Last few days at 7000 feet

Our last few days in Flagstaff were interrupted by some bad weather. We ended up getting a lot of snow that forced us to train indoors for a few days. Luckily on the Monday I only had 12km easy racewalk to do and the guys were supposed to do some 500m's anyways. On Tuesday Lauren and I had intervals to do so all in all it worked out really well to be forced to train indoors on the indoor track at NAU.

Tuesday I had 7 X 2km's with 2mins rest inbetween. I had a good feeling after the workout on Saturday and I knew that I wanted and needed to do better than the week before since last week I tried to do the same workout but it ended up being a bit of a disaster and was very discouraging. I think that last week I still wasnt 100% over my bad cold. Luckily this week it went really well and I felt really good, even better than Saturday. The goal today was to just make sure that I started "slow" enough and gradually got faster for each interval. Here is how it went:

1st: 10:15

2nd: 10:12 (2.3 Lactate)

3rd: 10:02

4th: 9:56 (3.9 Lactate)

5th: 9:54

6th: 9:47 (3.6 Lactate)

7th: 9:38

I felt really strong and I know that I wasnt pushing too hard. I technically could have gone faster since my lactate really wasnt that high. 4.0 lactate is considered what you can for 20km's but I didnt think that I needed to push any more since technically you can walk about 10 seconds faster per kilometer than you do at altitude so I was walking plenty fast. Thanks goes to Coach Tim for walking a few of them with me.

On Wednesday we left Flagstaff to drive to Albuquerque, NM for the USA Indoor T&F Championships where we have four of our Champions International TEAMmates racing today (Tim Seaman and Tyler Sorensen) and tomorrow (Lauren Forgues and Maria Michta). What a difference the drop in altitude makes. It is 2000 feet difference here than in Flagstaff and we have been feeling great since we have arrived here. My heart rate has been so low and training has been feeling so easy. I think that Tim and Lauren will have a great benefit from being in Flagstaff.

We will be finally making our way home to San Diego tomorrow, I really look forward to getting back home and going about regular life. We have had a great training camp with lots of good memories.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Finally Adjusting to Altitude

Well we have now been in Flagstaff for just over 2 weeks and this time more than the other two times that we have been here, I have been having trouble adjusting. This was mostly happening because I was sick the first week that we were here. This delayed the adjustment a lot and I also know that if you get sick at altitude that you have the potential of getting no benefits from being here. This started to worry me a lot. My heart rate was really high and I was feeling terrible. I took the first Saturday easy instead of doing a fartlek workout I just walked easy distance. A few days later on the Tuesday, I had been feeling better so the plan was for me to do 7 X 2km. I clearly was still not completely recovered from my cold because I felt terrible. I ended up only doing 5 X 2km's and 2 X 1km's. This really made me feel discouraged but still I moved on with the rest of the week hoping that Saturday's workout would be better. The weather was supposed to be getting bad on Saturday so we decided to try and workout at the NAU Lumberjack Skydome (indoor track). This facility is amazing! Its built of wood and is massive, its sort of hard to tell from the photo above. It was a bit of a treat as far as indoor tracks go since it was 300m's. Coach Tim wanted me to do 12 X 1km so that I could get a positive workout in and feel good. I walked the first 5 with Lauren as her workout was 6 X 1km and 6 X 500m. We started off easy and gradually picked it up. My times were:

1st: 5:12

2nd: 5:09

3rd: 5:05

4th: 5:02

5th: 5:01

6th: 4:53 (3.2 Lactate)

7th: 4:52

8th: 4:48

9th: 4:48 (4.0 Lactate)

10th: 4:49

11th: 4:49

12th: 4:45 (5.0 Lactate)

Im really happy with the workout. It felt pretty easy for the most part and im just really happy that I had a good workout. This is technically my first "hard" workout in over a month. I think that even just based on this workout that I could probably walk 1:40 for 20km's at altitude but even thinking that, I really dont think that I want to go to the IAAF World Racewalk Cup in Chihauau, Mexico this May. Id rather spend my time and effort going somewhere that I can walk a good time. We will see....my racing schedule has not been set yet.

We only have a few more days left here in Flagstaff. Unfortunately starting yesterday we got a lot of snow. I still managed to walk 25km's in a blizzard but it was tough. Today there was no way that we could train outside. It looks like I am at home in Canada here today. Instead of walking on the treadmill we decided to go back to the indoor track and walk on the outside lane there instead for 12km's. Tomorrow we will go back to the track again and I will attempt to do 7 X 2km's again. Should be fun :) Then we leave on Wednesday to go to Albuquerque, NM for the USA Indoor Track and Field Nationals where Tim, Lauren and a few of our other teammates will be competing. Tim will be attempting to win his 12th Indoor Championship title and also trying to surpass Henry Laskau in overall National Championship titles. Currently he is tied with 42 titles.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

46:25 and then off to Flagstaff!

Tim and I had a nice and busy 5 days at home before we left for our drive to Phoenix to visit with my grandpa and then race at the US 50km Racewalk Championships. We had planned on meeting Lauren Forgues, Trevor and Bruce Barron there to race and then drive up the mountain to Flagstaff for altitude training. Myself, Tim and Lauren had planned on walking just 10k and Trevor 20k. The plan was for Tim, Trevor and I to walk together for 10k this way they would help me get a 10k PB hopefully and it would be a good pace for Trevor enroute to his 20k. Tim and I had been sick the whole week (Tim worst than me) and so Tim didnt want to push himself too much before going to Flagstaff. The race went really well. It was great weather (maybe a little chilly for the first few laps) and the course was great (other than the hairpin turns that consisted of just one cone). We walked 9:22 for the first lap (2km loops) and progressively got faster with the next laps being 9:18, 9:18, 9:17 and 9:09. It was a nice negative split with the 5ks being 23:19 and 23:06 finishing up in 46:25. A minute and 5 second PB, wow! It felt great, it didnt feel terribly hard but not super easy either. I am thrilled with the time especially since I have done barely anything fast, no km's at that pace in practice at all really. This bodes really well for later in the season since we are starting to do some fartleks now twice a week. Trevor also finished up really strong breaking the US Junior 20km record by almost 6 minutes walking 1:31:51. Lauren also had a very good race walking her 2nd fastest 10k ever in 51:16. It was a great start to our training camp in Flagstaff. I think we could have all walked at least a second faster per turn since they were so tight so that gives us a lot more potential for the next race.

We are now in Flagstaff and luckily for us, the snow storms seem to have stopped, at least for the time being. There is quite a bit of snow on the side of the road but the roads are completely clear. We love it up here! We are staying in the same condo as last year, right beside our 2.5km training course. We will be here for 2.5 weeks and then we will be driving to Albuquerque, NM for the US Indoor Nationals where Tim hopes to win his 12th National Indoor title and surpass Henry Laskau as 2nd most National Championships of anyone in track and field for the USA. Im really looking forward to watching him race since it will be my first time at that meet.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Champions Again!

Well as you know, I have been having hamstring problems and so I either havent been able to finish speed/fartlek workouts or do many at all. This was different than last year for sure. Last year I did not many fast workouts but the ones I did were successful and gave me a lot of confidence for Millrose Games. My build up was a lot different this year though with much less fast work. Even though I didnt really want to test my hamstring anymore before the race, my coach, Tim, wanted me to walk 2 X 500m's not all out but fast enough to build up my confidence a bit before the race. I ended up walking them in 2:11 and 2:07 and didnt feel like I was pushing all out. This helped my confidence a lot although I still did get very nervous the day before the race.

I was feeling very good all day Friday. We went for a 2km hike just to wake up our bodies and loosen up a bit. We headed off from Long Island into NYC on the train for my 4:35pm race time. We met up with the rest of our TEAM that were also racing there and then headed to the Madison Square Garden to warm up. I felt very calm once I was with everyone and was warming up. The race started 15 minutes earlier than scheduled and that made all of us very upset. With no choice, we all headed to the start line early and I just didnt worry about it. Before I knew it, the gun went off and all the girls bursted to the lead and me, well, I was left behind a bit. After that I got a little worried about getting lost from the lead girls so I did my best to get around everyone and finally caught up to them within about 50m's. I sat behind Loretta and Teresa and then Teresa made a move around Loretta and I went with her. I then sat behind her until a lap and a half to go and then passed her and put the hammer down. I managed to beat her by 3 seconds in the last 250m's (roughly). I wish that Coach Tim would have told me to pass Teresa sooner because I think I could have broken my meet record but im still very happy with the win and especially happy with how easy the race was. Throughout the whole race I was looking over at Tim and being like 'hey, this is easy, I am going to win this'. I knew it after a few laps that I would win because of how good I felt and how easy it felt. All this with virtually no speed/fartlek work.

Tim's race went equally well. He led the race right from the beginning and led till the end. He looked great, much better than Andreas haha :) (see race photos at: http://www.racewalk.com/defaultRW.asp)

You can see the women's race video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHHC7fTGomY and the men's race video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaYOIM-lBdM&feature=autofb.

Now we have been home in San Diego for a few days and we leave again tomorrow (Friday) for Phoenix to race at the US 50km RW Championships there on Sunday. I will be walking a 10k with Trevor and Tim as they walk 20k. Ill be looking for a nice PB! Wish us luck!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

What a Week of Weather!

There was quite a bit of bad weather all around the world this past week and even though San Diego is usually excluded from this, this week it was a different story. It was brutal conditions all week here. It was raining so hard and the wind was incredible. It was so windy on Thursday that when I was regular walking to our starting point on our training course here, the wind literally knocked me over and I dove into the mud. At that point, I took it as a sign that I should take the day off. Tim had wanted me to take a day off sometime soon anyways because of my hamstring and I hadn't taken a day off since Christmas day, so it was ok.

I tried again to do a fartlek on Tuesday but after doing 4 X 1km/500m I had quite a bit of pain in my hamstring again and so I decided to stop. I wasn't even going very fast, I was only doing 20km pace for the 1km's (4:52/km) but the pain still came on. Since I still had pain I decided to get an appointment with our massage therapist and get her to do some needling in my hamstring since that has helped relax it in the past. Ive still been able to train every day but just easy zone #1 workouts, nothing fast. To say the least, I am a little under prepared for the Millrose Games which are this coming Friday, January 29th. Last year I had only done a handful of speed/fartlek workouts before the race but this year I have only had one! I think that with just my base work that I have a lot of strength and that I should still be able to walk fast, I just wish for my confidence that I would have had a few more workouts faster than zone #1.

This week with the day off I did 114km's. I wanted another 130km + week but because of the day off, it wasn't possible. I did a really good 25km walk yesterday. Its the "fastest" zone #1 walk ive ever done. I walked 2:22:31, a minute faster than last week and it felt so easy and heart rate was good. Today I walked 15km's (in 1:26:14) this morning at around the same pace and we took lactate after to make sure that I haven't been walking to "hard" in my easy days and it was 1.0 lactate which is perfect since it is supposed to be 1.2 or under for zone #1 workouts.

We travel to New York on Tuesday for Millrose Games. We are really looking forward to the trip and to see family and friends. Wish us luck!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

TEAM Together Again

After being sick last week I was ready to start another week with hopefully better luck. On Tuesday, Bruce and Trevor Barron arrived in San Diego for a 2 week stint of training with Tim and I. Immediately they showed relief of not having to train in the cold winter conditions in Pittsburg. Trevor spent 5 months with Tim and I last year training with lead to his success at the World Youth T&F Championships in July. We are hoping for another successful year for him with the World Junior Championships in July in Canada. It was nice for Tim to have Trevor back so that he would have a daily training partner.

My week started out well as I felt back to normal on Monday. We did our first "fast" workout of the year this week. First, Tuesday we did 12 X 500 "fast"/500 "medium". It went really well for me. It didnt feel like I had to really work hard to do "fast" and I didnt break down throughout the workout, I got faster with each one. I started out in 2:26 and finished in 2:18 and did my "medium" ones in about 2:55 average. It felt good to move my legs a little faster which will help me not feel so stale at the Millrose Games in under 2 weeks from now. As the week went on I started getting a little sick again for some reason but this time it was just through my nose and throat. It started to affect my breathing in training, especially for our first speed workout session of the year. We were doing the Mexican speedwork (1k, 800, 600, 400, 200) and I was supposed to do 3 sets. I started off my first set well but it was hard to breath because of being sick. After the first set my breathing got better but then throughout the 2nd set, my hamstring started to feel like it got pulled so we decided for me to stop after the 2nd set. I had felt some tightness after the workout on Tuesday but hadnt felt it the rest of the week so I hadnt worried about it. Here is how my sets went:

1st set:

1000m: 4:43

800m: 3:31

600m: 2:46

400m: 1:46

200m: 0:49

2nd set:

1000m: 4:35

800m: 3:37

600m: 2:43

400m: 1:46

200m: 0:48

It was all feeling very comfortable and I was hoping to be able to push a bit more on the last (3rd) set but unfortunately I was forced by my hamstring to call it a day early. It ended up being a good decision because today (Sunday) I was able to have a really good 25k workout. It was the easiest 25k I think ive ever done. I ended up walking 2:23:31 for my overall time and it felt very comfortable and my heart rate was really low. This is even more promising since I am still a little sick so I feel very happy with how training is going so far. I did 135km's this week and I am hoping to have a little bit higher week this coming week before we lower the mileage a bit for the Millrose Games. We are looking forward to some good races in NYC again this year.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Happy Holidays...yes they were!

We have been away for the past 2.5k weeks for the holidays. We first were on Long Island, NY with Tim's family for Christmas. It was the first time that I was away from my family for the holidays. It was hard at first but after a few days of learning new traditions with my new extended family, I started feeling happy about where I was. It was definitely a completely different experience being at the Seaman house for Christmas. They have Santa Claus come for the kids and the whole deal. It was a lot of fun!

Besides all the Christmas activities, we were able to get some pretty good workouts in. Even though Long Island got the biggest snow fall in history while we were there, we were able to get to a gym and train on the treadmill (even though it was like pulling teeth to get Tim on there). It felt like the old days in Peterborough training on the treadmill in my basement every day because of the regular huge amounts of snow and ice on the ground. We did our first "fast" workout of the season at an indoor track (so that we didnt have to go on the treadmill one more day). We did the rhythm workout which is 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m with 100m "medium" in between. I am happy with how it went. I wasnt super fast by any means but it felt like I pushed myself a bit and felt comfortable. The next day I was able to train with Maria Michta (3rd at the 2009 USA National Championships) walking 20km's together. It was so nice having someone to walk with again since I mainly train alone.

Th day after Christmas we flew to South Texas for a Junior Racewalk camp where Tim and I are the lead clinicians. It was a 9 days training camp where the top juniors from the US and even Canada came to train together. We have been doing this camp for the past 4 years and its always a lot of fun and very motivating for everyone to train hard towards their goals. It was great for me to have some guys to train with for a whole week, what a treat! On the first Monday of the camp, we did our first lactate test of the year. It went so well for me. My numbers were so much lower than the same day a year ago so it shows that I am in great shape for this time of year, even better shape than this time last year so we are looking forward to a great new year!

As usual, we had the 1 mile race on the Friday (which happened to be New Years Day) and a 5km race on the Saturday morning. It ended up being a super windy and cold day on the Friday for the mile. At 9am I raced with all of the boys or anyone who could walk around 7:10 for the mile. I was the only girl that could so it was me against the boys like last year. I felt very cold and almost "cooled down" by the time the race started. My arms were frozen and it was hard to move. I still managed to walk 7:11 even though my head wasnt in it. An hour later, the rest of the kids went and lucky for them the wind had died down a bit and the sun had come out and it was warmer. Why couldnt we have had that an hour earlier??? A lot of the kids did really really well. It was great to see them get lots of personal best times.

The next day the 5km went equally well. My goal was to help my training partner for the week, Alex Chavez, break 24 minutes for the first time. We stayed together for 4km's and then I yelled at Alex and told him to go as hard as he could for the last km. He clearly had much more of a kick than me since he walked 4:20 his last km finishing in 23:20 and I walked 23:38. I was really happy with my race since it was a few seconds faster than last year at this time and it felt much easier. I didnt have that 2nd gear to go faster but I felt like I could have held the pace for 10kms which is promising for my race in a month in Phoenix. Overall it was a great camp!

Now back in San Diego, we are getting some more good training in and starting to think about doing some fun workouts to get ready for Millrose Games which is just 3 weeks away on January 29th in New York City.

Keep on walking,

Rachel