then they took turns looking after Brandon in the evenings when I trained. I was back at work 4 days a week and would go straight from work to the gym often not getting home until 8pm at night. I was only training once a day and so this meant my evening sessions were longer.
Steve built me a weightlifting platform in our garage and Luke lent me some weights so I could try and get some extra sessions in at home but this was really hard. The weights felt so much heavier at home training on my own in the garage, compared to training in a gym full of other people. Plus there was the odd distraction!
I was struggling to get back into pre-baby shape. I may have looked ok physically, but I couldn’t seem to get that old leg strength back. I kept hearing tales of how having a baby was supposed to make you stronger – but it certainly wasn’t the case for me! Admittedly though, I did drop back to 53kg again (which was really hard after having a baby), so was training and competing at a light bodyweight, around 54-55kg, for several months from March through to July 2005. Again, Luke wanted me to qualify at more than one weight division to broaden my chances at qualifying for the Commonwealth Games. Perhaps the light bodyweight was what stopped me from building my strength back up? (Club competition below)
2005 was a struggle in any case and I felt like my ‘come back’ stalled. Although in early October I won the Oceania Championships in Melbourne at 58kg with a 78kg Snatch and 95kg Clean & Jerk, then on 28th October I won the Nationals in Brisbane again at 58kg, Snatching 77kg and Clean & Jerking 92kg, I wasn’t improving. I had two young girls close on my tail as the end of the year drew near, on the eve of the team selections for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. If I had my old leg strength I wouldn’t have been worried, but the truth was I was struggling to gain even a 2kg improvement. These girls were half my age and they were improving fast.
To make matters worse, I had been suffering with a really sore back on and off, only bearable due to the constant anti-inflammatories I was taking daily. Even so, some days just bending over the bar brought significant pain, let alone lifting it – but I couldn’t afford to take any time off or rest – the trials were getting close. I didn’t want to know what was wrong with my back, convincing myself it was muscular, so it wouldn’t deter me from taking a big weight. My mental toughness, anti-inflammatories and regular sports massage from Anthony, our masseur at the gym, were the only thing keeping me going.
As 2005 drew to a close I knew that the 2006 Commonwealth Games would without a doubt be my last hurrah and I approached Luke to tell him so.
Coming up next – Chapter 34: Commonwealth Games Trials in Melbourne