Sunday, December 31, 2017

National 5,000 meter indoor championships - recap






The USATF Indoor 5,000 national championships, hosted by the Upstate Holiday Classic.  Five days before the meet I couldn't walk at 6 per K pace, so I had no clue what I'd be capable of doing, so I thought I'd go out and wing it and see what happened.

There's always little things to get organized the day of a meet, so I was running around way more than I normally would before a race and thus didn't get it a lot of a warm up.  So even once the gun went off I had no clue what I'd do or how fast I'd go, so I just thought I'd have fun and race!

I can't even tell you how happy and excited I was that my first K was 4:51!  I have speed!  It's still there!  I couldn't hold it, but hey, that'll come back over time.  My K splits were:
4:51
5:02
5:10 (15:03)
5:15
5:12 (25:29)

Pretty happy with that.  I felt like I could've kept going at that pace I settled into for longer, I wasn't going super hard, just lost that faster gear.   But for me it was so much more, it was hope.  Hope that I can get back to where I was, hope that I can exceed where I was, and hope that good things are to come.  Whew!  Hope!



My athlete AJ was going for a record in the 10,000.  One of the benefits of only doing the 5,000 was I got to watch him and cheer for him.  He was on pace right up until 4 laps to go.  And if you know AJ you know he always has a faster gear his last lap.  But you can never take anything for granted.  with four laps to go he decided that he really didn't want his breakfast in his stomach anymore.  After finding a convenient garbage can by the track he then made me so super proud by picking himself back up and finishing.   It's that toughness that will make him an awesome 50K walker!

And here's what makes me even happier about my road back...  I did 20K today.  that in itself isn't so impressive, so bear with me for just a sec.  The temperature today was 2 Fahrenheit (-15 Celsius) with wind and the road were still snowy and icy.  So I did it inside at the school.  The last 5K of my workout was 25:51!  Very exciting!

So here's to a new year.  A year of fun new challenges, a year of seeing how hard I can work, a year of setting goals and breaking them and a year of enjoying life.   Here's to an awesome 2018!



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Thursday, December 28, 2017

2018, a year of potential firsts

2017 was a big year.  A lot of amazing things happened.  And some big frustrations.  I'm thrilled with how the women's 50K is moving along.  There's still more work to be done, but now that work is being shared by multiple hands.  So along with racing 50K this year, I've got some other new and fun goals.  A year of (potential) firsts....

This will be the first year I race a 50K in an IAAF Challenge race!  Monterrey, Mexico is having a woman's 50K in February and I'm excited to be going to compete.

You know the Tour de France?  Did you know there's a comperable race for walkers?  The women's race is called Paris-Alsace.  There are four stages that go from Wednesday evening to Sunday morning.  The distances haven't been finalized yet, but they'll be something like: Stage 1, 10K.  Stage 2, 34K.  Stage 3, 224K (yes, you read that right) and Stage 4, 60K.  No American woman has ever finished.  I want to finish and be on the podium.

To prepare for this race I plan to race the USATF 100K road race championships.  I'll race walk it against the runners. 

After our 50K national championships in January I hope to be on the team for the World Team Championships, which will have a woman's 50K race.  I think the US can have a really strong team and I hope to be a valuable member of that team. 

In 2016 I earned my US Centurion badge by walking 100 miles in under 24 hours.  In August I will attempt to earn my British Centurion badge by doing the same thing (hopefully faster) on the Isle of Man.  the race will be held on the track and I will aim for a few records along the way.  No American woman has earned more than one Centurion badge, so I want to be on multiple Centurion lists.  My ultimate goal is to get on all the active lists, but that'll take a number of years.

I may race at the World Masters Championships in Malaga, Spain, but it's only about 3 weeks after the 100 miler so I may not be quite recovered yet....

Of course I'll fill in the holes with some races here and there.  But this year is going to be a fun year.  I'm going to enjoy myself, race as hard as I can, and work on getting as strong as possible.  But the big goal will be to have fun.  I love race walking.  I love the people and the places I get to travel to and visit.  The last few years of race walking have been stressful.  Not this year!  It's going to be a great year! 

If you'd like to help me out, there's a few ways you can do so.  First, just let me know you're rooting for me!  it's always nice to know there are people out there who cheer you on and support you!  Two, click on the ads on this blog.  I earn money each time people click on the ads, so if everyone clicks a couple times it'll really add up!  Three, if you need to purchase something online, please consider doing it through my online stores.  I earn money back for things you'd buy anyway.  Four, share my FB page and this blog with your friends.  In the search for sponsors and such they look at how much online engagement you have.  So having lots of people like your page and comment really helps a lot.  And last, just keep being awesome. 

Happy training!

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I'm baaaack.....

Or at least I'm pretty sure I'm back!  You'd think with having hip surgery it would free up a ton of time to do things.  Important things like writing blog posts, but in some ways I was even busier.  I was cross training sometimes 5 hours a day and going back to school so lots of studying.  It was great to stay busy so I wouldn't fret as much about my race walking. 

Once I was cleared to race walk I started off slow and easy so I wouldn't damage anything.  Training was going okay, nothing really fast, but hey, that's okay!  About 10 weeks after surgery I raced the national 30K and got it done.  My first 10K was 55 minutes and that was the fastest I'd done a 10K since surgery so I was pretty happy with that.  I felt like progress was being made and I was just headed up from there.

Then weird things started happening when I would train.  I'd start off fine and just slow down.  It wasn't that I was tired or out of shape, I'd just slow down, sometimes to around 7:30 per K pace, so I was basically hiking.  It was getting really frustrating because sometimes I could only hold 6 per K pace for one or two K.  That is a lot of frustration.  No one seemed to know what was causing it.  We were trying different things but nothing was working.  And my frustration level was going up exponentially. 

I was doing a workout on Christmas, some fun cross training, and then started to stretch.  I jumped on the roller and was rolling around while watching TV.  I wasn't really paying attention to where I was rolling, just rolling around.  I started rolling the front of my right leg.  At first it felt good, like it was tight and was getting stretched.  Then I had a very sudden and very sharp pain to the point where it floored me and I couldn't move for a few minutes.  I thought, well, okay, no more rolling that leg, so I went to roll over and stretch my left leg.  In the process of rolling over my right leg went into some sort of spasm and it was excruciating.  That was the end of stretching and I didn't workout out again that day.   My right leg was so grumpy and painful where that pain was. 

The next day it still hurt but I jumped on the bike and it felt fine.  I did some elliptical and it felt fine.  So I thought after track practice I'd try some easy laps.  Lately, when I've been doing a workout I'll do a 5K in around 31 minutes or so.  Tuesday, without any effort, I did a 5K in the school hallways in 26:53!  Whew!  It finally felt like me again!  It felt like an honest effort and I could move. 

I thought about what happened and came up with a hypothesis and checked with my PT the next morning that he confirmed.  When I rolled I must have rolled over a bunch of scar tissue that was sticking to the muscles where they went in and out a bazillion times for the surgery.  It freed everything up.  It's still super sore, almost bruised, but I can move again! 

One thing that's interesting about the timing of all this was mentally I was just getting to the point where I was thinking there was no point in racing the 50K in January.  I went from a real mental low to feeling so excited and hopeful.  There's always hope, it may just take a while (like 5 months). 

I went out yesterday and walked twice, once before and once after track practice and it went great both times.  It looks like that might have really helped.  Now I just need to really work to keep those muscles unstuck! 

Here's what I learned, don't give up.  Everyone says it, it's almost cliche, but people say it for a reason.  You have to keep trying and pushing and working for what you believe in.  It won't be easy, it'll be frustrating, but the fight is worth it.  And surround yourself with people who will be positive and supportive.  It's at those real lows you need people who also believe in you.  People who will support and lift you up.  Get as many people around you as you can, find a team of people you can rely on and talk about your frustrations with.  It's so important when you're in a low spot.  You'll also be able to find out who your true friends are in times like that.  You may feel like your circle of friends gets smaller, but it'll be a smaller and stronger circle. 

Now it's time to look to the future.  I've got an amazing year planned full of fun new firsts.  But I'll talk about that under separate blog.

Thanks for reading, please share with your friends :)

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