Bodybuilder Hubby competed in his first contest less than a year before we met. We met at Christmas time, the off season, so he wasn’t in his best shape. He told me about his first contest, showed me some pictures and his trophy, but for some reason I just didn’t get it.
He proposed on a beautiful, chilly spring day in the mountains as we were snow-shoeing along the edge of a frozen lake. He wouldn’t let me hold the ring because he was afraid I would drop it in the snow. Which was annoying at the time, mostly because he was probably right.
I started preparing for a wedding; he started preparing for another bodybuilding contest, which was held a month before our wedding. My parents attended that contest with me, wanting to be supportive of their soon-to-be son-in-law. When the women bodybuilders walked out on stage to start the show, my mom’s comment was, “I should get on stage and show them what a real woman looks like!”
Over the next several years, Bodybuilder Hubby competed almost every year, and almost every year, he took 2nd or 3rd place in his weight class. His abs, back and arms were always amazing, but he had a harder time getting his legs to “come out.” At that time, there were two guys in particular who seemed to win every year. They were big guys, intimidating guys. I thought of them as being unbeatable.
Every year, Bodybuilder Hubby made changes to his routine, to his workouts and his diet. He did a lot of research, talked with many other competitors, and figured out what worked best for him.
Then in 2005, everything seemed to just click. Bodybuilder Hubby looked the best I’d ever seen him: abs, back, arms, shoulders, and even his legs. He won his weight class that year at the local contest, which thrilled me. But to win the “Overall” award – the top prize – he would have to beat out the winners of the other weight classes, including one guy who was 50 pounds heavier than he was.
Those guys were on stage posing and turning and posing and turning for seventeen very long minutes while the judges deliberated. I thought Bodybuilder Hubby might end up with 2nd place, which would have been fantastic. But instead, they read the name of the other guy for 2nd place. Bodybuilder Hubby had won.
I screamed. A lot. I have video to prove it.
I was so excited. I loved seeing all the time and effort he’d spent paying off. Secretly, I also figured this would end up being his last contest. After all, once you’ve won the whole thing, what else is left?
Then they added the Pro division.
Because Bodybuilder hubby won that Overall award, he can now compete as an NGA Pro. He again ended up with several 2nd and 3rd places in his first Pro contests, but in his last three competitions, he’s won 1st place every time.
He’s beaten both of those guys I had thought of as “unbeatable.”
Bodybuilder Hubby no longer competes in the big local contest. Now he runs it. He took it over in 2009, and it’s already grown tremendously. It takes an incredible amount of time and energy to put that contest on each year, but he’s committed to it, and, by default, so am I.
I would never in a million years have imagined that natural bodybuilding would end up being such a prominent part of my life, of our life as a married couple. But I can’t complain. I have an award of my own.
At my five-year college reunion I won a prize for “Most Unique Experience:” Painting my husband with fake tan to get him ready for a bodybuilding competition.
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