Since being in college, I have always had one problem, which is maintaining my weight. It doesn't fluctuate up and down like many -- it dips below my wrestling weight. After I make weight the first time, it seems like I can never get above that weight. Last year, wrestling 174 pounds, I would rarely be above it, and many times I would weigh around 168 pounds after practice. Now, this isn't always a bad thing. It is nice when you can eat full meals the night before weigh-ins, or even the morning of weigh-ins before stepping on the scale, but it always felt like I was smaller than everyone else.
I think this year is going to be a little different. As I mentioned in an earlier Rev Blog, I try to eat right, 5-7 times a day and stay hydrated at the same time. This was a little difficult to do when Friday came around and I was still five pounds over. When I came to Dana, I was introduced to a new way of doing things I had never done before, which is practicing before dual meets. Obviously, this isn't a full-out practice with live wrestling and conditioning, but a good, hard drilling practice to really get loosened up and get those last pounds off before stepping on the scale. At first, I thought this was a bit ridiculous, working out the day of a meet, but then I realized that I was working out anyway most of the time on my own to make the weight in high school, and I really started to like the idea of practicing before weigh-ins.
Anyway, after working out Friday morning, I was able to eat breakfast and lunch, and get ready for our hour-long practice before weigh-ins. I felt a little sluggish during the workout, but I got down to weight, which is always a big relief for any wrestler the first time. However, it was especially relieving for me as most of the summer I saw the scale tipping 205 pounds … actually figuring I would end up at 184 pounds.
At 174 pounds, Marshall Marquardt pinned Tim Flick of Bacone College at 4:23.
We weighed in and got ready to go. We were up against the 11th ranked team in the nation, but our coach always preaches to never take anyone lightly, because if you aren't ready to go, you can always get beaten. I could tell that we were ready as a team. We were relaxed, but intense at the same time. It's just one of those things you start to recognize in your teammates faces when you have been around for a while. You know if they are ready to go … and we were.
We started off at 125 pounds, and never looked back, dropping only one match to Bacone at 133 pounds. I told my coach that I was going to go after my first collegiate technical fall ever, but when I saw my chance to go for the pin, I took it. I felt satisfied with my match as I did my cool down, and yet I was still somewhat disappointed because I knew I could have accomplished my match goal of a tech fall.
I think it is very important to set short-term goals for yourself -- which is another idea our coaches preach to us. I try to set goals for myself every day, whether it is not getting taken down or scored on in a 45-minute grind match, or staying after to get 50 more repetitions on my stand-up, I believe setting goals make you a better wrestler. You may not always reach these goals, but it seems like you try that much harder to make things happen, than when you just go into a practice or match with no intentions on how you want to perform.
I am sure that most of you go into a match with the main goal of winning, but next time try to set a goal for yourself, such as getting 10 takedowns on your opponent, or not allowing your opponent to score offensively on you. I like to do this in practice as well, when I get ready to wrestle a match against my teammate. I think it helps me prepare better for actual dual meets or tournament matches. These are just little things that seem to make a world of difference in my practices and matches.
Until next time, keep getting better.
Marshall Marquardt
Past Entries:
Entry 4 (11/9/05)
Entry 3 (10/26/05)
Entry 2 (10/13/05)
Entry 1 (10/1/05)
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