2008 Arnold Blog

This year I made my first trip to the Arnold Classic in Ohio with my boyfriend rlxmuscle, aka Rudy.

I have to say it ended up being an experience that will always stay with me and was a huge motivation. I was able to meet many of the men and women that I look up to and hope to become one day.

Rudy and I left first thing in the morning around 3 a.m. two plane trips later we were in Columbus Ohio, tired but ready for the day. When we first got to the expo it was overwhelming, first we had to find it! Once into the Columbus Convention Center we headed towards the expo and caught our first glimpse of the masses of people we would be spending our weekend with.

It was amazing how many people had come to the expo. Once inside the door to the expo we saw how big it was and all the vendors, holy cow! When we finally decided which way to go, we found ourselves at the Met-RX booth where we met Peter Putnam.

Can I say, I have never met a nicer man! He actually recognized Rudy and I from our BodySpaces. We had PMed each other a couple of times on the site. After we met Peter we continued to walk around, sample shakes of who knows what (most were VERY good), pick up free samples (YAY!), and met with more pros. The first day we met Jay and Carrie Cutler, they were also amazingly nice people. Carrie even invited us up to the Jay Cutler Classic. We also met Dennis Wolf and Desmond Miller.

The second day was much busier. As soon as we into the Convention Center we saw hundreds of people. It was a sea of people all lined up for tickets; thank God we bought ours in advance! It was hard to navigate, but we managed to meet a lot of people. I met a girl from BodySpace while in line to do a VPX contest for Redline Princess. That was tons of fun. We also met our friends Roe and Lisa Person from BodySpace; they were working at the MHP booth.  While walking around the expo we also got recognized from BodySpace by a bunch of people, in OHIO! It was pretty crazy.

We met up with Fern (or msfitness) herself working at the Gaspari booth. And we caught up with Justice from American Gladiators. Taking a break outside the expo in the lobby we met poor injured Victor Martinez, who even despite having to sit out of the Arnold, seemed to be in a good mood and talked to us for a couple of minutes. We went over to the Animalpak booth after that and met up with fellow CT resident Evan Centopani, who invited us to Gold’s in New Haven.

At the Six Star booth we took a quick picture with “L-Train” Lionel Brown, who ave us the inside scoop on an upcoming DVD, telling us there will be one SOON!  In bright yellow I spotted beautiful fitness model Timea Majorova. And at the Flex booth I caught up with Jessica Paxson-Putnam, and like her husband, she was very sweet. She answered all my questions I had and gave me some great advice. Peter and Jess make the BEST couple!

Our final encounters of the second day were Lee Priest and Jamie Eason. We actually caught both of them coming out of there respective bathrooms! Even so they gladly took pictures with us. Sadly we did not make it to any of the shows, but plan on not missing them next time!

After returning to our hotel and after some MUCH needed sleep we returned for the third and final day of the Arnold. The third day was much less crowded. We were able to catch jay once again for another quick picture, and we got to meet Ronnie Coleman (YEAH BUDDYYY!) and gorgeous Marzia Prince. We were making our way past the MuscleTech booth when all of a sudden Chris Cormier jumps on the tables and pulls up Melvin Anthony to start flexing. Soon Darrem Charles, Gustavo Badell and Branch Warren are all up on the tables posing and dancing, it was truly amazing to see these men in real life having a pose down right in front of us!

After that we made our way to part of the MD booth where Monica Brant was signing. She was very sweet and made sure she took the time to talk to everyone.  After that we finally made our way to the BB.com booth, it had been mobbed all weekend! Rudy and I both got beanies and our BodySpace t-shirts from Jerome Ferguson (he is funny!) we got to meet Bob Cicherillo, got our chick magnets, and bought the War of the Worlds DVD (Bob’s DVD is awesome by the way!) before we left the expo we caught up with Brandon Curry, HUGE Trey Brewer, and Rudy’s favorite, Branch Warren! Sadly we never even saw Arnold himself, maybe next time!

Finally the Expo was ending; all the free samples, t-shirts, and advertisement cards had been handed out. VPX and BSN bags littered the floor of the expo, and everyone was ready to go home. The Arnold is an amazing experience for anyone who loves and appreciates fitness like Rudy and I do. It is great how visitors can participate in contests and meet all their favorite athletes. We can’t wait to visit again next year!!!