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