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