At long last, we did it

Just back from New York from my sister's FIFTH NPC national fitness competition and after six looong years... untold hours spent choreographing her routine and mixing music, countless days of practicing after work and on weekends, working out, doing gymnastics, painting on several coats of spray tanner and destroying many a hotel towel and force-feeding herself bland steak/chicken/fish/asparagus/oatmeal every three hours and downing two gallons of water a day... my sister Rose Hendricks finally turned "Pro" in the sport of Fitness competition.

She got second place which is fine by us, since the top 2 winners receive their Pro cards. That means they will now be able to compete in shows with other Pros, where the competition is at a much higher level, Top 5 winners receive prize money, and can land lucrative contracts as spokesmodels and appear on fitness magazine covers.

But money and fame has never been the motivating factor. Many times Rose has said, "This is what I do." Fitness became part of her identity (and mine) the moment she stepped on stage to compete for the first time back in 1996 and asked me to help. And to turn Pro in this brutal sport, in which you transform your body and dedicate part of your daily life to working out, at the age of 38---when the 4th place winner was only 17---is truly amazing and is probably the #1 item on my sister's list of Things to Do in Life that she can now cross off.

All those times I said:

do it again
that wasn't clean enough
your push-up didn't go down all the way
you didn't hold that long enough
too fast
too slow
it needs to be bigger
smile dammit

I never told you how GOOD I think you are, did I? I am so proud of you!