I woke this morning with a headache. I did my normal morning before race stuff like eating peanut butter, drinking milk, no coffee… I took an Advil (didn’t want to take much because of the heat, etc.). When we stepped out into the sun for our first workout, I started feeling queasy and the headache got worse. A couple people were sick from dinner last night, and I think I was feeling worse knowing they were sick. I did not know how I was going to do the heart rate drill without puking.

Loretta suggested my electrolytes might be out of whack from the previous day because I drank only water all day. I brought just water to drink today, too, so I took a couple sips of Susan’s Gatorade, and I felt better. Joyce then asked her husband to buy some Gatorade and he brought back a ton of it and ice and water… It was Fantastic! After half a bottle, I felt great!

24 min later I had no problem completing the 3 X 8 min walk with 2 min rest periods.

The rest of the day was spent in lecture. I was pretty tired and had a hard time keeping my eyes open until lunch. We had about 90 min for lunch, so I took a nap in my car. (I had planned a 30 min nap, but it turned into about 50 min!

I must have needed it, I felt better all afternoon.

The Workout
In today’s workout, we all wore heart rate monitors. We walked for 8 min at a time, then at every 2-min interval we checked our heart rate. We did it three times and also reported our resting heart rate.

I had a hard time getting as fast as I wanted to go. My shins hurt, and I had a hard time getting my legs to move faster. In this drill, we were to maintain form and walk fast, but I just could not go faster. For that reason, I don’t think my heart rate was as fast as it could go. (Dave agreed.)

My Thoughts on This Clinic
First, I think we had too many people. It took too long to go through video of each person walking. Some people missed the drills with Loretta, and they missed out. (It was awesome.)

This clinic was much more advanced than the beginner’s clinic I took with Bonnie Stein a couple of years back. I think it was helpful that I had some basic racewalking knowledge before I got there. (I’ve never taken one of Bonnie’s more advanced clinics.)

The coaching, the technique, the shoe advice, everything was great! The people helping Dave – Loretta, Susan and Mike – were fantastic! They all saw things a little differently and had great advice.

I would have liked to have a handout of the drills that Loretta taught us, but we were told they will be available via e-mail. That will be fine. I also like the fact we will receive other info. via e-mail.

Overall, I got my money’s worth out of the clinic, I learned a lot. I’m sore, I feel a little overwhelmed and I hope I remember what I learned.

(214)