McPherson Scottish Festival & Strongman Contest
September 24-25, 2005
McPherson, Kansas

Check out the bottom of the page for a writeup.

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     Chan, Travis, and Clay left Rio Rancho at 4:30 pm and made it most of the way through Texas before it got really dark.  We got pulled over in Hooker, Oklahoma for acting suspiciously.  Truth be told, we turned around to flip this monster tire we saw on the side of a building and the cops followed us so we ditched the idea.  A half hour of interrogations later, we were back on the road.  We arrived in McPherson, Kansas at approximately 3:30am local time.

      We were up at 7:30 so Clay could compete in the highland games.  Chan drove Clay to the Scottish Festival and then went back to the hotel to get ready and bring Travis to the Festival.  The weather was in the mid-high 80's with very high humidity, which is a very different kind of heat than we usually experience here in New Mexico.  Clay finished 3rd overall in the A's and we all retired back to the hotel for some pizza, ping pong, pool, and relaxing in the hot tub.  Clay was already bitching about being sore.

     The next morning we woke up and headed to the Festival grounds for the strongman contest.  The contest began promptly at 11:00 with the lightweights and women doing the weight over bar and the middleweight and heavyweight men doing the farmers walk.  Middleweights (Chan, Travis) carried 260lbs per hand for 80ft without any turns.  Heavyweights (Clay) carried 280lbs.  While Chan was able to take 260lbs per hand for 80ft in training with different farmers walk bars, he wasn't quite able to lift these from the ground enough to start walking.  Had he lifted them, his grip would have surely held for the duration of the course.  Travis completed the course with a couple drops.  Clay had a good pace going until he lost his footing and fell, banging his left knee onto the plates.  He got back up and finished out the event but the swelling in the left knee had already begun. 

     We switched gears for the log press.  It was to be a max lift with 3 attempts on a 12" log.  Travis and Chan had limited experience with a log so they opened conservatively.  Travis got 200 for his opener but missed 220.  Chan took 140 easily, 150, then 170.  When he went to press the weight out, it somehow managed to rest on his head briefly before being locked out.  It was an effort that lasted a good 10 seconds on the press.  Clay opened at 200, made 220, and missed 250.

     We broke for lunch and came back with the weight over bar.  Competitors had 3 tries at any given height before being disqualified.  Chan did not have much experience with a weight over bar implement and failed to make the opening height of 9'.  Travis finished at 11', barely missing 12'.  Clay won the event with a toss of 12'6" and then a followup of 13' for fun.  The day before, Clay cleared 13' during the Scottish Games and 14' after the games.

     The loading medley was next and it consisted of 6 objects ranging from 220-275lbs and all had to be lifted onto a 48" platform.  Chan made it through the first few implements without much trouble but stalled out on the 240lb atlas stone.  Travis completed all six loads in 30-something seconds.  Clay made all six loads in 17 seconds.

     The final event was the yoke and keg carry medley.  Travis completed the 550lb yoke walk and 225lb keg carry but Chan wasn't able to quite finish the yoke due to the fact that he set the crossbar a little too high and that made it difficult to walk.  As with the farmers walk event, he was able to complete the course in training without too much trouble but today it was just a little mental mistake that caused him to end where he did.  Clay finished the 600lb yoke and 250lb keg carry in 25 seconds.

     Chan finished 6th, Travis finished 5th, and Clay finished 2nd.  It was a very long weekend, but very fun!