Baby Isabella and My Comeback!!!!

 I would like to introduce my baby girl, Isabella Marie Seaman. Isabella was born April 26 and weighed 4lbs 13oz. She came a few weeks early and put me through a very long 30 hour labor but was completely healthy. Now she is 4 months old and she has been such a joy! I cannot tell you enough how lucky Tim and I are with her, she is such a good baby. Even though she does have rough days or nights, overall she is very easy and I really have nothing to complain about. Tim and I have adjusted very well to having a new addition in our lives and couldn't be happier.

Isabella has really been thriving since birth. She is now almost 3 times her birth weight which is really great! She simply wasnt growing very well in my belly so it was a good decision for my doctor to induce me and for her to come early. She still isnt sleeping through the night which is to be expected and even though she is up anywhere from 1-4 times a night, I have adjusted well to the sleep deprivation :)

I recovered very well after giving birth to Isabella and I decided that since I had her so early in the year that I would take my time after the birth and not rush back into any sort of exercise. I didnt do anything for a month after she was born except for leisure walks around my neighborhood. After a month I started by hiking and running to get my body moving again. After a few weeks of doing that, I slowly started to introduce racewalking. I started with 2 days a week of racewalking and running, hiking or off the other days and then slowly introduced more every week. Now I am up to racewalking everyday but before that I had been always taking a day off every week. My biggest week has been 96km's (last week) so far but mostly I have been doing 70-80 something km's per week. Now that September has hit, I will start training full time again but I wanted to have no stress through the summer and just enjoy friends and family while still adjusting to life with Isabella. 

It has now been over a year since I raced at the Olympics and I feel so blessed to have had a good break from racing and serious training so that I could reflect on my career so far. I have really been able to realize things that I may not have realized when I was in the thick of training and racing. I cant wait to see how this upcoming season turns out after I make some adjustments from what I think I did wrong or not as well in the past.

I am already almost back to walking the same pace for my easy days as I was walking in the lead up to the Olympics. One of my goals was to try and lower my heart rate for my easy zone #1 workouts. So far I have been able to lower it 5-10 beats and I am thrilled. One of the biggest things I want to get back to this year is simply focusing on myself. It sounds easy but last year I got very distracted in the hype of the Olympics and I forgot about just trying to take care of myself. I feel so relieved already with the realizations I have come to. I feel a bit weight lifted from me and I know that I am going to be much stronger because my mind is clear. I used to over think my training, racing and competitors too much in the past and im hoping that I can stay in the same mindset that I am in now for the rest of the season. 

While home in Peterborough, ON, Canada in August, my sister Rebecca and I ended up entering a 5km road race for fun. I racewalked and Rebecca ran at the Highland Yard in Minden, ON and we ended up doing the whole thing together. It was so much fun to get back into an event again and have no expectations for myself. I had only been racewalking for a month and a half at that point and all I was hoping for was sub 25 minutes. I just took it one km at a time and as I went my confidence grew and I ended up walking 23:42. I was thrilled with the time but I definitely wasnt toast by the end, I think I could have gone faster. My last km was my fastest and felt the smoothest (4:37). This makes me very excited for the upcoming season. I want to go into every race with no expectations and having the sky as the limit. Anything is possible!

I immediately wanted to "race" again after that race. Tim and I just decided that we will enter a race in Escondido, California this weekend (Saturday, September 7th). It is a 5k again and I will racewalk and Tim will run. This is the first time that Tim will run a race since college (I think). Even though these races are not judged, it is a fun event to test my fitness.

Ill keep you posted on how this race goes. Please tag along for my comeback. I am so excited to show what I really am capable of so here we go!

Keep on walking,

Rachel