I'm Gonna Be...: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

My blog originally was supposed to be on race walking, farming, music and more! However it tends to be focused quite a bit on race walking. Probably because the majority of my life is spent training, racing, stretching, cross training, working on core, mobility, and eating (not necessarily in that order). Today I’m going to talk about something other than race walking…. Gasp! At least the first part of it will be. I’ll talk a bit about race walking stuff at the end of it, well, because I just can’t help myself.

Before... the long hair

After! So short and some color

For those of you who don’t know me personally I have very long hair. Long as in down below my waistline. When I was 13 I got my hair cut short and permed (I know, I know, but it was the early 90s and that’s just what you did…) I hated it! It ended up looking like a Little Orphan Annie hairstyle. Don’t get me wrong, it looked great on her, on me? Not so much. So I grew it out…. And just never stopped. In January of 2016 I took a jump into the deep end and got about six inches cut off! It was terrifying! But I did it and it was nice.

Well, the idea started brewing in my brain… Maybe it’s time for a change… There have been some times when my long hair has been quite annoying. It’s warm and humid here in New Zealand and I’m quite sweaty a lot in my workouts and my braided hair will whip around and get stuck on my arm and all sorts of annoying things. When I’m doing yoga it seems to always be in the way.

So Friday I went to a salon. Not a place that cuts hair, a salon. Keep in mind, most years of my life I never got my hair trimmed at all, so I have spent very, very little money on hair maintenance in my lifetime. So I felt like going to a salon once would be okay. They were so nice. They could tell I was super nervous and my stylist (Rochelle) put me at ease. We talked a lot about what was going to be done and looked at pictures and all sorts of things. So besides getting my hair cut I decided to get it highlighted too! For those who are interested I will document it in pictures at the end of the blog.

Of course you could just say I’m so dedicated to attaining my race weight I’m taking it off wherever I can J

Aaaaannnnndddd back to race walking. It’s been a weird week. Monday I was walking along and clipped my toe on the pavement and almost went down. I managed to catch myself before I actually hit the ground, but not by much. Unfortunately it totally jammed my spine and threw me all out of alignment. I had an appointment already arranged for Wednesday with a physio so thought he’d fix stuff then. Unfortunately he didn’t do a darned thing for it. I was starting to get massive headaches from my neck being out and all sorts of stuff. I looked up chiropractors and found one close by where I’m staying. They opened 7:00 AM Thursday, so at 7:15 I called them and gave them my sob story. They were so nice and fit me in for an 8:00 AM appointment! She took about an hour with me and really focused on how my body needed to be aligned. I left feeling the best I’ve felt all week. It was amazing, my mood instantly changed and I could walk easier, even just down the street walking.

Since I had a race on Saturday she wanted to see me Friday as well, which I was happy with. I was so far out all the way out my spine and had been for basically four days, it was very possible I might slip back out. That appointment went well and I again left feeling really good.

Saturday was the Auckland Championships at 3,000. I was planning for another big PB, but felt some self-doubt with my spine being out most of the week and not getting in any speed work. But I was going to give it my all. Warm up went okay. Near the end I started feeling pretty fluid and decent, not great, but decent. We were called into the call room 15 minutes before the race. Unfortunately there were some issues with the meet and we were stuck in there for 40 minutes. I did my best to stay loose and fluid and warm, but had a really hard time and as we walked out I just felt flat and tired. I tried to do some pickups and get moving again. I think I was only partially successful.

Alana smashed it out. I'm considered a visitor so I got a second place visitors medal.

So I started off okay, not as fast as I wanted, but not slow either. I ended up finishing in 13:45.82, less than 6 seconds off my PB and breaking my masters age group record. For having a day where I felt totally flat I’m quite happy with that time. And I’m hopeful that with more self-care my body will be a-ok and I can get back to quality training.

Enjoy the pictures, if that’s your thing. I’ll throw in some pictures from the race and stuff too, just for fun.

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