Chuck Kasson

I haven't posted since Illinois' Strongest Man because I really haven't trained. I trained for one week in there, but it was really just maintenance work. I figured that I couldn't really get a lot stronger in 3 weeks, but I could sure get weaker i.e. injured. So I played it pretty conservative and it worked out well.

Nebraska Highlander Recap:

Having not really trained much since the last contest, I wasn't sure how things would go. Couple that with the fact that I had never done any of the highland games events (Braemar stone, weight for distance, and weight for height) and had only done the yoke 3 times prior to this contest. I wasn't expecting much. I had only one goal for the day and that was to press 300 in the log. As it turned out, it was downpouring the morning of the contest. They decided to get all the strongman events out of the way first and then move on to the highland events. The log was first and I began to warm up. My original plan, and what I hit in practice, was to open at 260, then 280, then try for 300. I had not been able to consistantly get 300 during training, so I thought it was a reasonable goal. My previous contest best was 280. It turned out that I pressed 280 in warmups, so I figured I'd change my plan and open there. It was a good decision because I pressed it easy, then moved to 300 for my second press. I then decided to try for an all time log PR and shoot for 320. No problem with it at all!
The next event was the yoke. This was the only event that really fucking pissed me off all day. I set my yoke height way too short. It was no problem with no weight, but when I went with the load, it was dragging along bad. Then to top it all off, I ended up not crossing the line completely at the end, which probably cost me about 4 extra seconds. Really horrible decision, but I guess it's good it happened in a contest that doesn't matter, rather than say...Nationals. From then on, the day went reasonably well. I blew the field away in the farmers by around 10 seconds. The stone put was interesting, but with my shot put background I was able to pull out 3rd. The weight for distance was a real learning experience. Fortunately I think I had the shortest learning curve and ended up 3rd there as well. We were competing against a WORLD CHAMPION highland games competitor. So while everybody else was throwing the weight around 45 or so...this guy was in the mid 80s! It was really fun to watch him toss. The weight for height is where it really got interesting for me. I was sitting in second or third at that point and had never done the event before. I ended up opening at around 10 feet, having no experience. I guess I cleared it pretty well and stayed out until 13 feet. I hit each height up to 15 feet with no misses! There was only a few guys left around that height, one was a Pro strongman from Austrailia and the other was the World Champ. We battled up to 16.5 feet, where both Me and Mr. Highland games stalled and split first. I was the most proud of this, especially never having done it. All in all I ended up 2nd, but I can't shake the fact that my yoke walk cost me the title. I'll just chalk it up to experience and never do it again...


Still learning...