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