Last year, I competed in the Minnesota Senior Games for the first time. A knee injury prevented me from competing in any running events, but I was still able to compete in the race-walking events. There are two race-walking events, and they’re both held on the same day. Last year, I skipped the 1,500 meter race, so I could focus on winning the 5,000 meter race.
For the same entry fee,
you can sign up for as many as five different events. I’ve recovered from the knee injury that
plagued me last year, so this year I optimistically signed up for two
race-walking events, two road running events, and one track and field event.
At the time, my goal was
to win the two walking events and try to place in my age group in the running
events. If I could do that, I would also
qualify for all five events in next year’s National Senior Games. I was pretty confident about my race-walking,
but I would need to start doing speed work to do well in the running events.
My biggest concern at the
time was my lower back. As it turns out,
my lower back is doing much better. It
didn’t bother me in any of my July races, and it’s not holding back my training
in any way.
Unfortunately, I have a new
concern. In May, I started to notice
some minor discomfort in the proximal hamstring tendon of my left leg. That’s the tendon that connects my hamstring
to my pelvis. At the time, I was
training for FANS, so I was doing all my training at a slow pace. When I ran or walked slowly, it didn’t bother
me. After FANS, I started to pick up the
pace of my training runs. Then it became
much more inflamed.
I got through six marathons
in July by running at a slow pace. At
the time, I wasn’t doing any race-walking, since I was pretty sure that would cause
this injury to flare up again.
Two weeks ago, I finally
tried race-walking. I walked five kilometers
as fast as I could. I wanted to know how
much speed I had lost since the National Senior Games in May. I also wanted to know how my left leg would
feel.
My pace was about a
minute per mile slower than it was a year ago.
Still, that might be fast enough to win the 5,000 meter walking event at
the Minnesota Senior Games. That was the
good news. The bad news is that
race-walking even once made my injury worse.
That’s when I knew it would be a bad idea to try to compete for the win
today.
The race-walking events
were both held today. I was signed up
for both events, but I decided to skip the 5,000 meter walk. At this point, my only goal was to qualify
for nationals. If I qualified in one event
today, I could do both events at nationals.
With that in mind, there was no point in doing both events today unless
I was trying to compete.
The Minnesota Senior
Games were held in Mankato. The
race-walking events were both held on the track at the Mankato campus of
Minnesota State University.
I drove to Mankato this
morning and went straight to the university.
First, I stopped at the Johnson Alumni Room to check in. There are several fast food restaurants
nearby, so I grabbed an early lunch before heading over to the track.
The 5,000 meter race-walk
event started at 11:00. Although I was no
longer planning to complete in this event, I still wanted to watch. I informed the officials that I was
scratching in this event, but I was still planning to compete in the 1,500
meter race later in the afternoon.
There were dark clouds
nearby, and we sometimes heard thunder.
There was a storm system about five away, but it wasn’t moving in our
direction. Most of the walkers finished
in dry weather. Before the last two
walkers finished, I started to feel drops, so I walked back to my car.
After watching the race,
I went to my hotel to check in. I’m
still planning to do the 10K run tomorrow morning, and I didn’t want to drive to
Mankato two days in a row. There weren’t
any rooms ready yet, so I drove to Sibley Park to see where I would need to
park for the start of tomorrow’s race. When
I got back to the hotel, they had a room ready.
I returned to the track at
4:00 to do the 1,500 meter race. To
qualify for nationals, I needed to place in the top four in my age group. That was never in question, as there was only
one other guy in my age group. I didn’t have
to walk fast. I just needed to walk
1,500 meters at any pace.
I had no intention of
walking as fast as I could, but I also didn’t want to be the last one to
finish. I wanted to walk at a pace that
was somewhat brisk, but not fast enough to cause any discomfort in my leg. Qualifying for nationals was never in doubt,
so the most important thing was to keep from making my injury worse.
If I was making a serious
attempt to compete, I would start at the fastest pace I could manage. Instead, I did the opposite. I made a point of staying behind almost everyone,
to keep myself from starting too fast.
After about 200 meters, I gave myself permission to pick up the pace a
little, but I was still going much slower than I would if I was trying to compete.
By the end of my first
full lap, I was beginning to feel some soreness in my left leg. Then I had to slow down until the soreness
diminished. For the rest of that lap, I
forced myself to stay behind the walker who was right in front of me.
One of the rules of
race-walking is that you have to have a straight knee when your lead foot
makes contact. I was about 700 meters
into the race when I heard the race-walking judge warn the walker in front of
me that his right knee was bent. As he
tried to correct his form, he slowed down a bit.
After he slowed down, I
was no longer comfortable staying behind him.
We had just started a turn, and I didn’t want to be in lane two all the
way around the turn as I slowly passed him.
I picked up my pace enough to pass him quickly, but then I felt soreness
in my left leg again. For the second
time, I had to slow down.
For the rest of the race,
I did a better job of finding the pace that wasn’t quite fast enough to cause
any soreness. I eventually finished the
race in 13:13, which is about what I expected.
For comparison, the last time I race-walked this distance, my time was
8:59.
Everyone who places in their age group gets a medal. Placing second out of two in my age group didn’t seem like much of an accomplishment, but at least I showed up. You know what they say. When you finish last, you’re still lapping everyone who’s sitting on the couch. I finished last in my age group by more than four minutes, but that was still put me in second place.
After the race, I no
longer noticed any soreness in my leg. I’m
cautiously optimistic that I didn’t overdo it today.
There’s nothing impressive
about walking 1,500 meters in 13:13, but now I’m qualified to do both race-walking
events at next year’s National Senior Games.
Tomorrow I’ll work on qualifying for the running events.
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