I’m not quite sure exactly what I’m supposed to say. I purposely waited a few days to let everything digest, settle down just a touch, before I tried putting my thoughts down on paper. Unfortunately, nothing has become much clearer in that time.

Part of me wants to be totally objective, to sit here and give a detailed analysis of how the events unfolded on Saturday, August 21st, at the 2010 NPC Maryland State and East Coast Classic Bodybuilding Championship.

Part of me wants to give the full details of how every competitor did– of how splendid an event it was, how nearly 20 competitors from Lifetime Fitness stepped on stage that night and walked away with trophies, many of whom I helped coach, guide and educate along the way. Part of me wants to give details on my clients who were so successful, and my wife who was so successful.

Part of me wants to draw a larger lesson, a moral, put together a learning device or matrix to help guide and inspire my clients to achieve their goals and dreams. I feel I am in a position now to say something cliche like “If you try hard enough, and put in the hard work, you can achieve whatever you set your mind to”.

But the biggest part of me doesn’t want to do any of that. The truth of the matter is, I really don’t even know how I feel. I don’t think I can describe it. I don’t think words can capture it.

While driving to work today, Gary Jules’s version of “Mad World” came on the radio .

While listening to this I found myself crying, for no apparent reason. It didn’t even inspire a specific emotion that I could identify. Rather, I was simply flooded with feelings, with thoughts, with visions. I let the sounds wash over me like a wave, I felt my stomach drop and my head swell with feelings of finality. I felt dissociated from the world around me, like I was no longer functioning within it, but rather, watching it from a foggy distance. If I were a spirit aimlessly roaming the planet, I imagine this is how I would feel.

I felt every morning of the past 7 years, walking into the gym, digging down to find motivation and drive. I felt every ache and pain of every rep of every set. I felt every thousand pounds moved on the leg press, every burst blood vessel, every callus and capillary, every stretch and contraction. I realized I have spent nearly a quarter of my life pursuing this goal.

I saw a vision of a pudgy little boy that was never in control of his body, only his mind and spirit– and how he used that mind and spirit to forge a body to match. And I thought to myself, How odd that I chose to do all of this. I saw that pudgy little boy camped in front of the television watching Arnold Schwarzenegger in all his swagger, and knowing that I would someday look like that. I saw the first time I loaded a trailer at UPS, and felt my flesh strain and contract, and felt the exhaustion of pushing my body to the brink. I saw the first time I put a bar across my back in a basement in Connecticut, with no one else around, and gave myself the command to get in shape. I remembered promising myself to commit for 6 months, and if the results weren’t worth it, I could quit. And I remembered starting to look myself more in the eye when I would gaze into the mirror.

I saw a warrior standing on a stage, beaming with pride, and joy, having accomplished a task I never would have foreseen a decade ago. I saw my daughter looking at me and thinking, “This is normal– this is what people do– they build themselves into wonderful things, through blood and sweat and tears, then they share it with the world”.

I saw countless hours spent reading materials on the Internet, in medical texts, in glossy magazines featuring men with bulging veins on the covers. I remembered all the journals lining my bookshelf at home with notes on diets, supplements, and training routines. I recalled that I have written down every single workout I have put myself through since my first one on September 13th, 2003.

I had planned on compiling a list of everything that I had to do between January 1st, 2010 and August 21st, 2010, in order to compete at the Maryland State:
-the 8,500 egg whites
-the 1,600 whole eggs
-the 495lbs of chicken
-the 800 cups of oatmeal
-the 500 miles on the treadmill
-the 18,596 flights on the stairs
To speak nothing of the literally thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds of weights hoisted, lifted, curled, squatted, benched, dead lifted, broken, battered, and beaten.

And I realized, it wouldn’t convey what I was feeling. I realized, for once, I didn’t want to be dramatic. Because being dramatic would not do justice to how I was feeling.

I feel accomplished. I feel proud. I feel sad that it’s over. I feel excited to know that I can be the greatest, all that it takes is time and effort and consistency. I feel redeemed, though from whom or what I am not sure– like I proved a point to the universe, or to myself, maybe. I feel exhausted. I feel I could lie down and die right now, and everything would be okay. I feel for the first time like I accomplished something worthy of being written down and remembered. I feel incredibly sad and spent and empty, though I’m not sure why.

Part of me sincerely feels that I don’t quite deserve it. Not to say that I wasn’t the best that day. But my heart went out to everybody who has worked hard and not taken first. For the first time in my life, I think I actually felt humble– I felt the need to be humble– because if I wasn’t, I would truly be cruel. On Saturday night, I felt like I was part of an elite pack of human beings, and I wish every single one of my clients, every single one of my friends, every person in my family, was there with me. I don’t want to be the one at the center, saying, “See! See what you can achieve!” I want to be surrounded by people that are there, too!

There is no “I told you so” left in me. Rather, there is only a promise, to myself above all else:

You have only begun to see what is within me.

David A. Johnston