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| So good to be with Dave again! |
It's been a while since I've written. And I'm happy to say it's because I've been having a wonderful time! After the race I did some sightseeing with Ian and Susan and wandered (slowly!) around Rome and went to Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. All the regular walking was great for recovery. And I really loved seeing those amazing places.
From Rome I went to Vienna for a few days. I crammed as much as I possibly could, walking all over the place and seeing as much as I could. I made good use of the Vienna City Pass and spent a fantastic day at the Palace. I got to go to a concert in the big hall in the Palace and listen to Strauss and Mozart!!!! For the musician in me it was amazing! The acoustics in the hall were incredible! And to think that was where Mozart had performed, and made his debut a few rooms over! It was great!
After that I took the train to Budapest and stayed with my friend Anett. She is always the hostess with the mostess! Along with some fun stuff in Budapest we went to her hometown and stayed with her parents, who totally spoiled me! They even got me a birthday cake and some presents! We went to Lake Balaton which was wonderful and had lavender ice cream, which was delicious. And the best part was I started to RW again. It was great walking with someone, it made coming back a lot easier as we could talk and giggle and occasionally stop to pick flowers. I did a speed session with her and her coach was there. I was moving okay, but the 50K was 7 days prior. She told me later her coach said to her "does she not do these kinds of workouts much? She seems like she's having trouble." (it was 3K, 2K, 1K, 2x500) She said "Coach, her 50K was last week!" he said "Oh, right! Wow, she's doing great!" :)
Next was traveling to Naumburg to meet Dave. It was going to be 11 hours on the train, which was cheaper and a bit more convenient than flying. That is true when you make all your connections. Once I realized I was supposed to get off and didn't I was fairly far past where I was supposed to be. So instead of arriving at 7:30 PM I didn't get in til 11:06. Since I left at 6:30 AM it made for a super long day. The worst thing was Dave was waiting for me and I was worried he'd be freaking out. Luckily I convinced the people at the station I turned around at to play a message at the station telling him that I'd be late. They did! Whew! He was there waiting for me! It was so good to see Dave again. I really do miss him when I'm gone and feel so much better when we're together!
The following few days were getting ready for the race on May 22nd. we found a little park to train around. I was actually feeling pretty good. That ended the day of the race though. I never felt good. My stomach was a bit upset, I'm afraid I might have eaten something a little funky the night before, and I was so tight. I think, after three weeks of racing, traveling, and strange beds that my hips finally went a little out. So I DNFed myself at 13K. I decided that finishing a race with an okay time wasn't what I wanted since I had another opportunity for a good 20K six days later in La Coruna. I never like stopping a race, but I really do feel that it was the right decision. I was able to help Dave and cheer for him which was good. He didn't have the race he wanted either, but finished and finished as hard as he could, so I was really proud of him!
Next we took the train to Brussels. Our first train was late and made us miss our connection (ugh) so we spent 4 hours in Efurt, Germany. It was nice, but I would've rather been to Brussels earlier. However we did make it and spent some time wandering around. We were able to find a good hotel right in the center of the city and we were so close to everything. We were going to go eat some Belgium food, but it was expensive and neither of us were really hungry, so we found a Greek restaurant that was amazing! I miss good Greek food!
After a little bit of a sleep in we got up and went for a training walk in the park not too far from us. It was about 1.4K around, according to my GPS, and we had a nice shake out walk. After checking out we did more sightseeing around Brussels. Then we jumped on the train (again!) to Namur, the town outside Brussels by about an hour that we'll be racing in. We checked in then went to the track where I did a little shake out walk, doing some 200s between 50 and 53, which is pretty good for me.
Now I'm sitting around waiting for the race. Our race starts at 8:45 (assuming the track meet doesn't run late). I'm not used to starting so late, so figuring out how to organize my day is tough. I think we did a good job. I went for a training walk in the morning, then breakfast. then we went into town and Dave got a haircut, which was sorely needed, and we saw the Citadel, which was incredibly impressive. Then we came back, repacked our luggage, took a nap, and are now waiting to go! I'll wait to finish up this blog post for after the race. I'm feeling decent for it. Dave and I have worked hard to get my hips back where they're supposed to be. Hopefully we managed it and I'll be able to move okay!
Wow, what a night! The weather was great for the race, but it started about 30 minutes late. That's one thing I love about RW events usually going first, you know when you're starting so you know how to plan your warm up. I warmed up and then tried to just stay loose. The second to last even was the 110 meter hurdles so we could use the back stretch to do some pickups. That seemed to be all I needed.
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| After the 5,000 in Namur, Belgium with Anett. If you look closely you can see her devil horns :) |
The gun went off and I started off comfortable. My goal was to really work on technique and not go out super hard and die. Other than that I had hopes, but nothing I was really intent on doing. I am very happy with my race! I placed second behind Anett. She went out hard and got over 100 meters in front of me. I started closing the distance a bit, but would've needed probably another 5K to catch her :) I don't have my official time, but I was somewhere around 24:16. My last 500 wasn't my slowest, so I'm happy about that, and nothing was over 5 per K pace. I felt like my arms were nice and low and I kept my head level. And another cool thing... prize money!!! Dave placed 3rd and had a solid race, and he also won prize money. So going to Belgium was a huge success!
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| Our race swag. Not sure why I can't get the picture the right way.... |
Since the race started so late and it took so long to get the prize money we didn't get back to the hotel until almost 11:00 PM. With a shower, eating, and last minute packing we got to bed about midnight. Our shuttle to the airport left at 4:30, so that meant very little sleep. I slept maybe 2 hours on the flight to La Coruna. But I am definitely ready for a nap! When we got to La Coruna we were trying to find the bus that would take us into town and this lady came up and started translating, and helping us with where to go and giving us ideas of things to do, places to go eat. She was so nice and so friendly! She walked us to sight of our hotel. Talk about friendly!
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| Heading to Spain! |
Now comes the preparation for La Coruna. I know there's going to be a ton of amazing walkers and I'll probably be bringing up the rear. I hope I'm recovered enough from the 50K to do a solid time. It looks like the weather will probably cooperate, although there may be thunderstorms, which may not be so perfect....
Once I get done with La Coruna it'll be time to look to the future and make long-term plans! But I will say that I do have some long-term plans that are very exciting. So if you'd like to help support me, and need to buy some training gear, I'd ask you to go to my AthleteBiz storefront here:
https://www.athletebiz.us/athletes/erin-taylor-talcott/store
you shop at Running Warehouse, buy awesome stuff (through my storefront) and I get a percentage of what you spend! I know it works because some awesome people have already done so! To those who did, thank you!
For now, Adios from Spain! I'll let everyone know how the race goes :)
https://www.facebook.com/RacewalkerErin/
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