Cause for celebration and focus for workouts!!!

Many of you know of my 50K struggles, my quest to have equality throughout all of track and field, which is lacking with the exclusion of a women's 50K.  Victories have been made, but there are many more battles yet to fight.  So boy, oh boy, was I surprised when I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and saw the announcement from the IAAF that was made on October 27th. 

Since women's 50K is not a recognized event by the IAAF there are no world records kept by the IAAF.  There are masters records in age groups, but otherwise, the fastest woman who has ever raced a 50K (Monica Svenson) does not have the world record, she holds the world's best.  Seems a bit like semantics, but I don't think it's just semantics.  When Ashton Eaton broke the world record in the decathlon in Beijing this fall at the World Championships he earned a $100,000 USD bonus for doing so.  There are other countries out there that will give their athletes bonuses for breaking world records.  I vaguely remember Sergey Bubka getting a new car every time he broke the world record in the pole vault.  Besides the potential monetary rewards of breaking a world record there's getting your name in the record books.  You can say you're a world record holder.  The best I can say is I'm a world best holder (I do hold the world's best for the women's 50,000 race walk.  Basically I'm the fastest woman to ever walk a 50K on the track).  It's interesting when I say this to someone.  The conversation goes something like this:

Me:  I have a world's best in the 50,000 race walk!
Other Person:  You mean a world record?
Me:  No, a world's best.  Women don't get to keep world records at that event/distance because the IAAF doesn't recognize it as an event the same way they do for the men.
Other Person:  Well, that's dumb.

I have had some permeation of this conversation multiple times. 

So getting back to my Facebook scrolling I see a post from someone in Australia that had a mention of 50K.  That wasn't horribly unusual, but having the word "women" next to it certainly aroused my attention.   The newest edition of the IAAF Competition Rules has come out.  And with it's release the newly elected president, Seb Coe released a statement.  Part of his statement reads thus:

"Also noteworthy: the distances run at the iAAF world Championships
Cross Country have been standardised for both men and women as 10km;
the Distance Medley Relay and the women’s 50km Race walk have been
added as official world Record events; in line with many other sports."

Score TWICE for women's equality!!!!  Women are now running equal distance as the men in Cross Country AND the IAAF is going to recognize women's 50K race walk for world records!!!!!   I now have one more thing I can strive for the same as a man, I can strive to set a world record!!!!!!! 

Hmmm, maybe I'll go do another workout :)