Hi Kathryn:
I'm a race walker/power walker just like you.
I constantly want to be a runner again, but my body breaks down with running whereas power walking keeps me insanely fit and strong.
I totally understand your desire to crush this competitor of yours! We need more stamina and muscular endurance in the lower body and core.
I don't really know how to tweak your program here as you obviously have certain workouts that you are attached to and certain preferences. I think we do things quite differently. However, it might help to compare what you do in training to what another power walker does. Here are a few things that help me increase my speed and get strong.
In spring and fall I do a mix of waling workouts: 2 or 3 per week outdoors while my daughter attends soccer practice; 1 or 2 indoor on a treadmill at the gym. My indoor workouts are of two distinct types: the first is the speed workout on a constant 1% incline.
I start at about 4.7 mph and increase speed every minute until I am at about 5.4 mph. This finishes my warm up and then I go for it with a varied soundtrack for a 60 min total workout. I have a Brazilian song that lasts 10 mins and keeps me at 5.6 mph and I always include that and I end with my fastest speeds. This is not truly an interval workout, because I seem to be constitutionally incapable of performing those. Instead, my workouts accelerate and increase in intensity throughout, wending with the most explosiveness. The last 20 mins are spent at 5.8 mph and I can keep this up for 30 mins if I decide to do so.
The keys to building speed for me are two fold: the treadmill is an invaluable tool, and my choice of soundtrack. Some people hate the treadmill. I love it. It is an excellent tool for training yourself to go fast and stay fast, sort of like a tempo run. Similarly, when the tempo of the sound track speeds up, my feet just follow and the heart and lungs too. Beyonce's Single Ladies is the perfect 5.8 mph soundtrack. I play it about 4 or 5 times through to keep me at that top speed for the 20 mins duration. This is what you neeed to help you beat that woman!
Some songs may seem to be slower ones, but they can still be useful: the album Single Ladies comes from, has about three slower songs at the beginning but they still work for very fast waling if you double stride to the single beat, doing double time. Works beautifully. As do some Rihanna songs from Good Girl Gone bad.
The second workout type I do on the treadmill is the inclines workout that lasts about 45 mins. I start at 4.7 mph and for every minute of my warm up I constantly decrease speed and increase incline. About 9 mins into the workout I am at incline of 9%, speed of 4.2 mph. I spend about 12 mins at 11%, 4.1 mph and then work my way up to the last few songs on my sound track where I steadily increase from 4.0 at incline of 12-13%, then to 14% at 3.9 mph and finally end with about 6 or 7 mins at 15% at 3.8 mph. The benefits of this workout are to avoid boredom, can't go on the flat all the time! they work the glutes and hamstrings excellently and bring me closer to my anaerobic threshold than speed waling does, so the cardiovascular benefits are big.
When I do my outdoor workouts at the park in Ann Arbor, MI, I do an initial 60 mins of cardio-power walking. I will start off more slowly that on the treadmill because I do not have the machine to pace me and also because I like watching the kids doing their soccer, mine included! I love being outdoors in the spring and I savour the first 15-20 mins just to be outside and moving and watching all these soccer teams from the club moving their healthy bodies around in the fresh air. It always happens though, even against my will sometimes, I cannot help it, I speed up! It just happens. I start getting competitive with myself! I have Pink music for this and then I use Rihanna's Umbrella which goes at a fast clip, and then end up with intervals for 20 mins using Single Ladies again, but outdoors. it is harder to go this fast outdoors without a moving belt beneath my feet. But these speed intervals are the way to build the endurance to walk fast continuously during a race, which I have never done btw!
The last half hour of these workouts done at the park feature body weight, lower body work. I start with walking lunges the whole length of the parking lot, about 300 continuous lunges. If I am building strength at the start of the season, I will not hold any weight. As I get fitter, I will do these with 5 pound weights. As I get fitter still and to introduce variety, I do them with torso twist, and then, also with a weight.
I then switch soundtrack to Nelly Furtado, don't ask me why, the music tempo just works! I do about 200 squats in a sequence. I start with 10 single paced squats, full range of motion, then do 20 low end pulses as Cathe does, only with no weights, just body weight. then back to the slow for 10, then back to low ends for 20, etc and I keep going until I am done with a couple of songs. These burn like, holy cow! As I am sure you know. So, I may have to take short breathers after each set of 3 (3 sets of 10 slow followed by 20 low ends), just to walk the little burnies off. You know what I mean. The DOMS from this the next day, at the start of the season, well, I lack vocabulary to describe it!
I finish up with sideways shuffles the length of the parking lot, several times, changing the lead leg every 20 shuffles. I also ALWAYS do carioca. Do you know these? They were taught to me by an great PT guy as they work the inside and outside thigh, and the gluteus medius and minimus, which, as you know, squats and lunges do not reach. They also have a glorious cardio effect and my Madonna songs work great for this, particularly the hard Candy in concert CD, the track which is a mash up of Vogue and 4 mins and also Music.
At the gym, after my treadmill walking workouts I stay for another hour and do core and use th machines for lower body work. I start, as with outdoor workouts, with walking lunges for about 6 mins, this takes me on a lap of the gym's circumference. I also do the carioca move. Then I mix up the weight machines with core moves. I do side planks with hip dips, Russian twists with 1 or both legs raised and 8-10 pound dumbbell, planks, V sits, oblique twists from side plank position, etc. With the weight machines I do three sets of each move: leg press, hamstring machine seated, inner thigh, outer thigh, butt push backs (don't particularly like this one so i often sub with the body weight 200 lunge series as per outdoor workouts).
So, this is what I do and I can tell you that I end up walking faster at the park than anyone else can keep up with (some of the teen soccer players have tried and failed!) and faster on the treadmill than a lot of people at the gym can run.
I try to get one upper body workout in per week, and exhaustive one, hitting each muscle group with 3 sets of 3 exercises. I also try to do Gym Style Legs once also. And this is it. With this regimen, I am strong, especially for lower body and core, I sleep well, I do not get sick at all, I power through workouts and life, I eat as much choc as I want (!) and I do not get injured. I feel great with this regimen. It may not be full of tabata and intervals as the experts recommend, but it is what works for me and I thrive on it.
Maybe I should do some races??
I hope this helps and that something here might inspire you? I don't do plyo, I haven't done very heavy weight training for a while now. I stay within a medium weight 12 rep range or body weight only regimen for training the lower body for greater endurance. You have a very defined focus for the summer, so stick with that. You seem to be trying to do it all, but you don't need to and it will pull away from your primary goal: increasing walking speed and endurance to win 5 and 10 k races. You can save plyo, extra weight training, etc, for the fall when you can establish another goal. Try not to get distracted by all the options that are out there. Do you think Rushfit is necessary right now or could it wait until fall? As runner's magazines and manuals always say to runners: "to be a better runner, you need to run." Not every day, but with some cross training. But even then, the key is not to try and do it all. Select what you need to make you stronger this season at your chosen event.
Good luck and let me know as soon as you have beaten that woman!! Thinking of you and sending you every encouragement for a successful racing season.
Clare
(She's obviously improved more than I have, because the time I beat her at before was about 30 seconds slower than tje 36:32 I did the IM5K at).
