The Results

I earned a 3rd place out of 6 competitors in the category called age 35 and up, short (under 5' 2", even though I'm 5' 2 1/4"). I was very happy about that, but I need to say that the winner had cellulite and major jiggle going on in her rear. Super sweet girl, but ya know, the winner???? Ok, whatever.

One of the other categories I competed in involved a total of 3 competitors for which I took 3rd place and 5 competitors for which I took 5th place. All places were rewarded with trophies, so I have 3. The winners, however, were not what you would expect. The posing in many cases was awful and yet.... How do we explain this? Well, my answer is that things seemed a little incestuous here in Buffalo. By that I mean many of the competitors belonged to one particular gym and those girls won the top spots over and over. The judges were from the Buffalo or Rochester area and seemed to know the competitors. When one judge needed some tylenol, she turned to one of the competitors she knew and the girl gladly handed some over, about an hour before the show started. Hmmmm. The promoter of the whole show mentioned that some judges didn't judge certain categories due to "conflicts of interest." Reallllly.

I'm not complaining because I had a good time, the show ran smoothly, the facilities were wonderful and all of the girls were really friendly. The guys were super nice, too. I went out to breakfast this morning with a 47-year-old dentist from Erie who was accompanied by his trainer. I had chatted with the dentist a day earlier because he was staying in the same hotel as me. He also competed at the Lakewood show (and didn't do well even though he looks great). I enjoyed my time with them because they were warm, supportive and engaging.

I also became friends with an exceptionally friendly and chatty woman from Buffalo. And a very sweet guy who plays "semi professional football" (not sure what that is) and often comes to Cleveland to play games was a pleasant source of conversation before the evening show. He admitted to cheating on his diet often and it certainly didn't show, but his honesty was amusing.

I felt like some kind of exotic import being from Cleveland while all of the other competitors were from Buffalo and maybe a few from Rochester. I seemed to get a lot of audience support with loud cheers during the evening portion when competitor came out individually and did a series of poses, striking each after trotting to the center of the stage, then the side, then back to the center, then off. I did a bicep flex for one pose and the audience seemed to like that.

I think my posing was great, exactly as I practiced it which incorporated vast improvements over last time. Many of the other girls struck extremely awkward and ugly positions. Sorry, but that's how it was. I felt that my look was very competitive, with the right amount of leanness and plenty of definition. Since this was a 100% drug free show, no one had crazy big muscles and that was refreshing and felt very comfortably fair.

My tan came out vastly better this time, too. It made my past experience feel like an abomination. But what did I know then? That being said, I can't wait to jump in the shower and wash it off.

The balance of the day was spent shopping and dining in a cute section of town with neat stores (all boutiques, no chain stores! just the way I like it). At lunch I had a glass of merlot and with dinner, I had a martini. I also had a cream sauce on my 5 cheese ravioli dish at dinner, though no dessert because I was stuffed. I am going to have lots of fun restoring a few pounds because right now, I fully admit that I'm too thin. My face looks drawn, but that's partly from the stress leading up to this show and lack of sleep.

Next: I need to further process that last 6 months and I intend to draw a few conclusions which I'll post here, for anyone who wonders what the past 6 months have meant and where I go from here.

Coming shortly, some pictures from Buffalo.
Thanks for your interest.
Be strong!