National 30K results and catch up

Wow, it's been a while since I posted.  I guess that's because things have been so up and down lately and I've barely known which way is up.  And training has been at times nonexistent.   I started having major problems with my stomach, lots of pain and cramping that would lead to desperately needing the restroom during a workout and leave me feeling completely depleted and have no energy.  The episodes were taking all my electrolytes, so once that happened I was toasted.  After a race in Ohio I had an episode with a ton of blood and that got us a bit worried so I went to the doctor. 

The doctor referred me to a specialist.  He ordered a bunch of tests including an endoscopy and colonoscopy, yay!!!!!  It definitely could've been worse, but not a ton of fun.  All the tests came back negative, which on the one hand was good, but on the other still left me not knowing why my stomach was hurting so much and why I couldn't get through a long workout. 

Long story short, after working with another doctor (because the specialist actually still hasn't called me with those results, I had to find out from my GP, even though the test was around 2.5 weeks ago...) and we figured that I had some sort of parasite.  It could've been left over from all the antibiotics I took back in January/February.  I had been feeling for a few months like I was constantly almost getting strep throat again and exhausted and really just wanting to lay on the couch.  I had some good training in Hungary and that probably lowered my immune system enough that it tipped me just a bit over the edge. 

I've since gone on some natural antibiotics and some herbs and stuff.  And thank goodness, I FINALLY AM FEELING BETTER!!!!!   I feel more like my old self than I have at all this year.  The stupid strep throat really took my body for a ride.  I hadn't felt good all year.  So it's nice to finally be having some energy again.   My stomach is still hurting but we figured that is actually caused by stress.  So I'm trying to manage that.  I've had some days where I almost feel like I'm having a panic attack and just have to sort of chill, but I think it's getting under control. 

I was both looking forward to and dreading the 30K.  I really want to be in good shape, but training has been spotty.   I figured I'd go to have fun and see what I could do and just think about it as a good training walk.  The nice thing was with multiple athletes racing, one who is pretty new, I had lots of things to focus on before the race other than me.  :)  More about them soon!

The race started off and I got into a nice comfortable groove.  I hoped I could keep it up, but I wanted to push the whole race so I kept the foot off the pedal a little.  I was feeling good through 10K, and wasn't thinking hardly at all since I was spending most of the time trying to get Lydia to follow her race plan, so time flew by.  At 15K I was still feeling great.  I did my second 10K faster than my first to finish off my 20K.  Around 22K I started to catch up to Maria who had walked a hard 20K and was doing a 10K chaser/cool down to finish off the 30K.  I decided that was good motivation to keep pushing and caught up to her and chatted for a bit and pulled a way a bit.  Basically I had unlapped myself from her.  It was a nice mental push to keep going and I ended with my last 10K being my fastest.  My 5K splits were as follows:

28:56, 28:50, 28:40, 28:33, 28:07, 28:32
Which gave me 10K splits of:
57:46, 57:13 and 56:39
And halves of:
1:26:26, 1:25:14

Really couldn't be much happier with that.  But the best part of the day was what my athletes did!!!

First up is Dave!!!  At the age of 59 he qualified for his 4th Olympic Trials event walking a single age best of 5:07:26!!!!  That got him 7.5 minutes under the qualifying time.  He raced super smart, starting off really easy and controlled.  He maybe started to make his move just a little early and slowed just a smidge his last 6K, but he looked strong and smooth throughout.  Never did he look like he was death marching.  I couldn't be more proud of him!

Lydia came through in a new 50K PB breaking 5 hours for the first time!  Her time of 4:56:48 is really solid and expect more to come from her!  Especially once we get her to really commit to following her race plan!

Siobhan is relatively new to race walking, having just started this summer.  This was her second race walking race and first time she's really been away from her family.  She handled it like a champ and did over a 5 minute personal best at the 5K distance!  Which is HUGE!  She still has to learn to have faith and believe in herself and she's going to start really turning some heads!

AJ also did a 50K.  We've been working on his nutrition plan and had great success with that.  It ended up being his second fastest 50K ever, so pretty darned happy about that.  A solid foundation is being laid that's going to really push him forward come January and the 50K Olympic Trials! 

Adrianna wasn't at the 30K, but did a local 5K race and broke 30 minutes.  She's another one that's going to be surprising some people soon!

For the national 30K  Siobhan won the 5K.  I came in second overall in the 50K and first masters, Lydia was 3rd overall and 2nd master.  AJ was second overall and Dave was third overall and first master.  AJ was the second male 50K finisher and Lydia was third overall and first female in the 50K.  Not a bad haul for the day!  Seeing how hard they work definitely inspires me to keep working too! 

Onward and upward.  Keep working hard, keep pushing, never lose sight of your dreams! 

The start of a comeback? NCCWMA 10K

Photo credit:  Dan Slovitt

Brother, it's been a while since I've written.  This has been for a few reasons.  1.  I've been super busy.  2.  I haven't had much of anything interesting to post in the world of race walking.  3.  I've been super down and just haven't wanted to. 

The past few years have been rough.  Coming back from hip surgery has been interesting.  I can't blame my lack of results on it at all, I had a great PT helping me and things seem good.  I've gotten sick a few times which have really thrown me for a loop, especially the Strep Throat I got in January that lingered for about 4.5 months.  That really threw me for a loop physically and especially mentally. 

Sports at a high level (I'm not going to use the word elite) is a funny thing.  There's this mystique wrapped around it.  Athletes are supposed to be tough, breaking through incredible hardships to strive for their dreams and goals.  We're supposed to be almost super human!!  And then we reach the podium and everything is rose colored. 

Reality really isn't like that.  We go through so much self doubt.  I have self doubt.  I have self doubt ALL THE TIME.  And for me personally, since I constantly feel like people don't believe I can achieve the things I believe I can, I'm afraid to show any weakness.  Because if I do then that will just lead them to say, see, just like I thought.

It's easy to say, just don't worry about what others think.  For the most part I'd like to think that I'm someone who doesn't really care what people think, but I still do.  I know that I have achieved some awesome things in my sports career, things that no other woman will be able to say that they've done.  And very few people give me credit for those things that I've done.  I'm learning to care less about it and just be proud of myself, but if I'm being honest about it, it's hard when I see how others get treated now for doing the things I did 5 years ago and I was ignored and they are celebrated.  And I think that's a natural and reasonable thing to feel.  And I'm learning to handle it.

With the ongoing fight for the women's 50K it's been taking a real toll on me mentally.  I've been fighting/pushing/trying for 50K equality since 2011.  That's 8 years of nearly constant pushing.  That is a long, long time.   And it has really, really beaten me down. 

So I went through a phase where I was pretty depressed.  I didn't want to get off the couch.  I barely was able to do things I would normally do.  And I had little to no desire to train.  I would force myself sometimes, but then just be down about how slow I was.  Then I turned a bit to food and gained about 15 pounds.  So now on top of it all I'm super duper self conscious about my figure.

One reason I've always been afraid to talk about what's been going on with myself is because I'm a coach.  I want to always, 100% be there for my athletes.  Sometimes I can't, and they know that.  they know when I'm away at a competition I'm not available as much.  But I never, ever want the athletes that I coach to feel like they can't come to me because I'm having a rough patch.  So I held it inside.  This hit me really hard when I was about to talk to one of the athletes I coach and tell her just a little bit about the rough patch I'd been going through when she said something along the lines of, "you're so tough, you can handle anything."  I realize I should tell her that it's not really true, I'm human like everyone else.  I struggle, I cry, I yell and I get frustrated.  But it took me so much by surprise and I didn't want to let her down that I stayed silent.  Soon I will get up the courage to tell her I'm not everything she thinks I am.

The clincher though was when I was working with my doctor because I was just so exhausted that it seemed something was wrong and we started looking into things and we  came to the conclusion that I was starting to show some pre-chronic fatigue type symptoms.  That freaked me out! 

So I've been cutting out as much stress in my life as possible and feeling better already.  We had the national 40K a few weeks ago and my friend stayed with us and it was so nice to train with her and have fun and I felt excited again.  I raced the 40K, did the first 5K with an athlete, then another few K with another athlete and then settled into my race around 8K in.  I negative split the race and finished with a 5:35K and that made me feel awesome!  Was my time "good"?  Depends on your definition.  If we're looking at elite level, no.  But it fulfilled a purpose and gave me hope.

Training has been getting better.  Not perfect, but better.  I find if something stressful happens my body still has a very strong stress reaction and I have to just honor it and go with it.  I had a long session planned for the day the calf died and it was so emotional that when I tried to do my session I just couldn't.  At first I tried to tell myself that I should be tougher than that, stop being a wimp!  But no, I needed to be kind to myself.  So I listened to my body, did what I needed to do, and moved forward. 

photo credit Dan Slovitt.  Lydia rocked it!  I love racing with athletes I coach :)   

When I came up here to Toronto for the Norther American, Central and Caribbean Master's championships (NCCWMA) I came to have some fun.  I just wanted to race and see people and enjoy being out.  And yesterday that's what I did!  I did have a time goal (of course).  I wanted to go sub 54:00 for the 10K, but didn't know if that was realistic.  The night before the race I could barely move.  But the morning of the race the temperature was decently cool for what it has been so that felt good.  The course was.... decent.  There were speed bumps that really took me off stride the last few Ks and the pavement was a bit broken up in spots and it was probably the narrowest course I've ever raced on.  But I've been on much, much worse courses before.  The humidity was fairly oppressive, but I've been training in worse.  It seemed that a lot of people were a minute or two off their usual times.  So when I finished at 53:53 I was quite happy.  My second 5K was slower than my first, which I don't really like, but I'm still happy with my pacing/racing.  It felt so good to be out pushing and breathing hard again! 

very cool and big medal!

So maybe this is the real start of the comeback.  I have a long way to go to get back to holding that pace for an entire 50K, but I've done it before and I believe I can do it again.  And you know what?  If you don't think I can do it again just keep it to yourself because I believe it and that's what matters.   However, if you believe it too and want to be supportive then let it flow!  Imagine what the world could be like if we all supported each other!

The 5,000 for NCCWMA is Sunday, so that'll be fun!  And Saturday I'm really going to have some fun, I'm going to throw the discus!!!  I haven't thrown seriously since high school.  I've been practicing and have thrown a few out there a decent distance, so I think it'll be a good competition! 

After that I'm going to go to Hungary to train with my friend and do some fun races.  I'm going to enjoy life, train hard, clean up my eating, and get back to what I love.  Training, racing, meeting people, seeing places and enjoying myself. 

People have always asked me when I'll stop race walking.  My answer has always been "until I'm not having fun anymore."    I almost got to that point a number of times in the last few years.  I really contemplated stopping competitive race walking and shifting my focus to other things.  But I'm not ready to stop yet.  I know I can still achieve some things I want to achieve.  So that's what I'll do :) 

Never give up.  Talk to people if you need people to talk to.  I am always here to listen if you need someone to talk to.  My house is always a safe place.  My private messages on FB are always open if you need.  Never feel alone.  Never feel like it's hopeless.  Never feel like there's not someone you can talk to. 

Happy training!

Photo Credit Vlado Haluska.  This was from the national 40K, and I just LOVE this picture!!!

Pan Am Cup - Mexico!!!

Whew!  What a trip!  What a race!  What an experience!  So much pre, during and post race I barely know where to start.  Strap in, this could be a long one... 

I guess I'll start with the time around the race itself.  Getting to Lazaro Cardanas is not an easy feat.  It required two-ish days of travel with staying the night in Houston.  I've never really broken travel up like that and I'm not a huge fan of it.  I know why we did it,and it made sense, but I like to just get there.  Our flight from Houston to Mexico City was late and we had to rush to make our connection, and while we made it our bags didn't.  They showed up the next day, but unfortunately a bunch of my teammates bags were opened and stuff was stolen.  That's the downside of traveling with USA on your bag, everyone thinks we have awesome stuff, which we do tend to have cool stuff, don't get me wrong.  Everyone was well prepared though and had their racing kit on their carry on so nothing catastrophic. 

With silver medalist Joanna!  She's very active in the fight for women's equality in the 50K.  She raced so smart and hard!

It was fantastic to see all my friends again, both domestic and international!  Over the 9 US teams I've made I've met so many amazing people, it's great to be able to see them again.  The city was interesting, we were about a 10 minute walk from the course and from where lunch and dinner were held.  I didn't end up going to do anything touristy like see the beach, but that's okay.

Luckily they bumped the start time up 30 minutes, which meant getting there in the wee hours when things were calm and quiet.  I love starting off races this way.  

The course was nice, a 2K loop with slight rise and fall.  In the morning there was shade, but by about 10 or so there basically wasn't any left.   I've done somewhere around 20 different 50Ks and I can say that this was the hottest 50K I've ever done!

I'm not a great photographer and this was just off my phone, but the moon was amazing. 

The race itself.  I knew it was going to be brutal.  I spent 2.5 weeks in Arizona training to try and get some heat training, but it never got super hot there, still better than at home where I was training the week of the race and it snowed.  So I knew my body was not going to enjoy the heat at all. 

I started off very easy.  I honestly thought it was going to be easy enough.  I felt great thanks to our awesome physio, everything was working super smooth.  Then about 8K I got bit by a bug.  I have no idea what bug it was.  About a K later my hands went fuzzy numb, then a little bit after that my eyesight basically went fuzzy and dark.  I could sort of see where I was going, but not really well.  I could at least see well enough to turn, other than that it was just go straight and find the bottles that were being handed to me.  My heart rate went up about 15-20 beats a minute.  It was wild.  I really hope to never experience that again!  That lasted for somewhere around 8-10K I think?   Then little by little I started to feel better and my heart rate calmed.  I picked things up a little, which in hindsight was probably a mistake.  Because after a while I most definitely hit a wall.  My whole body  had locked up.  When I saw the massage therapist later he said my entire back was one big solid mass of not moving, going all the way around the front and constricting my breathing. 

Sure, there were times where dropping out crossed my mind.  Let's be honest, it crosses most everyone's mind at some point, that's a 50K!  But I wanted to finish really, really bad.  So I just kept trucking.  I interacted with the crowd.  I cheered for my competition, I smiled as much as I could. 

And I finished!  I think it was my second slowest time ever, but I finished.  There were a lot of guys who didn't finish.  I finished.  I was stronger than the 50K. 

There's no way I could've done it without Emmanuel Corvera!  The day after he rocked his 20K he came out and did my aid.  Talk about amazing and selfless!  He was always right there ready to give me what I needed and with a supportive word or two or ten.  Tom and Susan were right there cheering for me, making me smile and being awesome!  People who haven't done a 50K don't realize how important the aid person is.  Really my success is their success, because especially in that heat there is no way I could've done it off just water.  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you! 

Our physio, Ed, is a magician!  Seriously, he works miracles!  And our massage therapist had the magic touch.  They got me loose and ready to go and got me moving again after the race.  I'm so thankful and appreciative of them.

Me and my athletes.  Super proud of Lydia and AJ!

One thing I'm super proud of is that of the 7 50K athletes on Team USA I coach two of them!  I'm so proud of AJ and Lydia!  Lydia did a PB in that nasty weather!!!!  Can you believe it!!!!  She raced hard and most importantly she raced smart and with patience!   AJ suffered in the heat, but did not give up, making sure to finish and doing everyone proud.  I'm super proud of both those guys! 

Sixteen women started the race, 15 finished.  The one who didn't was a DQ, so she didn't voluntarily drop out.  That makes me so happy!  Take that all those people who say women aren't tough enough to do a 50K!!!  There were some really smart races, and some not as smart races, but everyone kept pushing and fighting. 

I think this is long enough for a read.  I'll write another one soon about some of the demons that were vanquished ;) 

Keep walking everyone!  Find your dream and go after it!

Might have gotten a little sun??? 

First 50K of the 2019 season is tomorrow!

Wooooo!!!!!  I am excited!  First 50K of 2019 and the start of a new season and a new focus and a new me.

The last two years have been crazy.  Finally getting 50Ks into the world champs for women and then getting DQed led to being really frustrated and low on motivation.  So I made 2018 a fun year and did some longer stuff.  Finishing Paris-Alsace was a HUGE bucket list item for me and is on my top 5 greatest accomplishments.  We had fun in Spain for World Masters and I had some decent performances.  Then things went downhill a bit.  I lost motivation again.  Dave and I also made a huge investment and bought some properties in the next town over to renovate and rent.  We have been working like fiends trying to get stuff done.  Honestly at the expense of our training.  But it was fun, we were working together and setting us up for a great future, so it was worth it. 

Then in the beginning of December I finally got my Mojo back!  Going to Monaco to lobby for the women's 50K and seeing all the support really got me fired back up!  So I started really training again and it felt amazing.  I was involved in a study seeing how weight training affects runners and was some of the strongest I have ever been and I could really tell when I started walking.  I felt strong in ways I'd never felt strong before.

The weather at home wasn't super cooperative.  So I spent a fair amount of time training indoors at the school I coach for.  That meant limited times I could workout.  Three days a week I held morning practices before school.  Morning practice was the only time I could get access to the gym so my field event kids could practice.  (this really paid off as my thrower has absolutely crushed it, breaking the school record four times and is up to 34' 9"!)  Practice starts at 5:30 and if I want to walk before that I have to start even earlier.  So some days I'd start my workouts at 4:00.  Since I was staying up late working on our properties it led to getting tired.  I'd take naps during the day, but it was still rough. 

It's been such a weird year in terms of weather everyone was getting sick.  Half of the kids who showed up to practice were sick and all sorts of stuff was running around the school.  So I was working as hard as I could to stay healthy. 

Along the way I started putting in some really good sessions, doing two of my fastest 40Ks since January of 2017.  The national 5K didn't go well, I felt really off and didn't know why.  Ends up it was because I had an ear infection.  Two and a half weeks before the race I went to the walk in clinic because I was just feeling off and that's when I found out about the ear infection and that I also had strep throat.  Not exactly the lead up I was hoping for!

With our renovations we are getting a building ready to be a salon.  It's a HUGE space and we have a deadline of February 1st.  Some things took longer than expected so we've been working overtime.  The Monday and Tuesday before the race Dave and I installed about 600 square feet of hardwood flooring.  They were small pieces.  Over 48 hours I spent about 26 of them bent over cutting pieces and nailing them in. 

But you know what?  I'm so excited for tomorrow!  I'm always excited about a 50K.  I can't wait to see where I'm at.  I have goals, I have processes to focus on.  I'm excited about the other women who are out there racing.  Tomorrow's race was never the focus of my season.  It's a long year with some important goal races, and tomorrow is the least important of them.  I have a plan, I have motivation, I have support.  I have awesome athletes who motivate and inspire me and remind me what's important.  Tomorrow is going to be awesome! 

I love my sport.  I love the 50K.  And I can't wait to toe the line tomorrow!