4-Time National Champion

This picture is what my race looked like for all 20,000m's! The plan for my race at Nationals last week was for me to just stay one step behind Tim and let him drag me through to a good time. I was a little concerned with the race being on the track, especially at the University of Toronto. It is such a soft track which is basically bad for every event in track and field. The softer the track, the slower the times because the more energy you use. Either way, I was very optimistic going into the race and was feeling great!

We were hit with a bit of a surprise 15mins before the race. I went up to the race director and asked where our personal aid station was going to be (it is in the IAAF rule book that in a 20km race, you are allowed to have your own personal drinks). The race director said that we werent allowed to have personal aid. I laughed, and they didnt. They were serious. I was not impressed. They should have warned us well in advance that we werent allowed to have it because its crucial to our race. Its like telling a sprinter that they are not allowed to wear spikes. I was extremely upset but I dealt with it. Their reasoning behind not letting us use our own drinks was because they said that it would stain the track. The track is terrible quality. Anyways, all of the athletes were sneaky and used a sports drink that was clear so that it looked like water so that we could have electrolytes in this summer weather.

I was feeling really good in the warm up and was ready to go. The gun went off and I was feeling so good and it felt so easy, I couldnt believe how easy. I was just going along with Tim feeling like it was a workout. Had a first easy km in 4:52 and then went right into race pace of 4:48. Went through 5km's in 24:08 then the 2nd 5km's in 24:02 for a 10km split of 48:10. At this point I still felt as though I could do that same split for the second half of the race or at the worst a bit slower. My ultimate goal was for 1:36:41 (carding standard). Then at around 12km's my legs started hurting and I struggled from there on. I was still feeling like I was pushing but my legs were just not moving very fast. I ended up having some 5:15km's in there and it was just ugly. I ended up struggling to a 1:38:48 for my final time. I have to say, I attribute the pain in my legs to a few things. The biggest reason: the crappy soft track. I never train on a track let alone a track that soft. I am so used to training on asphalt everyday that I think the softness of the track really hurt my legs. The second thing was that I couldnt use my regular sports drink, Maxim. The drink I had to use usually makes me have cramps by 15km's and thats why I dont use it anymore in training/racing. I think that it didnt have enough salt/electrolytes in it and so my legs were cramping a bit. Even though I didnt get the time I was hoping for, one really good thing came out of the race. I established a new Canadian 20,000m Track Record. Now I can say I have 2 Canadian Records.

Now I am continuing to train as I am trying to make some racing plans for the next month and a half. There really isnt many options left unfortunately. I was hoping to go to Europe for a race in Finland but that race is now only 10km's for women. I have a few options on the table and I feel pretty good about them. One is to do another track 20km's in San Diego (yuck, another track race) and/or to go to New Jersey for the USA 40km RW Championships which is on the road :) Since I have only done 1 road 20km this year, I would much rather go to the race in New Jersey. Ill keep you posted!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Nationals on Friday

Tim and I arrived into Canada this past week and
have really been enjoying time with my family. Its been so nice to be back here again and finally have Tim here with me since he hasnt been here since June 2009! Its also nice to be training on my old course again and seeing a lot of familiar faces.

Training has continued to go well for me. I have been feeling good and workouts have been going well. I have now backed off on the mileage since I race this Friday morning at the Canadian Track and Field Championships. I am really looking forward to this race. Its been really hard not racing in awhile but im ready to go. Im feeling really calm since Tim will be pacing me :) Im a lucky girl, thats for sure! Hes always very good with pace and so I will be able to just shut my brain off and follow him. Unfortunately because of road closure expenses, we will be racing the 20km's on the track. I have done 20km's on the track twice before and I think ive handled it pretty well.

Well we are off to Toronto tomorrow for the race. Wish me luck! Im feeling really good and really looking forward to the race and seeing all my friends again.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Making Some Progress

We just got back from a weekend in Cincinnati, Ohio for the first Clinic of Excellence. It went so well! It was sold out so I was flown out to assist Tim and Jeff. It was soooo HOT and HUMID there! Living in San Diego, you dont get much of that so it was a bit of a shock to the system. It made training a little interesting. I had to stop my workout on Saturday because I thought it wasnt worth putting my body through the rough conditions. Whenever I help with the clinics, my training is definitely not the main priority but its worth the break because I really enjoying meeting new racewalkers and learning about them and watching them make improvements.

Training has continued to go well. I am feeling pretty good these days other than still having problems with my left hamstring but I know how to deal with that now so it doesnt disturb my training. Today I did a speed workout of 5km, 4km, 3km, 2km and 1km all with either 3mins or 2mins rest. I had done this workout on May 8th so it was nice to have something to compare it to. My body felt really good in the warm up but my heart rate was really high. My heart rate was high yesterday also but I know that it is because of the long days outside in the 90+ degree weather and getting home late on Sunday night (1:30am) from our flight. Here were my times:

5km: 25:00 (2.3 Lactate)

4km: 19:44 (1.4 Lactate)

3km: 14:35

2km: 9:32

1km: 4:39

Once I got past the 5km and the 4km it was hard to get myself going a little faster. My hip also made it hard with the stopping for the rest (unlike fartleks) so it was even harder to get up to speed. My times for the most part were very comparable to last time I did this workout but I know that my body was more tired than last time because of the weekend. My 1km was where I wanted it to be. Last time Tim really pushed me the last 1km and it was too fast so this time it was just right. I am very happy with the workout. Its showing good promise for my race in 2.5 weeks.

Now ill be home for another 10 days until I leave to go to Toronto for my Nationals. If anyone is interested in going to a clinic in Toronto, we will be hosting one there on the weekend of August 14-15th. You can find more information here.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

On the Mend

This has definitely been a challenging season for me with lots of ups and downs. My season started off really strong and then after the race on Long Island ive really struggled with some different things. As of late, I have been in what I call a mental injury. Since my races havent gone well or ive run into some back luck, ive really struggled mentally. My training has been going very well for the most part but there has been so many things that have knocked me down that I just havent been able to handle mentally. I ended up taking 6 days off training while I went to the USA National T&F Championships to cheer on my husband Tim and the rest of our TEAM. The time off proved to be very good for me. I decided during that time to mentally re-start my season with new goals. Im not going to let myself get stressed by anything, im going to make sure im doing everything to benefit my training during the day (ie. rest, stretch, to bed early, etc). I had started to get into some bad habits and im turning it all around. Its been a week now since ive made these changes and so far so good. Mentally I am in a much better place, feeling a lot more confident in myself and knowing that my season isnt over yet and there is still lots of time to chase my time goals.

Today I did my first fartlek back. It had been 3-4 weeks since I did a real fartlek and I felt great today. Tim walked with me and we did the Norwegian fartlek. It was pretty chilly out (16c and overcast). We did the first 5km's in 24:00 (fastest split ever for this workout) and then the next 5k was a little bit slower because we were going against the wind. I did 24:25 the 2nd 5k with my 10k being 48:25. This was my fastest Norwegian fartlek by 47 seconds!!!! I ended up doing about 10.3km's in the 50 minute fartlek. I didnt feel exhausted by any means by the end, I felt great. This was a great start for me with 3.5 weeks to go until my next race, the Canadian National T&F Championships on July 30th.

I am feeling very determined and am really looking forward to my Nationals. Its time for me to put everything together and show how good of shape im really in.

Above you will see the cover of the newest book by Jeff Salvage and Tim Seaman called "Racewalk Faster by Training Smarter" with yours truly on the cover :) You can buy the book at www.RacewalkClinic.com. This book is so great! Its based on the same training philosophy that I train by.

Keep on walking!

Rachel

Some Bad Luck

Sorry I havent updated my blog for awhile. Since my last post a lot has happened. In my last post my training had starting to come around again and I was doing very well. My post was before I had left to go back to Canada again for the Art Keay race in Toronto. I left on May 14th to go to Canada which was 2 weeks before the race. Before I left I was doing great and really looking forward to the race. I had some decent training the 2 weeks before the race but the weather was a lot warmer and VERY humid (there is barely ever any humidity in San Diego) so I struggled with the weather quite a bit. My heart rate was higher because of it and it affected my breathing also.

I was feeling very good going into the Art Keay. The morning of the race (here is where my bad luck came in!) I was driving to the race site and unfortunately got into a car accident. Luckily I was fine and so were my other 2 passengers. The man in the other car was also fine but our cars were pretty damaged, my parents will most likely have to write off their car. This was my first car accident so it was very scary for me. We got very lucky because it could have been a lot worst. This was just a few hours before the race and I was VERY shaken up. There was no way that I could race, my mind was just not in the condition to be able to go out there and do a good race. I was so disappointed! This was supposed to be the race where I did a fast time and I was so ready. The whole day was just terrible for me and it was not a good way to leave Canada after having a fun 2 weeks with my family.

The day after the accident I came back to San Diego with my sister Ruthy and just tried to get past the disappointment of the accident and the race. It still lingers in my mind and it has almost been 2 weeks now. I have been able to re-focus and get my head back into training. I am feeling good again and will be racing a 5000m race on Sunday night here in San Diego. I am looking forward to a low key, no pressure race where we can just have fun.

This season has been all over the place for me and im looking forward to an upside soon. Stay tuned for some good results to come.

Keep on walking!

Rachel

Im BACK :)

It has been a week since I have started to feel better and the first words that comes to mind is IM BACK! I am feeling back to normal and am feeling great again. Last year I had a similar few weeks that I feeling down and not performing. After that short period blew over, I was able to great great training in and raced very well again.

Since feeling good again ive had speed work on Saturday and a fartlek today. Saturday we did 5km, 4km, 3km, 2km, 1km all with 3 minutes rest. The goal of the first three intervals was to be between zone #2 and zone #3, not pushing it too much until the 2km and the 1km when I could push a bit more. I finally felt really good and it showed with my times. My times were:

5km: 25:16 (Low Lactate)

4km: 19:45 (2.3 Lactate)

3km: 14:26 (2.8 Lactate)

2km: 9:30

1km: 4:28

I felt good and controlled. My lactates were very good for the pace. Today I did 3 X 4km/1km fartlek and it went very well again. Today was the last hard workout that I could do before my next race since it is only 2.5 weeks away now so I wanted it to be a confidence booster. My times were:

1st: 19:15 (2.8 Lactate)

2nd: 19:09 (3.6 Lactate)

3rd: 18:59 (6.1 Lactate)

I am very happy with how the workout went today. It felt a lot easier than the last time I did this workout over a month ago. The only thing I was not happy with today was my lactates. The first two were fine but the last one was too high. I think that if I didnt push so hard my last km (did 4:39 last km) that my lactate would have been lower but I pushed and the lactate showed. This workout showed that my goal of walking around 1:36 for 20km's is not unrealistic.

My next race is the Art Keay Memorial Racewalk on Toronto Island on May 30th (photo above is of me racing there last year). I am really looking forward to this race since it is one of only two races that I will walk in Canada this year. Its really fun to have my family and friends come to watch me race since it doesnt happen very often. I will walk a 20km there and will have my TEAMmate Maria Michta there with me. Maria will be heading to Canada to train with me for 13 days before the race to do some final preparations. Its going to be really great to have a training partner for a little while.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Ups and Downs of Training

Ever since the race on Long Island on April 11th I have been struggling a little bit with different aspects of my training. Ever since the race my heart rate has been 6-7 beats higher when doing my easy paced workouts. To go along with it, I havent been feeling well. At first I just thought that I was tired but these things went on for weeks. I was feeling very unmotivated and started to feel like my season was going downhill before I even had the chance to go up. I was still walking my normal pace in my zone #1 workouts but I just wasnt feeling well doing them. After a few failed workouts and depressing days, I finally started to see things going up. After not making any conscious changes I started to see my heart rate slowly start to drop and within just 3 days my heart rate dropped 6 beats. Thank goodness I am starting to feel normal. I dont feel out of the woods yet but I know that the climb up is beginning and im starting to get excited again.

I have my next race on the Toronto Island in Canada on May 30th (Art Keay Memorial Race Walks). I will be racing 20km's there and am looking at it as being my first real race for time this year. Even though I had some weeks of nothing feeling very good, I know that I didnt loose any fitness towards my goal of beating my personal best time this year. I will be heading back home to Canada on May 14th and joining me will be my TEAMmate Maria Michta from New York. She will be coming to Canada 13 days before Art Keay to train with me. I am looking forward to having a training partner and getting geared up for the race.

Tomorrow will be the first test of weather this little blimp in my training is truly done. I will do 5km, 4km, 3km, 2km, 1km speedwork. Looking forward to it.

Keep on walking,

Rachel