my first figure competition part 3

Show day

Show day started for me at about 5am.  Having done one coat of tanner before bed (Jan Tana  base) I had to do 1 more coat (Jan Tana competition color).  My hair/Make up lady was coming at 6 am so we needed the tanner to be on and dry enough for me to be clothed and seated.

We applied tanner, when Lindsay showed up to do my hair and makeup, Julie went down to have breakfast. Hair and makeup took a little over an hour to do!  I guess it takes a while to make me pretty J  We were supposed to report to the show by 7:45 but we were told by the show promoter at check in that figure competitors could come later because we wouldn’t go on until after women’s physique and all bodybuilding (and boy he wasn’t kidding). 

After hair/makeup I ate breakfast which was

1 sweet potato pancake See recipe here

1 “schmear” of natural peanut butter (it was about a tablespoon)

1 small apple

5 hardboiled egg whites.

I scarfed this down (carefully to avoid messing up my lipstick, as carefully as you can scarf food!  We packed up everything and headed to the show.  We arrived late.. after 8 for sure. My husband, dad and trainer were there waiting for us.  If you haven’t read my preceding posts, I suppose I should say the show was in a different city so I had just a small group of people there with me.

This is when we began the hardest part, the waiting.  The show was scheduled to start at 9. It didn’t.  In this post I posted a packing list. I mention food.. Lots of food. More food than you think.  Seriously. BRING IT! And tell your supporters to bring some snacks too. Most these shows don’t have any food at all and if anything, they only have some supplement companies/stores selling protein bars or something small. My Dad, husband and trainer at breakfast around 7.. they didn’t eat again until dinner time.  My friend Julie shared a pump up pop tart with me but that wasn’t really a lot of food.

So basically for the next 5 hours I waited… Touched up my tan, tried not to pee on myself. Peeing while in a posing suit it quite an adventure. I suppose I could delve into that experience real quick and give my two cents.  So some of you have heard the punch the bottom out of a Dixie cup in order to direct the stream and spare your tan. Well, I did pee, once..it was much more difficult that you would imagine and although I managed to spare my tan, I think the Dixie cups are more trouble than they are worth.  See, once you put your suit on, you don’t take it off until your done. So you kind of just pull it to the side to pee.  So imagine trying to  pull your suit to the side and hold a Dixie cup in place.. mind you the Dixie cup won’t hold the suit… anyway. In the future, I’ll be using both hands to pull the suit out of the way and forget the whole Dixie cup business.

Finally around 1 pm it was time for figure.  I think I must have been pumping up back stage for 20 minutes at least. They did an intermission that gave me a bit longer time. I didn’t really know what else to do.. at this point I’m just really ready to go on stage.  I should say for those who don’t know me, I’m an introvert. So don’t think you have to be this bubbly, outgoing, extrovert personality to do this sport. Now you do have to fake it a little on stage. Appear confident and comfortable, which I am still working on.  And it would be a total lie if I said I wasn’t terrified a little bit when I walked out on stage. Really most of it was because I knew my conditioning wasn’t what I wanted. I decided to do the show anyway for the experience, but being less than comfortable with the package I brought was really a challenge.

Regardless, here I was, lined up with a group of girls wearing teeny bikini’s and 5” heels.. and I was about to walk out and be judged.  Figure does a series of quarter turns.. so you’re thinking, you go out, turn, turn, turn, turn and you’re done.  Well it’s not quite that simple.  We had the smallest class, 6 girls. I’m not sure exactly how long we were out there but it feels like an eternity. You turn, the judges move people around, you turn some more.  Your cheeks are shaking.. honestly most of you shakes. I’m proud to say mine was due to nerves as I had been practicing posing a lot. (However my stage shots show I had pulled my shoulders forward so I was a bit disappointed that my posing wasn’t on)

I entered 2 classes, novice and open. You do the same process in each. Then you do a T-walk (I was competing NANBF).  I was so so nervous during my Twalk.  It’s just you out there, ALL ALONE. I’m not sure if I looked nervous but I shook like a leaf the whole time.

At the end of the day I walked away without any hardware. I walked away with experience that I will take with me in future shows. Yes, there will be future shows. Next prep begins in about 3 weeks.  I’m excited to do this all over again and hope to bring a leaner package next show.