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NCSU Wolfpack 2025 Results
I went to NCSU Wolfpack 2025 on Oct 19th I totally bombed. In comparison to how I thought I was going to do, this was probably the worst I’ve ever competed. I know what it was for the most part, I let my first 3x3 average of the day ruin my mood and it just kept getting worse as the day went on, combined with some headaches that I tried to push through.
I slept decently the night previous, I didn’t have to wake up super duper early, I wasn’t in the car for very long. I had 1 energy drink that was only around 112mg of caffeine. All the physical conditions seemed fine. I did leave my water bottle at home, so I wasn’t paying attention to how hydrated I was, so some of my headaches probably were because of that. The venue being as warm as it was also threw me off. A lot of the competitions I’ve been to have been super cold, so with the weather changing I dressed kind of warm and brought some hand warmers, but it all mostly ended up being useless lol. I thought about using the hand warmers before my solves because I see a lot of people doing that, but with how warm I already was I don’t know if it would’ve helped.
In round 1 I ended up with a 10.36 average of 5, which was super close to official PB (or PR, I still don’t know the difference). It would’ve actually been a Sub-10 if my last solve had been right at 10 seconds or below, but I got in my head too much and ended up with a 12.08 which caused the average to be 0.02 seconds from being PB. I was getting sub 9s like crazy before I went up, so when my first solve was an 11 it shook me a little bit. I eventually ended up getting some better solves, but I was so worried about the last solve (it wasn’t a great solution anyway) that I ruined the average.
The same thing pretty much happened for 4x4, except I wasn’t really expecting anything out of the event. I’d practiced a little bit the week prior, but getting sub 40 times was hard for some reason. I ended up doing pretty decent in the first round. It would’ve been a better average if I hadn’t gotten nervous on the last solve, but I don’t think it would’ve been a PB, I would’ve had to have been a PB single for that to happen. Which, wasn’t totally out of the question because I’ve gotten 3 - 33 second solves in competition. I’m just now realizing how much I popped off and choked at NC champs earlier this year.
For 5x5, I was just not feeling great. This was the event I wanted to do well in the most, and after the first 2 solves I was already over it. I was hoping for a 1:05-1:08 average, and possibly a sub 1 single, but it just wasn’t happening. During the 2nd solve I had like 3 or 4 edges that were already mostly paired, but as I was looking for something to match it felt like a flashbang went off in my brain and I took 20 seconds to recover. It’s not as bad in the video I took, but I can tell when it happened. It was really only a 1 second pause. Unlike 3x3 and 4x4 I actually clutched the last solve and got a PB of 1:04.52. So, for the rest of the competition I didn’t have to worry about trying to break a PB to keep my PB stream going (it’s up to 18 now, which is all of my competitions).
I meant to pack a lunch, but forgot so I ended up eating at this burger place downstairs from the room the competition was in. I ate with a few of the delegates I’m friends with, and it was pretty nice. I was really annoyed with how I was doing, and I didn’t feel great so I didn’t eat all of my food, but it was a decent burger. I’m not sure I like potato buns for burgers though.
The next few averages were mid at best. I wasn’t looking to do well in Skewb, so much so that I forgot I signed up for it until that morning. 3x3 was partly me being in my head, feeling rough still, and just wanting to go home and 4x4 was more of the same.
What I Learned
I think this was a good learning experience and shows more of what I need to do to become a better competitor and what I need to work on in relation to my preparation and mentality. I’ll be sure to bring a water bottle and stay more hydrated to help with headaches and feeling yucky. I struggle with that at home anyway. As far as mentality, I’ve gotten better at not worrying about my placings. When I was younger and faster in relation to the overall competition I did worry about placing top 3 or top 5, but now that I’m pretty far behind I worry more about how my results are in comparison to the last competition I attended. Which is a good thing, I’m comparing myself now to myself back then which is more in my control. That’s the main goal with stoicism, controlling what we can and not worrying/stressing about what we can’t. Now, I struggle with not getting solves as fast as I hoped I would get. I put in all this time practicing and doing thousands of solves to get sub-par solves, and it’s really frustrating. It feels like that practice was a waste. But was it really?
The more you learn with cubing, the more you learn to control about your solve, but really, a lot of the solve is outside of your control. You might not get a good starting cross, you might get an F2L/OLL/PLL/ZBLL case you don’t know, etc. These things you can try to influence, but sometimes you can’t. So you might end up with a time that you’re not happy with. But because that 1 solve was bad, that doesn’t mean the rest will be. There’s nothing stopping you from getting a better time the next solve and finishing out strong. It’s really hard to forget the last solve, but I think you’re much better of if you can figure out how to do it.
One example I have of this is in my Gobbler Cube Day 2017 video. I was already nervous because I was 2nd seed and Keaton was incredibly fast and probably able to bust out a 5 second solve if the scramble was good. I wasn’t doing great for the first 3 solves, and on Keaton’s 3rd solve he got a 6.79. At that point I knew for sure I wasn’t coming close to his time, so all my nerves went away and I was able to pull off a low 9 and a high 8. I stopped ruminating on those 3 not so great solves and did better than what I thought I could.
It’s been 8 years since that competition, good lord I’m getting old lol
It’s really close to the end of the month, so I’m going to cut this one short. I hope you guys have a good Halloween, be safe and have fun! I’m probably going to go over to a friend’s house to watch The Batman to finish up our Halloween movie list we’ve been going through.