5K Time Trial - February 18, 2006

Two sweatshirts and one running outfit, you'd think one would be warm enough at 7:15 a.m. in Los Gatos, but it's still freezing. Ok, so Ramesh, originally from Minnesota, is strolling around in shorts and a tee-shirt, while the rest of us freeze and try walking or jogging to warm up. Today is the big time trial, which will determine which Wave we train in for Thursday track nights and Saturday runs. There is a huge line to see coach John, three times as many people compared to Thursday, for tapings and general complaints. I had my ankle taped the day before at physical therapy so, I'm good.

Sophal is having ankle trouble, but doesn't need to be taped, so we decide to power walk together. She's not to happy with my references to our little 2 person team as the gimpy squad, but we're having a great time trying our speed walking techniques out and correcting the other's form. Ok, so she's correcting mine, but I remind her more often to increase the pace. We pass several groups of walkers, and are even neck and neck with a team of run-walkers for the first mile, but eventually they pass us. There are two dogs ahead of us and we ask to borrow the horses, walking is hurting more than running as we both experience shin-splints after the first half mile, which is pretty sad. We pass landmarks-our mentors cheering us along, though we're not sure how far along we are as couldn't hear what John was saying. We see Rol, an honoree, ahead and at eighty plus years of age he's still faster than we are and keeping a better pace, we jog to catch up and inevitably every time he ends up five to ten paces ahead. In the last mile, we somehow pull ahead of Rol, maybe it was our rambling that made him hang back.

I wish I could remember what we were talking about, as we were having a great time laughing and joking the whole way (making fun of mentors that were too happy, joking that we had mimosas before walking-we had a couple people convinced, making fun of ourselves, etc.). We look much happier than all the runners and I'm sure felt better, which is the only solace I can take in having to walk the time trial. (Ok, so I could have run the later half of the race, but my foot was hurting and I really do enjoy being able to walk without limping too much.)d The last lap around the track, we were racing each other and I came out about 2 steps ahead. No, we're not competitive at all and having passed a runner made it that much better even though we average 13.7 minute miles speed walking. So we will fall into the last wave, but the good news is that we can move up later in the season and being able to run will quickly fix that. Also, Sophal and I will continue our speed walking training, expect to see us in the 2010 Olympics.