I am frustrated with myself for taking THIS LONG to post. Life happens - I'm sure I am going to forget some of the things I waned to remember and talk about, but I will do my best. Peak week was a very interesting experience. My body was drained, but the excitement of stepping on stage fueled my fire beyond belief. I can't believe in just 2.5 short weeks I will be competing again!
I competed in Bikini: Open Class A, Novice, and Masters. I did not place in Open or novice, but I did place 5th in masters.
I had such an amazing experience. My thoughts on show day were all over the place. Now that I have had time to reflect I can definitely say I had an incredible experience. I learned so much about myself and the sport, yet there is so much more to learn. This is only the beginning for me.
I know I stepped on the stage in the best shape of my life yet I know there is so much improvement yet to be made. I had no intentions of placing and when I left pre-judging I had no inclination that I was going to place. Therefore, placing 5th in masters was just icing on the cake for me. 
One of the first surprising sights I saw was the amount of girls 'pigging out' between pre-judging and finals. While my paperwork from my team suggested I would see this I was not prepared for what I saw. Wow!! Aside from having some nut butter and a few bites of treats I hung tight until finals were over. After finals my hubby and I went to the cheesecake factory where we shared a delicious meal! The day after my show was a total day of rest for me - food/exercise/brain - I enjoyed so many things I hadn't had in weeks. It started with iHop and ended with Black and Bleu...with lots of treats in between. 
I started out my week very strong, but by midweek I started having ridiculous cravings. I was so frustrated with myself as I hadn't experienced this since the beginning of last prep. I was emotionally and physically down and by Friday morning I ended up giving in to a craving. I had a peanut butter egg, a marshmallow bunny and handfuls of candied cashews. While shoving this junk in my face I was totally justifying it, but afterwards boy did I feel like crap. I called my husband all but in tears. He thought I wrecked my car or something and was relieved to hear that I just had a minor food slip up. I tried to blow it off, but I just couldn't so later that day I emailed my coach and told her the truth. She put it all into perspective for me when she replied by laughing, telling me to tighten it up, and saying to quit being so damn hard on myself. :-)Saturday and Sunday I decided my body still needed some rest so I allowed myself to rest and recover. I came back strong this week. I have 3 weeks until my show and I am ready to give it all I got. Especially now that I have feedback from 3 of the judges that were present. The consensus overall was that I am just a little too lean and need a little more muscle development; especially in the glutes. My coach agrees with this so we are going to add some additional healthy fats to my diet. Each and every judge said I looked nice and tight which was awesome to hear!
Other things I learned:
In bikini it is definitely as important if not MORE important to have a very 'sexy' stage presence. Going into my next show some changes I am going to make are: get my hair trimmed and shaped, pull my suit sides up higher to shorten my torso a little and make my legs look longer, and I MUST work on my stage presentation.
Now - my mind is ready, set, and it's go time - 18 days until Lehigh Valley!!
