Part II: My Journey

Part II: The competition day

The day has finally arrived: the day of the competition! I took support with me including two good friends and my BF that stayed over in the bungalow park close to the competition town (the full park was taken over by bodybuilders; can you imagine how this looks? :) ) I loved the thrill of knowing that this day I would shine on stage; this was the day I have trained for so dedicated and consistent. This day is why I sacrificed soo many things the past half-a- year. This is it!

At this important day, the stress level should be kept to a minimum in order to look at your best that moment on the stage (you want to make sure your body not holding any excess liquid). I had a perfect team around me supporting me and getting me trough the day. A good friend of mine is a top-hair and make-up artist that helped me getting ready. It was a honour that he wanted to do my hear and make-up this day! I really do strongly advise each athlete to bring a friend or pay for a professional to help with your hair and make-up as this relieves a lot of stress at the day itself! The tanning was being done by the professionals at the event. I have to say all went well, except for one thing: my tanning was striped! The day before the competition I used a scrub, that was apparently too intense and my body didn't recover from this, showing the exact direction of the scrubbing! (yikes!) Fortunately my PT ensured my we could cover this with oil and that this will hardly show on stage. He was there to get me ready the last minutes before the stage. Before going on stage, there was a lot of waiting, but I have to say this went quite fast. I just chilled a bit in the hallways, put my legs up and rested.

Than there was the moment on stage!...

I empathized the '.' here. Because, well, it was so quick! Just 5 or 10 minutes on stage, for the posing and the T-walk in total. When you worked so intense and dedicated for it, this time on the stage flies so fast! I did feel on top of my game at the stage; even participated in the first call-out (I have been told they like you than :) ) I was satisfied with the 6th place (out of 12) for my first competition, but I also had mixed feelings. The 6th place is not qualified for the B class (next level) competition. So unfortunately for me, I was not able to participate in a next-level competition next time, but had to compete in a similar competition again. What was a happy surprise though, was that they did call me on stage when announcing my 6th prize, even though normally they only call the 1st winner - the 5th winner on stage to hand over the prizes! #proud!