Wow, what a weekend! First it was a day long photoshoot with bbpics photography and then it was on to Pittsburgh for the NPC Pittsburgh to compete with some of the best in the region. What a weekend, and what a fun time too! I had a blast doing this and I’m more than up to doing this again soon. This was by far the biggest weekend for me from a fitness standpoint, with shooting and showing occurring in the same weekend, and now its onto the summer but I have a lot of work yet to do for the final seven months of 2014.
A few weeks after placing eighth out of fifteen at the NPC Natual Ohio, I received a call from bbpics photography to see if I were in contest shape, which I was, being only two and a half weeks out of the NPC Pittsburgh. I let them know immediately that I was interested in doing so. We were to shoot all day on Thursday, May 1st, and then I proceeded to take the captain to Morgantown, West Virginia where he was going to work with some local college students.
We went to work and immediately picked up where we left off last year, by visiting the Panhandle Trail in Weirton, West Virginia. Many of you may know of Weirton, which gained some fame after the movie Super 8 was filmed on many locations in this former steel mill town. The Trail itself has a history of its own, as it served as a railroad that led all the way to Maryland at some point, before being converted into the trail that it is today.
We began to experience a light rain, so we decided to take a break and eat at Dee Jays, a place that is famed for its ribs, though I’m a Caesar salad guy when it comes to this place. After a one hour eating break, it was back out to the trail for another two hours to do some fitness shots. This was fun, and I had a great time getting into a hardcore junkyard look, all the while showing some love for my Indianapolis Colts, which I always like to show off during shoots.
You can see the classic blue horseshoe on the hat in this snap, and it’s always fun to rep the city of Indy in anything I do. So for two more hours we snapped some fitness shots, and then it was onto Morgantown and back home where I did a light, but higher volume basement workout while watching my Memphis Grizzlies play the Oklahoma City Thunder. Sadly, we didn’t get the result we were looking for, and ended up losing by more than a few possessions.
Friday came and I traveled to Pittsburgh by myself for the first time. My dad was off, but sooner or later I have to learn how to handle myself in a large city, so I did just that, driving there and back twice in one day while hanging out at my gym over in Weirton for some of the time as well as eating my favorite day before show meal, a large Greek salad with ten ounces of chicken and ten ounces of gyro. It seems like a lot of calories, and it is, but remember that I only eat once a day when it comes to solid food and on top of that, I don’t like to peak before shows, as I feel I look my best if I don’t decide to peak.
After checking in and getting a spray tan, I went back home and self tanned on two coats of tan, since the spray had not darkened me enough. I’m one of those unlucky few whose skin likes to repel any and all tanning products, the sun, and the lights inside the tanning beds. This has to stem from my Welsh, Scottish, and Dutch ancestry, since my Italian and Native American decided to confine itself to my facial features only and left the skin color out of the equation.
Saturday came and it was showtime. This was a really cool part, because the Pittsburgh Pro is held at the same time, on the same day, at the same venue, and their classes split time with our classes. I was in Men’s Physique Class A, and I had never been part of such a large and competitive class, with twenty three of us looking to win this one. We waited in line for nearly a half hour and then finally filed onstage, where the seating area during pre-judging was half empty.
Onstage, we each filed out one by one, went through our front, back, front turns with hands on hip or in pocket. Luckily, I had practiced my routine this time, and took as much time as I needed to to show the judges what I had. Then, they called us out in sets of six, where we were then to return back to the diagonal line. Now, came the actual call outs. I wasn’t called out in the first call out, something that is becoming a little too routine for me these days, but in a class like this, it didn’t phase me as much as it had in the past. I was the first one called out in the second and I spent time in the center, which was awesome, but was ultimately moved to the side. This meant that I wasn’t fated to land in the top five, but I was considered. Looking at the results later on, I learned that I had finished a solid eighth place (for the second time in 2014) out of twenty three hopefuls.
At twenty three years and one week old, I’m not saying that I did great in the show, but I did good. Also, I did what many competitors did not do this past weekend, and that was to shoot before a show, which is usually something that pro competitors do. So, it’s a victory within itself, but there is much more to come. I’m taking a three month break from competition, as my next show is twelve weeks from now, the NGA Steel Valley Classic, taking place in the Youngstown, Ohio region. Here, I look to not only place high but to win my class and hopefully be compared with other class winners and take the overall. I will be shooting more during the summer and staying lean, as well as getting leaner!
Did I mention that my NHL team plays north of the border? We’re a hard luck team, but they got some younger talent. Let’s go, Jets!
Todd Matthews 