Special O, March 2016

This past Saturday, we got up early and headed an hour south...for Joshua's Special Olympics Powerlifting competition.

Joshua is a pro at packing what he needs in his bag. He was wearing his red competition suit...and he had shorts on over it...annnnd warm-up pants over THAT. Ha! He was wearing a jacket, too, and when he took it off...he was wearing a yellow v-necked shirt. Under that, he was wearing the gray-est, dingiest, oldest white t-shirt he has.

UGH. Because that's the shirt he wore under his weight-lifting suit for the whole competition.

We usually have this competition at the field-house of the local high school. This year, a cross-fit gym in town wanted to have it at their facility, so we went there.

IT.WAS.AWESOME.

They had put signs up all over the walls, and everyone greeted us when we got there. Also, they gave each athlete a "swag bag" full of protein bars, koozies, pens, magnets, a poster, A T-SHIRT...things like that. The athletes haven't gotten anything like that before, and so they went nuts! It was really nice!

They let the athletes warm-up before the bench-press. Joshua lifted once...maybe twice...and then he said he was good-to-go. Some of the other athletes were having more weight put on the bars...FOR WARM-UPS.
Joshua did not see the sense in that.

Joshua is very methodical with the way he does things. He knows what he can do, so Jim will choose a starting weight to that is fairly easy for Joshua to lift...so that his first lift is successful. And then they go up in weight on the 2nd and 3rd lifts. Joshua lifted 145 lbs on his 3rd lift. He did a great job.

Then it was time for the dead-lift part of the competition. Joshua pulled out his special weight-lifting shoes from his little bag-of-tricks. He wears them for the dead-lifting part of the competition. On Joshua's 3rd and final attempt, he lifted 195 lbs.

Keep in mind, he weighed in that morning at 119 lbs...and he dead-lifted 195 lbs. I put some pictures on my IG (martythemoose).

He amazes me.

Jim's parents came up and met us at the competition. Joshua always enjoys having a "fan club" there.

When it was time for the awards, Joshua waited patiently with the other athletes. The athletes are scored according to sex, age, and weight-class. Joshua received a gold medal for bench-press, a gold medal for dead-lift...and a gold medal for the combination score (they add each athlete's top lifts together for this score).

He was pretty tickled with how he did. His combination weight was 340 lbs!

While we were sitting on the bleachers, waiting for Joshua's next turn to lift (each athlete gets 3 tries at bench-press, and 3 tries at dead-lift. If you complete your lift, you get to go up in weight for your next lift. If you don't make it, you have to stay at the same weight)...a man sitting beside me struck up a conversation with Joshua. He said, "how much are you gonna lift next time?" Joshua said, "I don't know...I just do whatever my Dad tells me to do."

The man smiled and said, "wow. That is a great attitude to have."

He looked at me and said, "I'm thinking...you are a Christian, yes?" I said, "yes." He said, "I could tell (y'all, people are always watching even when you don't know they are!) (EEEK!)...and when your son said he was just going to do what his father told him to do...it reminded me of how we, as Christians, should be about our Father's work...and we should just do what He tells us to do."

Whoa.

After the competition, we went to lunch at Chick-Fil-A. It was a great day!

"I am doing what the Father told Me to do so the world may know I love the Father..." John 14:31