Back in May I was going through a list of powerlifting meets and saw that one was in Duluth – about three hours from me. I got online and booked a hotel for the same weekend. I’m becoming more and more interested in powerlifting, and even considering doing a meet. Before diving into any serious training I wanted to see how a meet works and the process. Duluth is also a great city to travel to for a weekend. It has beautiful scenery, lots of stuff to do outdoors, history, and the city is great to explore.
My weekender bag
Seeing as I was traveling alone and I didn’t have any solid plans, I packed light. Leggings and a tank top for the drive, a sundress for the day of the meet and Saturday evening in Downtown Duluth, and my denim jacket in case it was a bit breezy. I also brought along my cardio gear since my hotel had a small exercise room.
For shoes, I brought some cute flats from Toms I picked up for $30 at Marshalls a few weeks ago that I wanted to test run walking in for Vancouver. I also brought flippies and trainers. In addition to clothes, I brought up my tablet and camera so I could get some blogging done over the weekend.
I’ll be sharing more of what I ended up bringing this past weekend when I share what I’m packing for Vancouver.
What I did
The main reason I went up to Duluth for the weekend was for the USA Powerlifting Twin Ports Raw Open at the College of St. Scholastica. I wanted to see how a meet work, the process, and what the atmosphere was like. I also wanted to take the weekend as a breather and recharge. This was the first time traveling truly by myself and I had no plans in mind or plans to meet up with anyone. I thought it would be a good time to explore the Duluth shoreline and do some writing over the weekend. I headed out of work a little early on Friday to try and beat some of the traffic out of the cities. I got to Duluth around 8:00pm, checked into my hotel and headed right out for some Chipotle dinner. At this point, I was a little concerned about my car since one of the tires was rattling on my drive up. Turns out the were loose and the alignment was off. Spent Sunday afternoon at the shop for those fixes.
On Saturday I woke up bright and early. I’m sad to report that the breakfast options at my hotel were less than impressive. There was no protein option, so I ended up eating one of my Starkist Salmon Creations with an English muffin topped with peanut butter – embarrassing, but hell yeah for macros. I got the meet about a half hour early and settled in. Once everything got started, I was excited to see a young lifter, around eight years old, who killed it! She dead lifted over her body weight and her mom was lifting also. The women started out the day with squats, then the men. The middle of the day was bench press and then they ended the day out with dead lifts. Two of the women competitors set national records on dead lifts. I also learned how to do bench press to power lifting standard, with a pause and no movement at the feet, in order for the lift to be considered towards your total.
After the meet, I made a quick stop at the hotel before grabbing dinner at the Duluth Grill. I ordered lettuce wraps and a side of egg whites because protein macros were definitely lacking that day. For the evening, I went to Enger Tower which I had never been to before, and snapped some photos of Downtown Duluth and Lake Superior. I headed to Downtown Duluth to walk around and grab some ice cream.
Before heading home, I was hoping to get a tour of the Glensheen Mansion which is part of the University of Minnesota, Duluth, but the tours didn’t start until close to 10:00am and I had to get home to get my car repaired. I made a quick stop at Dunkin Donuts, since there aren’t any in the cities near me, and headed home! Overall it was refreshing to be a setting where everyone else shares the same interests and work at the same sport. I’m hoping to get involved with USPL Minnesota by volunteering at some of this summer’s meets. Being a loader would be interesting and would help me get a grasp on kilometers.
