I took a week off after nationals to rest, recover, and get my body and mind off wrestling for a week to prepare myself for the last final push coming up. I went to Florida to visit my girlfriend, Kayla, and to get my mind off one of the worst performances of my life. It was very nice to see her and she helps me relax and refocus on the positive. Kayla (besides my family and coaches) is one of my biggest supporters and shares my drive to do the best that I can at everything I do. She also helps to edit these blogs so she gets a double thank you for that.
After that nice rest I was ready to get back on the mat but one of my main training partners, Mike Tamillow, was injured at Nationals and could not be on the mat for a while, so I needed to go somewhere else and train and boy, did I pick the right place. Ben Askren had a fantastic Nationals performance, so I decided to head down to his place and train with him at Missouri. Missouri is a great and beautiful campus and a great college. It was a great set up. Ben is great on and off the mat and let me crash at his place and work out with him, his brother, Max Askren, and a new addition to the Missouri staff which will help out their program tremendously, Kurt Backes. It was more than I could have asked for to wrestle those three. Our daily routine consisted of the following: We would get up early and either drill, working on our par tar in the morning or I would go to Kurt Backes’ new house. Kurt is done with college and married so has a nice “grown-up house” – no 2pac or biggie posters, just matching pillows, fake fruit, and a big fancy mirror, and strange pictures that he and his wife picked out. But the place was sweet and Kurt has all the lifting needs in the garage. It was great lift, very different from what the normal human does. It involved lifting a very heavy keg filled with sand. I was only able to lift and do the full reps once, Kurt could do it every time the animal he is and Ben, well Ben isn’t very strong and the keg is very heavy. He got like ¾ of one but it was tough. Then came some tire hits with a sledge hammer and my favorite training with the reaction ball. I was like the fastest dog ever getting after that ball. Then generally in the afternoons we go live most of the time. It was a group of three or four: me Kurt, Ben, Max and others warmed up and got after it. The last day Ben and I went a full 20 minutes live and it was great because Ben has phenomenal endurance and to wrestle someone like him that hard for a full 20 minutes was great for my shape and skill. We both scored tons of points and got a really good blow in. I was there until Thursday, waking up and lifting with Kurt one last time, and then was back on the road home to Chicago. That was a great training week for me and I will have another one this week. Keith Gavin comes in Wednesday May 14th, and we are training here until we leave for the Olympic training center. Both of us are the finalists for the University World Team Trials. Both of us will work with one another to make that team and then continue to get ready for the Olympic Trails. I will be back next time to tell about how our week goes and how our training went. Thanks for reading and checking out how I’m doing. Take care everyone and God bless.

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