Still Waiting....

It is August 5th and I am still patiently waiting to hear whether or not Athletics Canada is going to send me to the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. According to the website, if I get selected, I would be set to leave for Korea on August 14th, just over a week from now. Tomorrow is the last day for anyone to still qualify for the team. I think that no news is good news because this means that it wasnt a no right away. So far the Canadian team is quite small and so I hope that is to my advantage. Hopefully I will hear from them asap....

In the meantime, training is going incredibly well. I really couldnt ask for it to be going any better. I feel like I am back in the same shape as I was leading up to my PB in Bekescsaba, Hungary in April. Just finished my biggest mileage month ever totaling 576km's and I am still feeling great. I will have another few weeks of bigger mileage and then if I get to go to the World Championships then we will start to taper down and if not I will take a lower mileage rest week and then get back to the grind.

On Monday we got back from Long Island, NY where we were visiting Tim's family. We had a great week and were able to get all of our training in. My parents made the drive from Canada to see us for a few days so we were happy to have training partners again. We saw the sights of Long Island and went into New York City for a day. It was definitely a sweat bath being in New York. Both Tim and I dont miss living on the east coast in the summer! Our training went well but it wasnt as enjoyable as it is in San Diego. However, if I get the chance to compete in Korea, it will have been good acclimatization for the brutal weather they have there.

Last week Athletics Canada came out with their Olympic standards and qualifying period for the Olympics next year in London. Earlier we thought that we would only have from January 2012 till June 2012 to get the qualifying time but they have decided to extend it and we now have from June 2011 till June 2012. This is fantastic news! This means that when I go to Europe again in September, if I can get the A standard of 1:33:30, 13 seconds better than my PB from April, then I will have technically qualified for the Olympics. This is a very excited opportunity and I hope that I can put good training together and race smart in September to get the time. My plan is to go to a race on September 24th in Naumburg, Germany.

Hopefully the next time I post, it will be about me heading to Korea but if not, I am ok with that too. If I dont get selected, I will see it as a chance to get more training in so that I have the best shot possible to do the A standard in Germany in September.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Loving Training

These days I literally have been training, eating and sleeping. I am on track to have my biggest month of mileage ever. I should hit 570km's for the month of July and I have been feeling great. My favorite part of training is the zone #1 workouts and its been nice to get back to a few weeks of base training again.

The plan after Nationals was to take a very easy/off week and then get back into the game and do some heavy training again. I did 2 weeks of base training of 140km's each week and then this week and next week I will be introducing one faster workout each week. This Tuesday I did a 10km tempo walk that was meant to be in zone #2, not too fast but not too slow. Tim walked it with me and we started off very conservative in about 5mins and stayed around that pace or a second or two faster for the first 5km's which we went through in 24:53. After that we were around 4:55/km and then the last km we pushed a bit but not too much to a 4:48 last km. We did the 2nd 5km's in 24:26 for a great negative split and finished the 10k in 49:19. The whole thing felt very comfortable and easy. I could have kept going with no problem and so it made me feel like I didnt lose any speed in the last few weeks.

On Saturday we are headed to Long Island to visit Tim's family. We are really looking forward to it since we havent been back there together in about a year and a half. I went alone in January for the Millrose Games for a few days but otherwise, it has been a LONG time. I am excited to visit our friends and family but I am NOT looking forward to the weather. We are so spoiled here in San Diego and going to the east coast is going to be miserable for training. We are going to have to wake up pretty early to train to avoid the really bad heat which will be hard because of the 3 hour time change. My parents are planning on coming to visit us in New York and will be camping at some of the parks on Long Island. Its going to be great to see them again!!!

I have been feeling great training. I have never felt this good at this time of year. Usually im beat up by the summer but I feel great and I feel like I will be ready for some good performances in September in Europe. Im very excited about it! Ive been getting some really good rest. I usually have trouble napping during the day but lately ive been able to fall asleep and sleep for along time...like 90 mins to 2 hours, wow! It is definitely keeping me going though and helping me feel fresh everyday for another workout. This week I will have a forced day off on Saturday because of the travel to New York. This will be my first day off in a month. Thats always a question people ask me, "how often do you have a day off?", and its very seldom but I dont even notice it. I am just so used to my routine and the training is very smart so I dont feel like I need a day off very often.

The picture above is of me and Nick Christie, one of Tim's athletes at Cuyamaca College, training at Mission Bay Park. Its been nice to have some company the last few weeks with Nick and Tim training with me.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Another National Title and Back to Training!

Well I won my 5th National Championship a few weeks ago in Calgary. The race itself wasnt too exciting. The course was not so great to walk a fast time and since it was at altitude and I had no competition, I just decided to kind of take it easy. I always find it hard to motivate myself at Nationals since I have no competition. This time was no different as I won by 15 minutes. I know that the other girls have a lot of potential and I hope that they continue to work hard and drop their times over the next year. I still managed to walk another Olympic/World Championship 'B' standard and so that is my 4th of the year. This, however, doesnt really change my situation for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea this year. Since I went to Berlin in 2009 with the 'B' standard, in Canada they dont let you go again unless you have the 'A'. I unfortunately am 13 seconds off the 'A' standard and even though I have broken the Canadian record twice this year, that also doesnt make a difference. I have put in an appeal to Athletics Canada to try and still get selected for World Championships but I know that it is a long shot and am not expecting a positive outcome but it was still worth a try. I should find out the outcome of the appeal in the next week or so. I will keep you posted!

After the race I took an easy week to try and refresh my mind and give my body a small break before I started back into hard training again. I did a lot of cross training and really enjoyed it and it definitely got myself fired up to get back training. This past week my sister Ruthy and her boyfriend Drew came to visit and it was so great to have them here! We did a lot of things that I usually dont have time for or the energy for when im training. We went to the beach almost everyday and did a lot of sight seeing, it was a lot of fun! I still managed to get in an awesome week of training too, getting in 140km's so I was thrilled about that! We have decided to do some base work for the first 2 weeks back and then we will start to introduce some faster workouts again. This week I am hoping to get another 140km week in.

Unfortunately I dont really have any racing plans for the summer because there just arent any races to go to. While I wait to hear about the World Championships, I am planning on going to Europe no matter what in September to do a 10k and a 20k to try and beat my best times in both distances. I will update you guys on which races as we make more decisions. In the meantime, Tim and I will be in San Diego until July 23rd when we will head to Long Island, NY to visit Tim's family for 8 days. I hate going to Long Island in the summer because it is sooo hot and humid, especially coming from San Diego but it will be fun for sure.

Here is an article in my hometown newspaper, the Peterborough This Week. Thanks Greg!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

In Calgary...2 days to go!

I arrived in Calgary yesterday and the trip went pretty well. To be honest, I have been quite tired this week because I had a very busy weekend last weekend....too busy! I have had a hard time recovering from it but I still have 2 days till my race at Nationals and I know that I will be strong when it comes to the starting gun going off. Calgary is 3750 feet of altitude and even though this isnt very high and I have done quite a bit of altitude training in the past, I still think that it is going to be challenging for the race. I am not sure what time I will go after on Saturday as I dont want to crash too much because of the altitude.

We went to the race course this morning and its in a beautiful park along the Bow River. It will take place on two parallel bike paths there and the loop is a very odd 2,452.137m's! I am very annoyed that they couldnt figure out a more even number because it does make it more difficult for splits but we will do our best to figure it out! Part of the course has a pretty long gradual hill in it which is not very ideal for a racewalking race. So to say the least, it will be a difficult race.

For now, I am getting as much rest as possible. After my race Saturday morning (at 7am), I will be flying that evening to Eugene, Oregon to watch the Senior races at the USA Nationals so that I can watch Tim and our other TEAM members race. I am really looking forward to that! You can look for results of my race here. Wish me luck!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Hello Again! 7 Days till Nationals...

A lot has happened since my last blog. My training has sort of continued to go up and down but I would say more up than down, thank goodness. I got rid of the cold/infections that I got in Europe but about a week and a half later I started having problems breathing and so did Tim. We went to the doctor and he gave us both an inhaler to expand our lungs and an extra strength allergy pill/temporary asthma medication and it seems to have done the trick. I have been feeling better and better since I started taking the new medication. Now I am only on the new allergy pill and im done with the inhaler.

My zone #1's seem to be back to where I was leading up to the race in Hungary and my heart race keeps getting better every week. My fartleks/speed workouts have been overall very good. I keep improving and ive been doing some of my best times for certain workouts. This past Tuesday I did 6 x 2k and it was my best one ever. Now tomorrow I have 10 x 1k which is my last hard workout before Nationals in Calgary next Saturday.

I have been back in my hometown, Peterborough, Ontario for 2 weeks now and its been great to be with my family and to greet my new nephew, Bruno as he was born the day after I arrived home. He is just as cute as my niece, Anna. The first week I was home, the weather was brutally hot. I did 20k one day, finishing in 31c! I was dead after that, it sucked. Then I got sick from my niece as she had a cold but it was hard to resist hugging and kissing her! Shes so cute!

Last Saturday I did a 5000m race at York University in Toronto. My goals for the race changed since I had gotten sick again but I thought that I should still be able to do half decent since it was just 5k. We arrived at the race and there were huge delays because there was a lightning storm earlier in the day. Because of the storm, we didnt know when we would end up racing since they had to catch up on all of the other events. We didnt end up starting for 2 hours after our scheduled race time. This made it very hard to figure out when to start warming up. We ended up timing the warm up pretty well but we were hungry from waiting. Nothing we could do though! We finally started and I took it out way too fast. I had my training partner from Quebec, Bruno Carriere, keying off of me and so the pace wasnt so good that I did for us in the first km. Bruno dropped off from me after that and I struggled alone. My left shin started hurting almost right away and I hadnt felt it in the warm up. I could feel it every step and so that was hard to ignore. Also, racing a 5k alone is very hard for me. I can focus on a 20k race much easier than a 5k believe it or not. I really struggled with the pace but finished up ok considering everything in a time of 22:19.53, still an 11 second PB, ill take it!

I am home till Tuesday and then I will head to Toronto to stay overnight there before my morning flight to Calgary on Wednesday. I am feeling really good leading into Nationals. It is a race against myself and the clock. We will see what happens! Im excited though. Thanks to my fellow Ontario Racewalkers teammate, Sarah Raetsen, for the race pictures above!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Glad Thats Over!

After a missed flight and long travel home, I am back in San Diego and am so happy! As soon as I landed I went to the doctor to find out what was going on with me and to hopefully get a prescription to get rid of whatever illness I had. Turns out I had an ear infection in my left ear, a sinus infection and a very tight chest. No wonder I was having trouble training and my heart rate was so high. I was able to start on antibiotics and an inhaler right away that night and 10 days later, I was finally cured. It only took 3.5 weeks! The longest I have ever been sick. It was so frustrating!!!

On a positive note, I decided to start back to training last Monday even though my heart rate was still very high and I did my first fartlek last Tuesday and I felt good, a little rusty, but good. There was the USA 15km RW Championships in Riverside, CA and since I wasnt feeling race ready yet, I decided to walk with my teammate Lauren Foruges to help her set a new personal best and for me to get a good tempo effort in. It was great. Lauren did fantastic and we accomplished what we went there to do and she did a huge PB walking 1:14:15 and I finished in 1:14:02 staying with her the whole race until the last lap when I pushed a little bit. You can listen to a little interview that we did with Racewalk Planet Radio after the race here. Thanks Dave Snyder and the Inland Empire Racewalkers for putting on a great event last Sunday.

Things seem to be back to normal for me now. Heart rate is back to where it was before and same with my pace. Yesterday I did my best ever 10 x 1km/500m fartlek and did the 15km's in 1:14:41, 14 seconds faster than my previous best. Things seem to still be on track for one last crack at the World Championships standard of 1:33:30. Ill have my hands full in Calgary at the Canadian Track and Field Championships where ill be racing alone and facing 3700 feet of altitude. The altitude isnt that high but it technically will still affect performance. We will see what happens but I am ready for the challenge. Just over a month to go!

Im in San Diego for another 2 weeks and then ill be heading to my hometown, Peterborough, Ontario on June 5th to visit with my family and to be there when my nephew is born on June 6th, im SO excited! Ill also be doing a 5000m race on the track on June 11th in Toronto so im looking forward to that too.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

No Sesto for Me, Home Tomorrow

In case you didnt already know or notice, I didnt make the trip to Italy for the race yesterday. I thought that I was starting to get rid of this cold that I have had since the race in Hungary but it really hasnt gotten better, almost worst. Wednesday I had a decent workout and felt pretty good but the next day it was bad again, higher heart rate again and felt bad. I was supposed to fly to Italy on Friday afternoon and so I had just an easy 8k to do in the morning and I decided to try and walk on the track a bit and see if my heart rate would be any better on a pancake flat surface but it didnt make a difference, my heart rate was super high again. I decided to go onto the bike path after 2k on the track and things got worst. I went out another 1.5km's racewalking and felt terrible and so I jogged the last 2.5km's back. My heart rate was even super high running. After training, I knew that it just wasnt worth going to Italy. I knew that I wouldnt be able to perform to the level that I am capable of and I didnt want to embarrass myself or drop out. It was a very disappointing and difficult decision but it was definitely the right one. I then took 2 days off running and racewalking and just went for bike rides. I feel like I have been doing everything I can to get rid of this thing. This is the longest I have ever had a cold and I dont know why it is not going away. Im assuming that I will need to get some antibiotics to get rid of it at this point. It must be a bad virus or something.

So after the 2 days off running and racewalking, I decided that I wanted to try and racewalk today. Good news is that I felt the best that I have in a week, bad news is that my heart rate was the highest its been in the 2 weeks ive been sick. UGH!!!!! At this point I am just frustrated. Every morning I have been blowing my nose like crazy and this morning I wasnt and so I really thought id feel and do better today. I decided to stop after 8k because it wasnt worth it. I even tried slowing down to a march (almost) doing a km in 6:04 and my heart rate was still 10 beats higher than my usual 5:30 pace. So clearly something is wrong!

One thing to be excited about though is that I am FINALLY going home tomorrow after being away for 5 weeks!!! I cant tell you how excited I am. It has been a pretty good trip. It is definitely my most successful European racing trip. The 2 other trips I have done in 2008 and 2009, I didnt PB at all. Im coming out of this trip with a lot of confidence (despite this little hiccup of being sick). I am confident that I can walk that A standard of 1:33:30, even if I have to race alone to get it. I will now have just under 2 months till my next 20km race at the Canadian Championships on June 25th so I know ill be ready. For now though, I will first focus on getting healthy and then get some solid weeks of training in. Cant wait for what is to come!

Keep on walking,

Rachel