Last Wednesday I finally arrived into South Korea. I pretty much had a stress free trip and felt good upon arriving at our hotel/temporary home in Changwon City which is about an hour from Daegu. Its a pretty big city and we are in the heart of it which is nice for tourism but not so good for my training. We are a 5 minute walk to the track BUT there really arent any good places for me to train here. I ended up finding a spot beside a busy road that has some longer strips that have some bike lanes blocked off by medians. I found a section that is about 1,350m's total out and back that ive been training on. Its just over 3km's from the hotel so ive been walking there and then going back and forth and then head back. Its the best option I have here but its definitely not great!
The whole team has arrived now and I already knew most of the team already. Its nice to catch up with everyone again and to see everyone in such great shape. We have a small team of 32 athletes but I think that a lot of people will be strongly competitive. Everyone here is very focused and its a great group of people to be around leading into a big race.
The hotel is very nice and modern. I am sharing a room with Kelsie Hendry, a pole vaulter and shes a really great roommate, very easy to be with. The food here is top notch but the down side is that it is the same food for lunch and dinner....Sometimes they are some changes but the staples are there everytime. The really cool thing is that they have sushi and its great! I LOVE sushi!!! The hotel is next to a mall and so its nice to have that to kill time. Today we went to the movies and saw "Planet of the Apes", in english with Korea subtitles so that was a nice change from being in my room all day.
I head to Daegu on Thursday afternoon and will be there for the remainder of my time here. We will be staying in the Athletes Village with the rest of the countries so that will be nice. I race on Wednesday, August 31st so ill have plenty of time in Daegu to settle in before my race.
Training has been going very well here and ive been feeling great. We have been so lucky with the weather. It is MUCH better than I was expecting. The sun has only been out for roughly an hour the whole time I have been here so the temperature has been really cool believe it or not but most days the humidity is still high. I am hoping the weather stays this way till my race :) I adjusted to the time difference right away. I havent had any sleepless nights and I have been feeling good during the day. I got so lucky compared to some of my other teammates.
Today I did my last hard workout before the race and I did 10 x 1k on the track. I felt really good and felt like I didnt have to push the pace to get the times and so that makes me feel confident with just 9 days to go till race day.
I will write again once I get into the village in Daegu. Thanks again for all the support!
Keep on walking,
Rachel
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