I'm in St. George, Utah for the lead up to the 50K in February. The weather, while not bright and sunny, is MUCH better than upstate New York this time of the year. The elevation is a little over a half a mile, and it hardly ever snows. The town is fantastic, with miles and miles of bike paths. There's a great chiropractor here who also does ART, so I'm set with body work. I'm looking for a massage therapist, and I think I'll find someone soon. And my host family is AWESOOME! They're fun and know everyone and everything and supportive and helpful. I'm having a great time here, having already tried a water aerobics class and went to a PaintNite function. Water aerobics was a blast, and a good workout. While I was definitely the youngest person in the class, you get out of it what you put into it, and I was able to really move at times. One thing I didn't think of was how rough the bottom of the pool was and how jumping up and down might affect my feet. I half tore off the skin on my big toe, and while it's painful if I walk with no shoes on thankfully it doesn't hurt when I race walk. Mission before next Monday, get some boat shoes or something for my poor footsies!
PaintNite was fun. I'm a bit of a perfectionist type, so I'm not completely happy with my glass, but I had fun, almost won the dance competition, and painted a painting! I had so much fun I think I'll go again while I'm here. Something that doesn't have a wine glass in it!
Training is going really well here too. Today I did a 30K, and it was my most solid 30K training walk in months. Many months. While today wasn't a day that I didn't watch the watch (I know, a whole lot of double negatives in that sentence) I met one of my major goals today! For the first part of the workout I was like a machine, hitting 5:41 per K (off the GPS watch) time after time. Then I would have a split where I slowed down. Normally my thought process would be something along the lines of, "shoot, slowing down, better pick it up." But not today! Today my thought process was, "Why did I just slow down? Did I space out? Did my technique change? Am I legitimately tired?" And what I found was that when I refocused and concentrated on my technique (AKA the PROCESS of race walking) my splits went right back where they were supposed to be! By focusing on the process of my walking, what it takes to hit the times I want, instead of just focusing on wanting to walk faster, then my body was picking my times up! I find this very encouraging indeed! And I stayed focused and my last 10K was the fastest, albeit not by much as I was super consistent during my workout. I focused on the hills, stayed relaxed, and was methodical with my nutrition. It was a good day!
I again recommend to everyone to really look at your goals. Make sure you're setting some type of goal that you can hit everyday. Something that you can constantly do to reach your dreams. Sometimes life gets in the way and things suffer, but there's always SOMETHING you can do to improve yourself!
Delicious post 30K recovery food: Tuna marinated in something yummy over rice and cabbage!
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