Malaga 20K

We're back home!  Boy it's good to be home!  I love traveling so much, but I do love being home too.


The 20K race was the strangest race I think I've ever raced, and that's saying something since I've raced A LOT of races in all my (many) years.  I'm going to attempt to recap it as accurately as possible and share all the things that I was feeling and thinking.  My hope is someone might have some ideas for what went on.  So if anything rings a bell for you please speak up!

After the 10K and being so tired from all the travel to Morocco we tried to take it a bit easier.  We still wanted to see Malaga though, so still walked around.  And Wednesday (two days before the race) we ended up walking WAY more than we meant to, but it was awesome.  Thursday we rested quite a bit but my workouts were still just blech.  Dave came and watched me Wednesday and gave some good feedback so I felt like my technique was solid.

Friday morning I was getting ready to go and I just felt.... blech I guess is the way to describe it.  I barely felt like warming up and mentally part of me didn't even feel like racing.  Things just felt off.   But I figured once the gun went off my competitive spirit would kick in.  I started off not at the front of the line so it took me about 1.5K to get caught up to the leaders.  I felt great!  I was so surprised at how different I felt than my warm up!  I was going at a decent clip and it felt smooth and easy and my breathing was low.

The weather was heating up and it was very humid.  Even with that I still felt great.  Then at 6K the wheels fell off.  My right butt started to hurt.  That K slowed down about 30 seconds!  It wasn't a slow down from starting too fast, not with that much of an instant slow down.  Then my right leg basically went numb.  It was the weirdest feeling.  Luckily I didn't get knee paddles, so I guess muscle memory stayed in place and I knew what to do, but if my knee had started to bend I probably wouldn't have been able to feel it.

Mentally I was so frustrated.  To have gone from not really wanting to race to the lead to slamming back was just throwing my mind everywhere.  I was still in third in my age group.  But most importantly to me was the team.  With myself, Stacy Trogner and Katie Grimes having moved down in age groups to join us we had a team.  If I DNFed then we would have no chance of a team score and that would've really been unfair to Katie as she could've moved to another age group.   So even though for about 3-4K I really wanted to stop because of how my leg felt I didn't want to stop because I didn't want to let my teammates down.  I know how frustrating it is to see your teammate stop and make it so you have no team score.

I kept going and kept pushing.  I got into a decent rhythm and luckily continued to stay in third.  I was drinking each lap and throwing water on me.   With about 3K to go I had about 30 seconds on 4th place.  Then, fairly suddenly, my whole body started to tingle.  My hands, feet, arms, everything.  My sight got sort of weird fuzzy.  I could see but it was just strange.  I tried to start pushing and slowed down.

Next I got probably the biggest side stitch that I've gotten since 8th grade.  I actually do remember the side stitch I got in the 8th grade, it was that bad.  And this was right there with it.  I ended up walking a bit with my arm up in the air to try and stretch it out it was that bad. 

I have never got numb or tingling like that before.  The original pain in my right butt I think might have been from the really, really tight 180 degree turns.  I saw a number of athletes shuffle around them.  I won't do that.  I will race walk every step of my race, even if the corners are tight.  I remember going around once and feeling a spot as I tried to turn harder.  I would lose a lot of momentum each turn so I was trying to push more getting around it, but that might have been bad for my butt.

I ended up coming in third, which I am proud of.  And, even better, we got silver in the team competition.  I am so proud of my teammates who worked so hard to earn that silver!  And I don't know what I would've done without Dave doing my aid.  He was the best!  He got me my drinks every time, cheered, supported and helped me do my best.  That is the best thing about racing at different times, although it makes for long day where I race in the morning and he races in the evening.   And it means that world that he would come out and stand for all that time in the sun and heat before his race to support me for mine.

I've left Malaga with an individual gold and bronze and a team silver.  One of each!  I raced, saw amazing sights, made new friends, hung out with old friends, ate amazing food and had fun.   I definitely didn't race up to my current potential, but I'm okay with that.  I made that decision when I raced on the Isle of Man a few weeks ago knowing that I wouldn't be 100% recovered.  Of course when you're in the heat of the competition it's hard to remember that.  Live and learn!

I'm so proud of how Dave raced, just a few weeks after a world leading 100 mile time he did amazing.  I'm so glad we were able to go and experience new cultures and have fun and race.  Race walking is so awesome in so many ways!

Now it's time to rest a bit and then get going on 50K training!