By day, Diann Smothers works as “The Mighty Librarian,” a research and instruction business librarian who not only works at the reference desk in Snell Library, but along with 13 other research and instruction librarians, teaches 10,000 students a year.

By night, she assumes the identity of “The Mighty Neutron,” a name she calls herself when training for strongwoman competitions. She can press 100 pounds over her head, dead lift 245 pounds and pull a dump truck weighing 25,000 to 30,000 pounds.

“For a librarian, she’s way more motivated [to train] than you’d expect,” said Dave Memont, Smothers’ weight training coach at Total Performance Sports in Everett.

Smothers, who resides in Somerville, became interested in strongwoman competitions just over a year ago after seeing one on TV. After that, she said she knew she could do it herself.

Now, after just over a year of training, Smothers, who stands at a meek five-feet-four-inches, but weighs in at 143 pounds, recently competed in her first national competition where she placed fifth in the women’s lightweight division.

“It went pretty good and I met some really, really great people,” she said. “When you go to an event at that level, it’s more like an ‘Oh, you’re really serious about this like I am.'”

The road to her first national contest was not an easy one. Besides working full-time at Snell Library, Smothers works part-time at a gym near home and trains one to two hours almost every day. But before beginning her training, she needed to find a coach, and, unfortunately, there were none at her nearby gym.

“She never drives,” Memont said. “But she got a car just to come out here [to Everett].”

Smothers trains with weights four days a week using the west side method of training for power lifting. This method works the upper and lower body as well as helping with dynamic exercise, using bursts of power or speed.

When it comes to competitions, the events have names as menacing as the massive amounts of weight involved. Contests called Conan’s Wheel, Viking Press and Atlas Stones pepper Smothers’ r