Not much has changed on the walking front since my racewalking debut last Saturday. I’m still walking the same course in nearly the same manner with maybe just a bit more flare. I think I had this crazy notion, that after I took racewalking lessons, I’d somehow be out there racing all over the place. Reality check… Well, maybe today wasn’t the best day to gauge my racewalking abilities , but I have a feeling that racewalking, even at slower paces and shorter distances, is going to be much more demanding on my lungs. Today I’m back in the yellow again and not breathing that great. I used my inhaler 6 times and stopped at least 4 times during my 1.5 hour torture walk today. Of the 5 miles I covered , I think I “legally racewalked ” a total of 75 feet. That’s pretty pathetic , but I didn’t wanted to kill myself either. I huffed & puffed and gasped for over an hour continuously. It was the same degree of breathing difficulty that I sometimes experience while I’m sitting on a gurney in the hospital waiting for the meds to kick in. I like to call these kinds of walks, “Urgent Care Walks”….. not to be confused with the more severe , full blown exacerbation type , which I call my “ER Walks” .. And yes….I’m stupid enough to walk when Im that short of breath.
Anyway, I tried my best to work on, what I thought had to be worked on, namely my knee lift. ( at least that’s what Dave said) Im starting to realize though, that its very difficult to do this if you’re walking slow. See my problem? Another thing that Im trying to improve, is my arm swing. Actually, prior to taking the racewalking class, I rarely swung my arms at all, at least by racewalking standards. I noticed too, that moving my arms correctly, makes me short of breath …..twice as fast.
Again, this was a bad day to walk , let alone try to racewalk. As soon as I get over this hump, Im going to devise a new training strategy which will allow me to graaaadually add some racewalking to my regular distance walking.
