First Time for Everything....

Unfortunately I do not have good news to report from Podebrady, CZE. I very surprisingly got disqualified a few meteres before 11km's. This is my first time being disqualified so you can imagine how upset and surprised I was.

I raced very smart and didnt think that I took very many risks but obviously the judges thought otherwise. My goal was to stay with the lead pack for as long as I could and try and go for the win. The girls in this race were all at my level so it was a perfect chance to race hard and go for a win at a big competition. I started off with the lead pack for the first km and then they pulled away for the next 2km's and after that I tried to work my way back up to them. By 4km's I got my first red card for lifting (you must get 3 to be disqualified). I had caught up to the group again at that point and the pace was feeling easy and comfortable. I then stayed with the group, leading at times and was feeling good. I got my 2nd red card at around 7km's but this time for bent knee (give me a break!) and at that point I felt like I was most likely going to get disqualified. I was leading the group with a girls from the Czech Republic, Italy and Spain and it seemed like the judges didnt like that. The other girls were starting to fade and so I started to pull away from them at around 10km's and just before I went through 11km's the head judge stopped me. I couldnt believe this was happening to me. It was my first time being disqualified. It is not like I even ever get close to being disqualified at any other race, I usually get no paddles ever so to get disqualified was a complete shock.

Immediately after I was pulled off the course, Andreas Gustafsson's father, Bo Gustafsson (Olympic Medallist in the 50km RW) came up to me and said that I looked the best that he has ever seen me and he travels to San Diego very often so he see's me quite a bit. He was telling me that he definitely thought that I would have won the race and to not let this get me disappointed. He said that I was "in the wrong country", meaning that they didnt like that I was beating their country women. This may not have been the case, maybe they didnt like my technique, I will never know. It was very nice to see a friendly face because I had traveled alone to the race. I do think that I would have won the race if this had not have happened. I felt really good and fresh after the half way point. I went through 10k in 46:55 and I know that I was ready for a sub 1:34 time. I was #96 on the DQ board in this picture.

SO, my immediate thought was, I want to go to a race next week. I knew that there were some National Championships happening in Hungary, France and Poland the next weekend and so I decided that I didnt want to only have 1 more chance to race in Europe. Here comes the crazy part. I met some nice people from Hungary at the race and I asked them if I could travel back with them on their bus and stay with them for the week and compete in their Nationals. They said that I could and so yesterday we made the 500km drive to Budapest, Hungary and now, here I am! It was a very quick decision, I had about 20 minutes to decide haha but I thought, why not be adventurous, I am in Europe! So far I feel like I made a very good decision. These people are so nice, I feel so glad to have met them. Training is feeling good and the race on the weekend ended up just being a good tempo walk :) So I didnt have to recover from much for this week. The race is on Sunday at 9am in Bekescsaba which is 2.5 hours away from Budapest. Several years ago many Americans came here to compete in this race and have walked fast times. When Tim raced here he broke his PB by 5 minutes so I hope I have the same luck. Maybe not 5 minutes but any PB will do! I am looking forward to it.

We will travel to the race on Friday and then I will leave Hungary to go back to Germany on Monday. It has been a whirlwind last few days but I am having a great time and am very happy to be here.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

No Excuses

After my very disappointing season last year, I took a lot of time to think about what went wrong and why. Why am I sacrificing so much to be a full time athlete if I wasnt going to do what it took? That is when I decided that I cannot have any more excuses. "The Olympic standard is too hard, I cant do it", why not? I was putting limits on myself, telling myself that things werent possible. No more! If I do everything I can to improve, why cant I walk that Olympic qualifying standard. So what its almost a minute and a half faster than the (Old) Canadian record! This is when my whole mind set change and my new season began. I was ready to act more professional, do what it took to get to where I wanted to be. Training and competing hasnt been the same since.

Yesterday Flotrack.org put up an interview with Toby Stevenson, USA 2004 Olympic Silver Medallist in the Pole Vault. It made me realize even more what I told myself at the beginning of this season and that the sacrifice will and has been worth it. Here is the video:

As I prepare for my race this weekend, this video really gets me pumped up to do a great race and im excited. I had my best 10 x 1km/500m fartlek this past Saturday by 41 seconds for my overall 15km split (1:14:55) and today I did 5 x 1km repeats just to move the legs a bit before the race this Saturday. Man, they felt easy, too easy. I went faster then I was supposed to or wanted to but it was hard to hold myself back since it felt so easy. Times were: 4:41, 4:39, 4:36, 4:36 and 4:34. My PB race pace is 4:43/km so hopefully I can improve upon that. I feel great!

I leave on Thursday night for Podebrady, CZE and am looking forward to it. Being away from home and Tim is difficult but it is always worth it for your dream. Here we come!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

In Germany...brrrr!

After my many tears after leaving Tim in San Diego, I arrived safe and sound in Wattenscheid, Germany on Mondy night after what I must say, was the best long flight I have ever been on. I was lucky enough to have two seats to myself and so I was able to sleep, stretch out and relax for all 11 hours. It was the best I could have asked for.

So far everything has been going well. I have been staying with my friend and Sabine Krantz's coach, Heiko Schulze, for the first 5 days while I wait for Sabine and her family to arrive back to Germany after training in Flagstaff, AZ. I have been able to train right out of his front door so that has been really convenient since I dont have a car and Heiko works during the day. I have been training on a compact dirt path which feels much different from The Strand at home. I feel like it takes more energy to train on the dirt path then on asphalt. I notice that when I go on the little parts of asphalt through the trail, that my heart rate drops significantly, its interesting. For the most part though, the dirt is smooth and is fine for racewalking. I have trained on this path everytime that I have come here for races so I feel comfortable being on it. Tomorrow we will go to the lake where there is an asphalt path, 10km's around the lake. Its great! I have a fartlek, one last hard workout before my race next weekend in Podebrady.

The weather has been quite a bit colder than im used to in San Diego. The sun hasnt been out much and yesterday it rained practically all day....definitely not San Diego! Im currently all bundled up as I write this, trying to get rid of the chill. Tomorrow, however, it is supposed to be a beautiful day with 24c as the high. I hope the forecast is correct!

I think this has been the easiest transition to the 9 hour time change that I have ever had. The first few nights I slept all through the night, the last two nights I have woken up breifly in the middle of the night but after some time, fell back to sleep. Im feeling the least tired for the first week here, then I ever have. Its been great! I have a great feeling about my race next weekend in great part to this.

Tomorrow I will move over to Sabine's house for the remainder of my stay (4 more weeks) but before that, Heiko and I are going to a local club's soccer game, or should I say futbol game, tonight. Futlbol is huge in Germany so it should be a lot of fun!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Off We Go...

Tomorrow I start my 5 week journey to Europe. I will be staying in Wattenscheid, Germany for my whole trip except for the 2 weekends that I go away for the races that I am competing at. My first race in April 9th in Podebrady, Czech Republic and my second and last race is May 1st in Sesto San Giovanni, Italy. I am looking forward to improving my time from a few weeks ago in Huntington Beach, CA and enjoying the experience. I will be staying with good friends of ours, Bastian, Sabine and Thomas Krantz. Sabine is a fellow racewalker and is Germany's best. I look forward to spending time with them and their new addition, 7 month old Thomas.

My training has been going very well since the race in Huntington Beach. I took the first 5 days after the race extremely easy to make sure that I had recovered completely and I did my first somewhat hard workout on the Saturday (15 X 500m/500m fartlek) and then 22km's easy on Sunday. After that I started back to normal training this past week doing 4 X 3km/1km fartlek on Tuesday, 20km's easy on Wednesday, 10 X 1km/500m fartlek on Friday and then 25km's easy today (Saturday). Overall I will have 142km's this week and im feeling great. The 3km's fartlek workout went so great, I felt so strong and still felt pretty fresh at the end of the workout. I think it was one of my best workouts ever, finishing the 15km fartlek in 1:13:24. My confidence has changed ever since I broke the Canadian Record. I know that I am capable of better this season and im very excited about it!

I have heard nothing but good things about the race in Podebrady. Everyone seems to do well there and so I hope to jump on the band wagon. In past results there have been a lot of women who are around my time so that will help pull me along. Only 2 weeks till the race, im excited!

For now I still have to finish packing and get on the long flight to Germany. I will post updates while im there!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Race Video and Interview

Here is a video and post-race interview from the race in Huntington Beach, CA on the weekend. Thank you Chris Rael for the great videography!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

CANADIAN RECORD!!!!

Well...Its been awhile since I last posted and a lot has happened. I went to Florida and raced at the USA Pan American Racewalk Cup Trials and had a disaster race, a real disaster race walking 1:40:03. The reason for the disaster race was definitely too much travelling the 15 days before the race (I flew almost 10,000 miles in those 2 weeks) and I think I had too much stress in the week that I was in Florida and so all of that led to a big failed race. I was so extremely disappointed after that race that I really questioned why I was putting so much effort into all my training.

I went home from that race with a choice to either put that race behind me or rethink all my goals. Obviously I decided to move on from that race and make it fire me up and train with even more focus. Training from that point on has been going extremely well. I have been feeling great.

Exactly a month after the race in Florida, I had a completely different experience. We had some of our TEAMmates come to California for a race in Huntington Beach to try and get a 20km race in before going to Nationals in June. I decided that I would jump into the race as a hard effort and see how I would feel after not resting at all for it. I did 2 weeks at 140km's before the race and a hard workout (10 x 1km/500m fartlek) the Tuesday before and so I definitely wasnt planning on this being a peak race. I also had no pressure going into this race since no one knew I was racing and I wasnt thinking of this as being an important race at all.

The weather was perfect, no wind and 51 degrees. The course was perfect also, measuring at 1.051km's around, it was a circle with no turn arounds. We couldnt have asked for a more perfect situation. Chris Tegtmeier and I were planning on going 5:02 a lap which would give us 4:47 per km. My main goal was to feel as comfortable as I could to walk between 47:30-48mins for 10km's as possible so that when I did get in a "real" race that I would be confident that I could double that when I was more rested. I did not know that the day was today.

We just started clicking laps below 5:00 and Chris kept looking at me each lap asking me "Is that ok? Or should we slow down?" and I just said "Ya, I guess, I feel great, lets just keep going". So we just went with the flow and I felt amazing from the first step to the last. To show how good I felt, here were my 5km splits: 23:49, 23:43 (47:32), 23:34 (1:11:06), 23:16 (1:34:22), WOW! I am so proud of how I raced, it couldnt have gone better. Oh and by the way, I broke the CANADIAN RECORD!!!!! This was just so unexpected! Its amazing! This record was always a goal for me but I didnt think it would happen this year but im so glad it did.

This race has now change my whole outlook on my upcoming training and races. I used to think that I could achieve the Olympic 'A' standard but now I know that I am capable of it. I am now only 52 seconds off of the standard and I have 500 days exactly from today till the 2012 Olympic Games and I believe I can get there. I am so excited for what is to come!

Thank you all for your support! It makes the world of difference to have people in my life that push me to do my best.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Article in Hometown Newspaper

Today a newspaper article came out in one of my local newspapers in Peterborough, Canada on me and the race in New York City. You can view the article here.

Local race walker is in the groove

- Seaman is now a member of the New York Athletic Club which will sponsor some of her travel for races.

- Other personal race walk times include 46:25 in the 10km and 22:30.4 in the 5km.

- She finished 35th in the 20km at the 2009 World Championships in 1:45:45�. Seaman is a former member of the Peterborough Legion Track and Field Club.

Rachel Seaman is back in the New York groove.

The reigning Canadian race walking champion from Peterborough continues to take a bite out of the Big Apple as she captured her third-straight Millrose Games one-mile title on Saturday at Madison Square Gardens in New York City, the 104th edition of the event.

The annual meet is one of the largest indoor track and field events in the U.S.

"I usually don't get nervous for races but for some reason I always do for this one," Seaman said on Monday from her home in San Diego, Calif. "My base training keeps me strong and I start each year strong. This race is based on speed and my training helps on a stage like this."

Seaman, daughter of Nil and Christine Lavallée of Peterborough, not only topped 13 other competitors, she also smashed the course record she set in 2009. Her time of six minutes, 41.32 seconds was a six-second improvement.

She is currently the only Canadian to hold a record at the Games.

"The past two years I had (longtime U.S. champ) Teresa Vaill to hang off but this year the target was on my back," said Seaman, 25. "Everyone was kind of expecting me to win and prior to the race they were even asking me how much I was going to win by.

"It was a weaker field than in previous years with some high school competitors but all of that just gets me fired up to perform well."

The victory is a positive step for the 20-kilometre race walk expert who looks to bounce back from a roller-coaster 2010. The season included battling illness in the spring, missing out on qualifying for the Commonwealth Games and enduring a car crash in Toronto just prior to the Canadian track and field championships.

"It was a tough year," said Seaman. "I was in good shape but my mental state just wasn't there. The car accident shook me up a lot, too. I've changed my outlook and am feeling strong."

Evidence of that came a week before the Millrose Games when she won a 20km race walk at the USA 50KM Championships in a time of 1:37:18 - a new personal best, topping her 2009 World University Games mark by four seconds. Â

Seaman says she expects she'll need to reach the Athletics Canada's A-standard of 1:33:30 to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

"My goal this year is to get as close as possible to the qualifying time for the Olympics," she said. "My main goal is to drop as much time as possible."

And her training is taking a step in the right direction with higher mileage.

"Last year, I managed only eight weeks total of 130 kilometres of more and already I've done six weeks of 130k or more."

Seaman is set for the U.S. Pan-Am trials next week in Florida, along with several races in Europe in April. She then plans on several months of extensive training alongside her husband and coach Tim Seaman (a two-time Olympian and former U.S. champ) prior to returning to Canada for the nationals.

"I'm feeling a lot stronger and I'm also back on the weights which I haven't done since I was in Peterborough and training under Richard Borek.

"I've got more confidence going into this race season," she added. "I know each race is going to get better and better."

Keep on walking,

Rachel