In Daegu at the Athletes Village

Yesterday the middle distance runners and I made our way by train from Changwon City to Daegu. It was only an hour and it was very scenic. There are surprisingly a lot of mountains everywhere in South Korea. We were in first class so it was a very comfortable ride and before you knew it we were there. We then took a bus to the village where we got our accreditation to have access to all the different areas in the village, at the track and race course.

The village is amazing. They are brand new apartment buildings with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, full kitchen and common area. There are 5 of us in here and we are on the 14th floor which is great for the view but not so good when there is only one elevator and tons of athletes. Below is the view from our apartment.

Today I met up with my USA training partner, Maria Michta, and we did our last tune up workout, 5 x 1km with 2 minutes rest. I felt really good and was right on the pace I wanted to be on without feeling like I was pushing. I had to slow myself down on a few of them which shows that I am in good shape. We trained on a 1km loop in the village that they made specifically for the racewalkers to train on so every racewalker was training there this morning. It was nice to see a lot of my friends again.

After training and lunch I made my way over to the Mizuno Service Center which was a 5 minute walk from the village. I am so blessed to have such a great sponsor. They had a bag with my name on it with a bunch of clothes, different little bags and 3 pairs of shoes, all in my size and shoes I always wear. It makes you feel pretty cool and important to show up somewhere like that and they already had everything specific for me all ready.

Tomorrow is the first day of competition and I am looking forward to going in the evening to watch a few events and to see the stadium, which looks amazing!

I am going to do 12km's in the morning on the same 1km loop in the village. The countdown is on till race day. Now that we are here its getting really exciting!

Keep on walking,

Rachel