Grrrr.... Strong man ... rrrrr

Yes, this is my husband. Ok, little background info for yah. Jeff grew up in a family of all boys, 4 to be exact, with a spacing of no greater than 21 months between them. Like 4 kids in 7 years or something to effect. That being said: VERY COMPETITIVE. It's only natural that they would create the very, very, very (very, very) elaborate Strong man competition to prove their worth! Their Masculinity! Their Superiority! (k, I'm being dramatic, but you get the idea) ---- side note: In reflection I feel very lucky that Jeff is the middle child and deflects all competitive tendencies due to his brothers ... anyways that's another story. The real story: STRONGMAN 2009! I really had no expectations, clue, thoughts ... how Jeff would due in this competition. WAIT -- before I go any further. Do you see the dog that joined the men in their initiatory group photo of the competition. So fitting. There was 10 of them at the competition (!!!) .. but that once again is another story... back to Jeff. Jeff didn't train (yes some of these men did train for months before this family and friends event) or really give thought to this competition except for his hair. Soo... I was slightly surprised when he ran the 1 mile run in 5 minutes 10 seconds getting second place. (Beaten by the skinny track guy in the front of the group photo) Here he is after the run, taking a breather before the next event -- the log toss. --- I can't help it, isn't Levi cute? Jeff puked after this event. He didn't have enough time to cool down from running. The next event was bench press (no pictures) then the dead lift shown here: Jeff got up to 275 on the dead lift. I guess moving all those boxes and furniture for the last three weeks helped in this event! Next event was pull-ups ... then the tree hug. Here's Seth showing the men how it's done: And here's Jeff, he held on for 3 minutes something and took 2nd, I was impressed. Although, he was once again beaten by the skinny track guy. I don't have pictures of the other competitors, but the ones that didn't put on pants and a long sleeve shirt were fairly bruised and cut. No pain no gain! Next event was the 40 yard dash and Jeff won that event ... and here is a picture of grandma with her oh-so-smug helpers steering the suburban for the car-push. The last competition was pretty hilarious, it was the obstacle course ... running, biking, paint balling through the trails in their back woods. ... the hilarity is the enormous Costco cupcake that they had to devour in the middle of these athletic feats. Everyone agreed it was the hardest part of the competition. The frosting was as tall as the cake! I really should have taken a picture of the beast. Well there you have it the biased annual report of strong man competition 2009. And the results: Jeff finished 4th of 10 -- and it was overall a lot of fun for the participant and for the peanut gallery. I believe there is a website ... with profiles of each competitor and records of times of the events if anyone is interested beyond this blog post (I told you they took this thing seriously!) Another note... Jeff did shave off his beard and mohawk after the competition. whew!