The clinic was awesome. I learned a lot - mostly I learned how much I need to learn, but hey, that's a start! I was doing a lot of things wrong: too much forward lean, not enough push off my toes, landing too flat-footed, and basically walking like a fitness walker instead of a racewalker. Also, my shoes were all wrong - too clunky. Racewalkers need supple shoes to accommodate the foot motion, and we don't need all the support runners need, since we have about 1/3 the impact. Anyway, I did make some progress on improving all of these things, but I will have to practice a lot and videotape myself a lot to see how it goes.
Hopefully I will be able to improve w/o too much coaching, since there are basically NO racewalking coaches in UT. There is a good walker up in Ogden, but she is pretty busy... maybe if I paid her enough she would be interested in helping me on occasion.
I met some fabulous walking types who are starting a club called the "Wasatch Walkers". They meet Tuesday nights at 6:30 pm at the Olympic Oval for workouts (there's an indoor track there). It will be hard to make Tues nights, as I've got the kids, but if I can find a sitter I may go regularly. Even if I can only make it once a month, that would be good. Loren might be able to handle them once a month :). I'm so excited to have met some local walkers - I don't feel so freaky and alone as a budding racewalker anymore!
Am hoping the technique changes don't mess up my half marathon this weekend too much. I am a bit worried that the new muscles I'm going to use will fatigue too easily. I will try to use the new techniques, but I guess if I get too tired I can always do it the old way for this one race, until I get my new walking legs acclimated. Same for my shoes - the new ones I got have not yet been adequately tested in long workouts, so I'm probably going to wear my old pair for the 1/2 marathon, even if it does inhibit my technique. We'll see.
I put some pics of Friday and Saturday on the web site, if you're interested.
Oh, in the it's a small world category, one of my fellow clinic attendees is from Grand Junction, Colorado. OK, so what? Turns out her husband grew up in the same church as my boss's family did, and he knows them pretty well. Not only that, but she used to work for my boss's cousin. I enjoyed meeting her and her family (they all came with her for the weekend!), and hope to see them again sometime.
OK, I really do need to get some more rest. I rested a bunch today, but not enough yet. I have got to rest up a lot before Saturday. The taper week sure is nice :).
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