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