Hello 2012!

Im so excited to say that it is finally the Olympic year! We, elite athletes, wait and work so hard for this year to finally come. With being so agonizingly close to qualifying for the Canadian Olympic team, I am even more excited.

Since my last post, Tim and I have been in New York for Christmas and Texas for the US Junior training camp that we go to every year. In both places, we had great weather, better than we could have asked for. No snow in December in New York is very rare but it was great for us coming from San Diego. We were able to get some good training in with different racewalkers from around the country. Texas was a lot of fun and there were a lot of kids with tons of potential. We are excited to see what they can do throughout the year.

Training has been going incredibly well. I am very ahead of where I have ever been at this time of year and I cant help but be excited and anxious for my first race of the season in March. I have only done a hand full of fartleks so far this season but all of them have been way ahead of my times from this time last year or better than ever. For example, I did a 3 x 5km/1km fartlek and my times were 24:26, 24:04 and 23:43. I would consider this workout my best ever out of any workout. I felt so good and it felt very controlled and easy. We are just now starting to do two hard workouts a week which is earlier than last year but I want to be ready to try and get the Olympic A standard at my first race on March 11th in Huntington Beach, CA to get it out of the way. After that race, I will plan the rest of my season which will include the IAAF World Racewalk Cup for sure on May 12-13.

Its been great to have some fellow TEAMmates here training with us in San Diego. Miranda and Lauren have moved out here through the US Olympic Trials and Bruno just arrived this week from Canada to train with us for 2 months. We also have Nick Christie, a new racewalker from Tim's team at Cuyamaca College who has been improving very rapidly and he has become a very good training partner for me.

Tomorrow I will participate in a 3km race at Cuyamaca College. I havent raced a 3km in several years, around 5-6 years. I think my official PB is 13:49 so I should obliterate that tomorrow. Then on Sunday I will be in Santee, just outside of San Diego, cheering on Tim and the other male competitors as they race to see who will represent the USA at the Olympic Games. I am so excited to watch Tim race as he is in really good shape and excited at the chance to make another Olympic team but this time at 50km's. Check out www.usatf.org for results on Sunday.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

One Month till 2012!

I cant believe that it is December already! Time is just flying by and now it is only one month until 2012. The last month has been pretty busy. I went to New York twice, the first time for a race Tim did and the second time for the NYAC All-Sports Dinner. It was great to meet more people from the NYAC family that has been supporting me all year. I am so grateful to be part of such a great TEAM.

Training has been coming along very well. I just finished off my second biggest mileage month of training ever and im feeling so great. This week will also be my second biggest week of training ever and it makes me very excited to see my progress. Last Friday we did a lactate test and it went very well. We always do a lactate test in November and this way we can compare where we are at and compare the results to the previous years results. On Friday I was able to improve upon my results from last year. My lactate was lower for each of the intervals which bodes very well for my upcoming season. Its always a relief to know that I am on track.

Next weekend, Saturday December 10th, a bunch of us from the TEAM will be entering a little race in Huntington Beach to support John Nunn as he races to get the USA Olympic 50km Trials qualifying time. We will be entering the 20km race as a workout. We plan on doing it in zone #2 pace and I hope that my result is better than when I did the Rock n' Roll Half Marathon last year in Las Vegas on December 4th. I did 1:41:20 for 20km's last year feeling very comfortable. Im looking forward to walking a bit faster again since we have mostly just been doing easy zone #1 workouts.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Only 3 Seconds inbetween me and the Olympics!

Check out this newspaper article from my hometown's Peterborough Examiner on my season and my upcoming year trying to make the Olympic team. You can view the article here.

This weekend I am headed to New York with Tim as he will race 50km's at the USA 30km RW Championships. I look forward to being able to visit some family at the same time. Should be a fun weekend!

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Back at it, 42 weeks to go!!!

Back to training! Wow, 2 weeks off went very quickly but I am glad to be back and moving towards making the 2012 Olympic team.

I started training last Monday and its been humbling so far. I wish that I could have started back exactly where I left off but obviously that is not possible. So far training has been going well. The pace ive been walking  has felt easy but my biggest obstacle is my heart rate. Its normal that for the first few weeks that my heart rate is high before it goes back to normal but its just frustrating. Today I tried really hard to go slower so that my heart rate average would go down. Even though it was my lowest heart rate since I started training, im still not happy with it. Hopefully by the time I start the new week on Monday, my heart rate will be closer to normal or will be normal. Ive been able to train with my new TEAMmate Miranda Melville who just moved out here so its been nice to have some company for a change.

The Pan American Games kick off this weekend for track and field with the women's and men's 20km Race Walk events. Now that its come, I wish I was there but then I remind myself why I decided not to go. The games are too late in the year which is why most of the top athletes in the western hemisphere also decided not to go. I also didnt want to miss so much of base season if I didnt take a break until after the games. I already feel like im getting a late start by starting in early October but of course, I know ill be fine. I want to wish my TEAMmates Maria Michta and Lauren Foruges all the best on Sunday as they represent the USA!

Just over a week ago I found out that I was one of the recipients of the Canadian Athletes Now Fund. The fund gives support to athletes in all sports in Canada to help us work towards our goals. Their support this year is going to make a big difference for me and put less pressure on me in such an important year. If you have the means to donate, please do so in such a crucial year for athletes as we strive to make the Olympic team next summer. You can click on their logo on the right side of my blog and find out how to donate. Thank you for your support!

Im looking forward to everything that is to come this season. It should be one of the most exciting years of my life, I cant wait!!!! I look forward to bringing you all along with me on my journey.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

THREE Seconds!!!

After Daegu I returned back home to San Diego for 11 days before I left again for Germany. I really thought it was important going home in between races because it is really hard being away from my husband for so long. It was really good to re-charge and have a break from the travel. It went by quickly but I was excited to get off to Germany and finish off my season strong. 

I left on Monday, September 12th to fly to Dusseldorf and I stayed an hour away from there in Wattenscheid with Sabine and Bastian Krantz again. Its so easy being there and it feels like home. I was able to get some good final preparation in there before the race. The weather was much colder than I was expecting and so I ended up having to wash my warmer clothes pretty frequently, oops, didnt bring enough clothes!

Training went really well leading up to the race. When I was back in San Diego I only did one fartlek but it was my fastest 10 x 1k/500m fartlek ever. I knew this was really promising and as long as I could just maintain the fitness till the race, I would do well. Training went equally well in Germany. Only did one hard workout while in Germany and it was equally strong in the cold and wind. On Thursday, September 22nd I left Wattenscheid for Naumburg, the race city. It was nice to meet up with a few fellow Canadians and other friends. 

Race day, September 24th!!! I really had mixed feelings going into this race and event though my training had gone well over the last few weeks since Daegu, I still had the little devil in my head saying that I wasnt going to reach my goal. I still felt my usual calm warming up for the race and once we got to the start line, all the bad thoughts were gone and it was race time. Went out the first lap (1km loops) very conservative in 4:46 and then decided to get myself on goal pace of 4:40/km. I was walking alone after the first lap and it was hard to judge my pace. I ended up going 23:07 for the first 5k and even though I knew it was too fast, I didnt slow down for some reason. I just kept rolling and clicking off the km's. The next 5k was even faster, 23:04 for 46:11 for 10k, oops! Even though I should have been worried with that 10k split, the first thing that came to my mind was that I had a 34 second cushion on my goal time and I thought I would get the time no problem. The next 5k was a bit slower in 23:32 but I still felt confident that I would be ok. At 15k in 1:09:43 I calculated in my head what I would have to walk at a minimum to still get the time but with 1km to go I realized that I miscalculated and that even with going as hard as I could the last lap, that I was either JUST going to get the time or just miss it. Unfortunately, despite pushing myself as hard as I could, I walked 1:33:33. As you can tell by the picture above, this was quite disappointing. After I had a few minutes to think clearly, I was thrilled that I was able to walk a PB by 10 seconds which would also be a new Canadian record for the 3rd time this season and I came back from Daegu strong. How could I be disappointed? However, that goal I was going after was the Olympic A standard and I missed it by 3 seconds. THREE SECONDS!!! It was nothing. Its only 0.15 of a second per km! Seriously? I really just missed the standard by that little. Managed to place 3rd in the race and win 250 Euros which was a fantastic bonus. 

After a night of fun in Naumburg after the race, it was time to leave and go back home. I couldnt wait to get back home and get into a normal routine and take my break from training. I have now been off training for a week and its been nice to do things that I dont usually get to do before training. This week I will start doing some cross training and a bit of running but still no racewalking for another week. 

I have had an amazing season and here are some of my highlights:

- Four 20km personal bests (3 minutes and 49 seconds off my PB coming into the season), 5km PB and 1 mile PB

- Broke Canadian 20km Record 3 times

- Won my 5th Canadian Championship

- Qualified for my 2nd World Championship Team

I am proud of myself for believing that I had the ability to improve so much. I know that as long as I continue to work hard and train smart that I will continue to improve and qualify for the Canadian Olympic team next summer!

Thanks for the continued support this year. Knowing that so many people believe in me, it really does help me want to strive to keep doing better.

Yesterday morning I did a radio interview with The Fan 590 in Toronto. You can listen to my interview here. Start listening at 43:30.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Peterborough Newspaper Article on Daegu

Here is an article from my hometown newspaper about my race in Daegu. Thanks to Greg Davis for following me through my pursuit to make the Olympics next year in London. Click here to view the article.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Disappointed is an Understatement!

I am back in San Diego now after travelling home from Daegu on Friday. I have now had almost a week to reflect on my race last week and it has been really challenging to get over my disappointment. The following are my thoughts on how I finished 37th place with a time of 1:43:31.

My training had been going very well leading up to going to Korea. Upon arrival at the pre-camp in Changwon City I had what I believe to be my best training ever and I was feeling great. Training in Korea was a bit up and down because of the weather. The weather during the pre-camp was cool but had pretty high humidity which drove up my heart rate a lot. My one harder workout while I was there went very well though and so it made me feel pretty confident for the race. Once we traveled to Daegu we got a drastic change in the weather. It was extremely hot and we had the normal humidity and so the temperatures went from about 20c in Changwon City to well over 30c in Daegu. This was a huge change for me, especially coming from San Diego. Training went well the first few days there and then 3 days before the race I started to notice that my heart rate went up considerably, way higher than it should have been even for the weather conditions. I also noticed that it was beginning to be harder to take deep breaths at any time during the day. I expressed my concern to our team doctor and we decided that it would be good for me to try and use an inhaler to open up my chest. I also started taking Singulair which is an allergy/asthma medication to see if that would help also. I noticed no difference. I was feeling very scared because I knew that this would be a problem for the race and there was nothing else I could do to try and fix it.

I felt good in the warm up and was hoping for the best. I kept cool before the race by putting bags of ice on me as we waited to be called out to the start line. My plan for the race was to stay with a group of walkers that had similar personal bests and seasons best as me so that I would have people to walk with and fight. When the gun went off I stayed at the back of the big pack which started off really slow. We went through the first km in 4:52 which was even a bit slower than I was planning to start off at so I was happy about that. I stayed in the same position until the group started to spread out. I stayed with the group of girls that I had planned on being with and went through the first 5km's in 23:57 which was right around where I thought I should be. After that point I started to feel myself struggling a bit to stay with the girls I was with. I started to drop off and feel worst and worst. By 8km's I felt as though I was loosing control of my body and every km seemed to get slower and slower. Went through 10km's in 48:39 which, even though it was slower than the first 5km's, wasnt too bad but I knew it was just going to get worst and it did. My breathing became more labored and my body heavy. I felt as though I could only control that my body was still in motion but not the speed or effort that I was moving. In my head I thought that I must have been going 7 minutes per km and didnt want to look at my splits to see what they actually were. People that were watching me race on tv or in person were saying that I was swaying and looked as though I was going to collapse. I knew in my head that I could collapse but didnt know if it would happen before or after I crossed the finish line. I was determined to finish since I didnt go all the way to Korea to drop out. I ended up collapsing at the finish line and started cramping really bad in my left hamstring. The pain was unbearable and I had to be taken away on a stretcher. I was just thankful to be done.

After talking to the Canadian medical and coaching staff, we determined that I was dehydrated. Despite my best efforts hydrating in the days leading up to the race, I obviously failed myself with balancing between water, electrolytes and sodium intake. This is the first time that this has ever happened to me and I am very disappointed that my result came from something that could have been prevented. I am embarrassed about it because I know to everyone it seems like "how could you not have been drinking enough?". Trust me, I was drinking a lot, I was going to the bathroom very often throughout the day and I wasnt just drinking water. In my opinion, I think the biggest thing I was lacking was sodium. I am not used to adding salt to my food when I am in the USA but the food in the village was prepared with little to no salt and so I was not getting enough in my food or in other areas of my diet on the trip.

I can go over and over what happened and why it happened but it doesnt matter now. I am going to move on from this now and not dwell on the performance and the mistakes ive made. I have had an amazing season so far and I have achieved so much so far that I will not look back on 2011 and only think of my result in Daegu. Instead I will think of the Canadian record that I broke and beating my personal best by almost 4 minutes.

I am now continuing to train for 3 more weeks as I prepare for my final race of the season on September 24th in Naumburg, Germany. I fly to Dusseldorf, Germany on Monday and will stay with Sabine and Bastian Krantz again before the race. I am looking forward to finishing off my season strong and putting revenge on how I did in Daegu.

Thanks for all the support that you have all given me through my good and bad times. It helps me move on to the next race and fight for better!

Keep on walking,

Rachel