Hi all,

Well what a busy time I've had since Sunday. I apologise for not getting the time to write this until now.

Okay, well Sunday was a great day! The comp was a huge success for the ANB and as usual, a sell-out with standing room only. The venue, Club Marconi is also the same venue for the national championships and it is huge. The fact that the ANB Sydney show sold out this venue is purely amazing. As I have always said, in my opinion the ANB Sydney show is THE biggest show in the year. This year there was 160 competitors without double-ups in catergories. That's right... 160 RAW NUMBERS!! Just amazing for only the second show of the year.

Personally, I was in the best shape I have been in and I was happy to place third. The eventual winner Anthony Da Silva is a phenominal bodybuilder and I have no doubt in my mind that we will be seeing and hearing of Anthony a lot more in the years to come. The second place getter was a long time friend of the ANB, Kevin Allwood. I remember Kevin competing with the ANB in 1999 and has made a return to the competitive stage. He is a mature bodybuilder with very thick, dense muscle tissue. The same as Anthony really. Both of them were going to be very hard to beat and as it turned out, I placed third. One of my best mates, Sung Lay was the eventual overall winner of the show and it was well deserved. Sung is a great bodybuilder and destined for pro status in the near future. 

Unfortunately, Sunday night and Monday were not the best of days. The carb loading I did on Saturday caught up with me and I had really bad indigestion and reflux. For some reason my stomach didn't quite agree with 3.5kg of potato sitting in it... lol. I have no idea why??? :-) Anyways, it's all good now but I definately learned a valuable lesson. If you're going to eat that much during carb loading and you haven't eaten that much potato in years, make sure you take your digestive enzimes to help process it!! :-)

This week I have been flat out with work and have not even thought about the comp until today really. I have been driving long distances and been teaching long hours, therefore I have been focused on my work. Tonight is the first time I have relaxed.

Where to from here? Well that's easy to answer. I will be competing next at the 2013 ANB Nationals in the under 90kg division. My prep for this starts on Monday. I have my diet sorted, a new training program and new goals. Day by day, week by week and month by month, I will be focused 110% on taking an even better physique to the stage next year and I am already excited about it.

I would like to thank the following people for their friendship and support along the way (in no particular order):

Robert Powell, Maria McCarter, Aaron Braithwaite, Murray Graham, Ryan Laos, Sam Mamo, my sponsor Muscle Beach Supplements Australia and all the athletes within the team, my other sponsor YMCA Australia who thankfully provide me with free gym membership, my wife, my parents, my children, my friends, Anthony Da Silva, Scott Hill from Tone Up Weight Loss Systems for assisting me with dietary advice and posing practice, Michael Clunne, the owner of Muscle Beach, Mike Lee, Eugene Yip, Andrew Kim, Sasho Ognenovski and all the Leisuredome crew and i'm sure there's more but at this point I'll leave it at that . 

One last final message to everybody who is competing this year, especially the first timers.... HAVE FUN!! And remember, "You can't win until you're not afraid to lose. It doesn't matter if you come first, second, third or don't even place. What really matters is that you were there in the first place. THAT makes you a winner."

All the best,

DB