My fall and into the Christmas season came with many ups and downs. Training had been going great as I started back in September and into the beginning of November. I had been getting my mileage back up again and starting to feel like myself again after taking most of the summer off. We had 6 weeks of trips planned crammed into an 8 week period. With this came lots of fatigue and illness. Unfortunately, the illness really affected my training. I ended up being sick 5 weeks out of those 8 weeks and this put me feeling behind the eight ball. I felt like I was starting back in September all over again after I was finally rid of all the sickness.It was tough mentally to feel that I lost so much time but I managed to keep it all in perspective that I had a long season and that I would be fine.
In the middle of my trips I competed at the USA 50km Racewalk Championships here in San Diego on December 14th. My plan was to walk 20-25km's with fellow Canadian Mathieu Bilodeau as he raced the 50km's for the first time. Originally the plan was to walk about 4:53/km and if that was the case I probably would have gone 25km's but once we got going Mathieu impressively started bringing the pace down to 4:48/km or faster and therefore I only lasted 20km's in fear of it taking too long to recover from doing 25km's at that pace. I was thrilled to walk 1:36:40 at what felt like a comfortable tempo pace. This was about a minute faster than a race I did last year a few weeks earlier and my heart rate was a bit lower than last year also. This was very positive after having been sick for about 3 weeks before this point. This gave me a lot of confidence that I would be alright.
After my next 3 weeks of being away and getting sick all over again, I was THRILLED to be back home in San Diego. It almost felt like it was the happiest I have ever felt to be back in the sunshine and back in my regular routine. I think that helped reboot my training. Although I still had some bumps and still am, I have been seeing steady improvement in my fitness every day. I missed a lot of time at the gym while I was away/sick also and that is finally getting back to where it was before and/or improving. Just yesterday I did a back squatting personal best of 150lbs and still felt like I had more in me.
I now feel as though I am on track to have another break out season and I cannot wait for the opportunity to attack my races. I have no limits and I am not afraid. I wanted to thank my supporters because without them, my everyday training would be a lot harder. Thank you to Mizuno Canada, New York Athletic Club and Nuun Hydration! Next up for me is the Canadian Indoor Open on February 22nd in Montreal where ill be racing a 3,000m and going after my own Canadian record of 12:23. Let's do this!
Keep on walking,
Rachel
