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

"Distance Runner's Need Not Apply" and Racewalkers!

A local runner from my hometown Peterborough, Ontario, Rory Gillfillan, wrote an article for Canadian Running Magazine about funding and support from Athletics Canada and the lack there of for distance runners and racewalkers. You can read the article here.

There isnt much in there about me but its all the same scenario for me as it is for fellow Mizuno sponsored athlete and marathoner, Dylan Wykes.

By the way, im starting to feel better every day and today my heart rate was practically back to normal. Hopefully it just keeps getting better in these next few days leading up to the race on Sunday.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

Sick All Week :(

So, ive been sick ever since the night after the race, boo! Sandor, the guy I was staying with in Hungary had been sick the whole week before the race and so I guess im not surprised that I got sick. Because of this, my training hasnt been good since the race. Some days I have been feeling ok but my heart rate has been super high. For the most part, I havent been feeling too bad but my nose and throat are stuffed up and so its making it harder to breath in training which is why my heart rate has been higher. Usually I dont have a cold for longer than a week but I just cant seem to get rid of this one. Its more annoying than anything! I tried taking a down day on Saturday and just ran but it didnt make a difference.

It is now 6 days until my last race in Europe. I leave for Italy on Friday afternoon and race on Sunday, May 1st at 10am. Im sure my cold will be gone by then and I will for sure be rested! I only was able to do 91km's last week which is even low for a recovery week from a race for me. I am looking forward to this race and it being over and going home. It has been a good trip but a long one and its time to get home to Tim.

You can view information about my race this weekend here. The results will also be posted there after the race. Im going into this race with no pressure since I have already exceeded my expectations a lot and so if this race goes well then its just another bonus! Im just hoping to get in a good fight with some of the other competitors and see what kind of time that brings me.

Keep on walking,

Rachel

1:33:43!!!!!

I had a fantastic week in Budapest, Hungary. I stayed with such amazing people, Sandor and Viki, two of Hungaries top racewalkers (pictured with me left). They showed me the city and we had really great training together. We then made the 2.5 hour trip to Bekescsaba by train on Friday afternoon for our Sunday race.

Training on Saturday went well. I was feeling good and the weather was looking to be perfect for the next day's race which started at 9:15am. The 1km loop was fast, I could tell. The turns were very wide and so I dont think it hurt us too bad for the 40 times we had to go around them. I knew when I decided to come to this race that I would have to walk alone since the men's race started 15 minutes earlier than ours and there were no women trying to walk a very fast time.

Right from the gun I as alone. I was confident that I could walk a fast time because, hey, I train every day alone so if I can push myself in training, why not in a race. I was feeling good and just clicking off the km's. I knew by the first 5k that it was going to be a good race for me. I went through the first 5k in 23:21 which was my fastest 5k in my last 20k in Huntington Beach. I knew that if I could maintain that pace that I could walk the World Championships A standard of 1:33:30. The next 5k was equally good in 23:22 (46:43 for 10k) which is right on for the standard and was still feeling great. Then started a bit of the mental struggle of 10 more laps to go and walking alone and having no one there to yell and support me. I reached 15k in 1:10:09, almost a minute improvement from my race in Huntington Beach (23:27 for that 5k). I thought to myself at that point, im going to get the standard! I "only" had to walk 23:21 for 5k and id have the standard. I did the next 1km in 4:41 which was fine because I knew that I could knock a few seconds off in the last km but the next 3km's didnt go so well...I sort of fell asleep and walked all those km's in 4:44, ugh! At that point I knew that the standard was gone but I was still going to have another huge PB. I did my last km in 4:38 and finished in 1:33:43, a 39 second PB, yay!!!!! Oh and by the way, another Canadian record! I was still thrilled and didnt care too much about the standard anymore. Im just glad that I am that much closer and that its within my reach if I have someone to push me in that last 5km's.

Take THAT Podebrady! What a way to come back after my disappointing DQ last weekend! I always tell people that racewalking is an event that you can get DQ'd one weekend and get absolutely no red cards the next weekend and that is exactly what happened to me. I came away from the race on Sunday with a clean board, not even any warnings. I honestly dont think that I did anything different in this race then in Podebrady but that is just how racewalking is.

One more race to go in my European trip. I am back in Germany now for another 2 weeks until my race in Italy on May 1st. I think that I have a really good chance to go for the standard in Italy since the race will be a lot more competitive and ill have some friends there that can push me through the tough parts of the race by yelling at me (good yelling!). Im just going to go for it again and at this point, I have nothing to loose. If I get the time, GREAT, if I do another solid time ill be just as happy! I have now taken 3 minutes and 40 seconds off my PB this year! WOW, my season has gone beyond my expectations already so im not going to get too greedy!

Thanks for all the support and believing in me. I am finally where I want to be and where I thought I could be and hope for much more to come.

Keep on walking,

Rachel