The Hopper Warrior 2018

#abetterversionofme2018

It's only been 2 weeks now since I participated in The Hopper Warrior in Malaysia and I am already missing the crazy competition vibes. That's a bit hard to believe considering it was one of the most exhausting weekends of my life; both physically and mentally.

The weekend began with a workout everyone expected me to do well with. I mean, come on, it was called ENDURO MADNESS; that has my name written ALL OVER IT! ;) Luckily, I didn't let down. I worked my butt off and I was rewarded with seeing my name at the top of the leaderboard. What a great start!

I knew the second event had many challenging movements for me and that I would have to push myself hard if I wanted to maintain first place. I saw great improvements with my rope climbs and my pull-ups, but unfortunately my push-ups and burpees were just not good enough to keep me on top. I fell to second, but I was still feeling ok with how things were going.

The final event on day 1 was one that would expose my biggest weakness - strength. I did a great job with all of my lifts, however they could not be compared to the other top competitors who were obviously much stronger than me. I would then be in 7th going into the second day of competition.

I will admittedly say that I wasn't looking forward to a second day of competition. Even though I got a lot of sleep, I was feeling incredibly tired. With that said, I'm not one to give up, so I continued giving it my all. The fourth event for me was probably the most disappointing. I started out so well, but once I got to the knees-to-arms, I felt like I had lost all strength and power. I didn't finish the workout sadly, but still, somehow, did just enough to maintain my 7th place standing.

Finally, it was time for the last event. At this point, my goal was just to finish within the time cap of 10 minutes, which I did. I was so relieved it was over!

When all was said and done, I was in 7th place overall. Of course, it was not the result that I wanted to see. As always though I took away many positives from the whole experience. I've also taken note of all the things I still need to improve on.

After returning to Vietnam, I took a much needed rest, but I'm now back to work and I'm wondering - what's next? I guess time will tell...

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