Friday, August 08, 2008

Pre race

 
Good morning, Spokane! Time for the 5000m racewalk this morning! This picture was taken from my hotel room.

Yesterday I did an easy 30 min with a few pick-ups. Then I got on the plane and headed to Spokane. I got my rental car (a seriously BRIGHT red Mazda 3) and headed over to the community college where the meet is. At the packet pick-up I ran into Lynn Tracy, another racewalker, and it was fun to chat for a few minutes. I checked out the venue (I dig the BLUE track! Will take pics of it later.) and then got some lunch. After that I drove downtown just to do a little sightseeing, but didn't really stop anywhere, because I was just trying to get a feel for the place. There is a pretty river (the Spokane River) that runs through the city, and it's hard to drive around because you can only cross where there's a bridge, and I had a rather primitive map. But I managed OK. Then I drove back over to the community college to check out the 10K road course (yeah! it's not on the track!) and it looks pretty nice. It's flat and shaded and located in the quaint & picturesque Fort Wright, immediately adjacent to the community college. The only bummer is that there are 5 speed bumps on the 2k loop course. Those will be tough to get over with good racewalking form.

My race is at 9:30 am this morning, but I'm going to head over there by 8 am to see the 60&over women & men racewalk at 8:00 and 8:45 am, respectively. It's going to be pretty hot by 9:30 am - it's supposed to get in the low 90s today, and I'd guess it's going to be 80 by race time. Ugh. At least I have done some training in the heat, but probably not as much as I should have. Fortunately, it's a relatively short race.

The 10K is at 7:30 am on Sunday, which will be much nicer for 2 reasons: 1) it's earlier, and hence cooler, and 2) we're supposed to have a cold front come through tomorrow. The weather last night said 53 degrees for Sunday morning, which is almost chilly! Perfect!

True confession time - I am really really nervous about this morning's race! I'm very excited, but also scared because I've been prepping for this for so long and want to do well.

Time to stop blogging and start focusing! Will be back later today with a full report.
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have Fun Amy!

Harriet said...

Hey, let us know, good or bad.

ollie

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking about you all day!!! I can't wait to read your report. I hope you had fun.

Love,
Rebecca

Tammy said...

Thanks for all the good wishes - I did remember to have fun during the race! :) Rebecca, I appreciate your encouragement. I mentioned to someone here that you posted on my blog (I think it was Lynn Tracy) and she was saying she wished you could have been there today. I do, too! We'll meet at a race someday, I'm sure, though!

Anonymous said...

Did I say Amy? Im getting my a-m-ys mixed up.

I meant Tammy!