Villages TLC member profile: Barbara Cason
How did you get involved in racewalking? Before I started racewalking I was a runner. Not a very fast one, but I enjoyed road races. I was never in the running for medals (pun intended); I just found satisfaction in competing against my previous times. I started having knee problems and could not run for a few years so I decided to give walking a try, just for exercise. While that was okay, I missed the thrill and motivation that came with preparing for a race. Then my husband, Bill, qualified for the Boston Marathon, and while planning our trip to Boston I discovered they also held a 5K road race on that April weekend in 2015. On a whim I registered for the 5K just to see how fast I could walk it. It turns out my family, as well as myself, thought my time was pretty respectable. That motivated me enough to sign up for another 5K on July 4th, back home in Virginia. It just so happened that that race had a walking category. Keep in mind that I was just walking, not racewalking. Someone from a group of racewalkers noticed me. After the race, she asked whether I would be interested in joining their racewalking group, which was part of a larger running club, The Tidewater Striders. Of course I told her I knew absolutely nothing about racewalking but she gave me their contact info and told me to think about it. That’s when Bill and I started looking at YouTube videos to learn how this sport actually worked. We learned the rules. Bill studied videos of racewalkers and drills so he could help me at the track. We did not know if I was doing it exactly right, but by the time I joined the group later that year I had fallen in love with the sport. They helped me fine-tune my technique, and I have been racewalking ever since. Many athletes have never tried racewalking. Tell us about some of the challenges and rewards of this event. Racewalking has two rules: 1) one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times, and 2) the leading leg must be straightened as the foot makes contact with the ground and must remain straightened until it passes under the body. These rules separate racewalking from just walking. Because of these rules, racewalking competitions have judges posted throughout the race course who can warn and/or disqualify competitors for rule violations. So it comes as no surprise that the biggest challenge comes from moving as fast as you can while abiding by the rules. This is why practicing your racewalking technique is as important as the number of miles you log while training. And there is the added stress of knowing you’re being watched while you race – because you do notice the judges as you pass them. Having said that, completing a race, no matter what place I finish in, still gives me a feeling of accomplishment. You obviously enjoy mentoring other walkers in our club. It must feel satisfying to watch their progress. To be honest, I would never call myself a mentor or a coach. But I do remember the first group of racewalkers I joined and how helpful they all were. So, when I can be helpful in any area, I enjoy doing so. It helps reinforce techniques for myself, too. It’s also very nice to train with other competitive walkers. How has Bill (and any other coaches you’ve had) directed your training? I guess Bill is the only person who has helped me that I would call coach. I have received help from a lot of others, but Bill tends to go all in when he helps. Now that can be good or not so good (never bad). When I used to run, all I did was just go for a run. It did not matter whether I was getting ready for a race or not. Bill, on the other hand, would always draw up a training plan for himself. I thought that was a bit too serious for me. Yet when I was disappointed with my time after a race, Bill would say, “You can’t complain if you did not train.” So when he started helping me with racewalking I decided to give his way a try. I told him what my realistic goal was, and he drew up a training plan for me that included drills for technique. He would also go to the track with me. I achieved my initial goal, and I am now a believer that to be competitive you must have a goal and a plan to get there. Do you do any other cardio or strength training? I do strength training twice a week. If I am consistent, it benefits everything else I do. I also enjoy playing golf and pickleball. I’d like to give a shout-out to John (Topliss), Rick (Riddle), and the rest of the track club for embracing the walkers. Within track and field, the discipline of racewalking can sometimes be overlooked – but you all have made me, and I’m sure the rest of the walkers too, feel very welcome. Thank you very much!
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Most everyone in our track and field group has applied the four primary principles of training, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not. Regardless, it’s interesting to understand how it all works.
These principles of training are adaptation, overload, specificity, and recovery. Our bodies constantly undergo the process of physiological adaptation. Two obvious adaptations occur in childhood and aging – but now let’s focus on our lifestyle. Our bodies adapt to our lifestyle regardless of how active or inactive we become. Sometimes we can readily see these differences in physique, especially in the highly trained versus the couch potato. Then there’s a process that’s less visible yet far more important: what takes place physiologically. Throughout our lives we all waver between positive and negative physiological outcomes. When we cannot do our workouts, negative adaptation will occur. When we return to activity, we begin the process of positive adaptation. A positive adaptation lifestyle benefits our health and is an absolute necessity for physical training. Overload: a key process The logical question now is: How best to achieve positive adaptation? We begin with overload. Overload training consists of doing more than what one has been accustomed to doing. If the couch potato decides to take a 10-minute walk today and increases by one minute each day for the next few weeks, he/she is overloading and will experience chronic positive adaptation. In this case, chronic refers to long- term. It takes weeks for a beginner to achieve positive adaptation. It may take months or even years for the chronic exerciser to achieve positive adaptation. Interestingly, “acute” or “immediate” adaptation is what we experience when exercising. For example, heart rate, blood pressure, ventilation, blood flow and so on all increase to meet the stress of exercise. Achieving chronic adaptation through overload will ease the acute response while doing the same work. Overload in a workout can be applied in many ways. With interval training, one could increase the length, number, or intensity of intervals, or reduce the recovery between intervals. (Please, not all at the same time!) Overload works by judiciously increasing stress on the body through exercise that causes it to positively adapt. Once we understand this, we recognize that the terms chronic overload and training are synonymous. Overload has limits A word of caution: we cannot use overload continuously. We all have our genetic limitations. The closer our training brings us to these limitations, the harder we have to work and the more difficult it is to overload. That is why Olympic athletes do a maintenance level of training for a few years before overloading in small increments over long periods of time to get to that peak (genetic) potential. Also important to the long-term trainer, which most of us are, is that doing the same workout will maintain our fitness but not improve it. That is OK, because it’s impossible to constantly overload, and maintaining a high level of fitness is highly desirable because we avoid the dreaded negative adaptation. The next necessary principle is specificity: adaptation is specific to the activity and its intensity/duration. If you want to improve your swimming, then you must swim. To improve running, you must run. Even though these and other activities may have similar physiological requirements such as power or endurance, they require these traits from different neuromuscular unit patterns. Requirements can differ even within the same activity. The neuromuscular recruitment pattern and energy system requirements of a sprinter are quite different from those of a long-distance runner and even a middle- distance runner. The vital stage of recovery Finally, we have the principle of recovery. Chronic adaptation/training takes place between bouts of exercise. Overload exercise stresses the body’s acute physiological response to adapt so that it can better handle the stress in the future. For example, the body can increase its vascularization, muscle hypertrophy, and cardiac output. These changes do not take place immediately after exercising. An overload session results in microscopic injury at the cellular level. The body overcompensates in its repair, resulting in positive adaptation. We know we need time to recover from muscle soreness and stiffness; but even if we don’t experience post-exercise discomfort, microscopic injuries still occur and can accumulate. Recovery includes rest, of course. We can also recover by doing a different workout the next time. Using different neuromuscular patterns and energy systems gives the previously used systems time to recover. A caveat! As we age, we see our performance and training abilities decrease. To put this in a positive perspective, consider that at any age people vary widely in their ability to respond to exercise, or for that matter, everyday activity. Those who do what we do at the track, I estimate, are in the top 1% of ability, and maybe even higher. Research tells us that as a group we will live longer than the average American – and more importantly, because of our physiological fitness, we’ll have a better quality of life. Congratulations to all. Keep it up. Arthur Bourgeois BS, MS, PED in Exercise Science Professor Emeritus, Plymouth State University During my 49 years of coaching cross country at the high school level, I have seen many athletes deal with a disappointing season. The following story shows a positive response to this situation.
Lauren joined the cross country program as a freshman. From the start, she showed the talent to be one of the best runners on the team and possibly one of the best distance runners in school history. She lettered her freshmen year and had a positive impact on her teammates. She joined the track team that spring and again proved to be our best 2-miler. Lauren improved during her sophomore cross country season and became the number one runner on our team. Going into the spring track season, we had high hopes that she would qualify for the State meet in the 2-mile. The indoor season went well, and when the outdoor season began, she showed the potential to make it to State. Signs of trouble As we approached the the important races at the end of the season, Lauren began to struggle. She just couldn’t keep up with runners in the lead. We had two races left to qualify for the State meet. The first was the Regional Championship. Lauren had to finish in one of the top four places to qualify for the next level. She’d accomplished this as a freshman, so we felt she had an excellent chance to do it again as a sophomore. At first the race was going as planned, but after the mile mark Lauren fell behind the lead pack again. She didn’t qualify for the next race, which meant she wouldn’t be running in the State meet. This was a crushing disappointment. It surprised everyone. When we talked the next day, Lauren could not explain what had happened. I encouraged her to attend the next race to support her teammates and said we would talk again in a few days. After we talked, I was not sure how Lauren would respond to the summer training program we set up. I communicated with her a few times during the summer, and she told me she was following the workouts. I was still a little worried that in her upcoming junior year, she would let that last race discourage her from the challenge of doing her best. Getting better all the time Though our first week of cross country practice went well, I still didn’t know how Lauren would compete. When we ended that week of practice with our annual alumni race, Lauren put all my fears to rest. Not only did she win the race, she set a new school record for the 4,000 meter course (girls now race 5,000 meters). Afterward, Lauren told me she knew she was better than that difficult last track race, and she had worked hard all summer. During the rest of the year she lost only three times, and she finished sixth at the State meet. Her senior cross country season started the same as the previous season: she won the alumni race and again broke the school record. She never lost a race and became the first female in our school to finish first at the State meet. Obviously, Lauren made the right decision that summer after her disappointing 2-mile race. She could have decided not to work hard and just be a middle of the pack runner, but she challenged herself to go for the gold. As a coach, you couldn’t be more proud of what she accomplished. Look who’s coming Here’s a little story about that State meet victory in cross country. My assistant and I had been helping at the finish line for the past eight seasons, and we were working the finish again that year. As the race unfolded, Lauren was in the lead pack with five other runners. These runners stayed together until the 2,000-meter mark. At that point, Lauren and another runner broke away from the pack. Out on the course, the last time I saw Lauren the two girls were still together with 800 meters to go. I headed back to the finish to help line up the runners as they came in. The last 250 meters of the race is uphill, so I had to wait to see whose head would pop up first as the runners crested the last hill. Fortunately, it was Lauren. What an unbelievable feeling to see your runner win a state title. --Stan Druckrey U.S. Olympic T&F Trials, Hayward Field, Eugene OR, June 2012
We spotted TV announcer Tom Hammond huffing and puffing his way through the crowd of spectators. No doubt hustling back to NBC broadcast booth, probably after a substantial lunch. Then, his brilliant play-by-play of the men’s 100 meter final: “And the gun goes off! They’re heading down the track! Some runners are ahead! It’s a tight race! They’re crossing the finish line! It’s too close to call!” Brilliant. U.S. Olympic T&F Trials, Tad Gormley Stadium, New Orleans LA, June 1992 Ah, decathlon, the Rodney Dangerfield of track & field (“I’m telling ya, I don’t get no respect”). The average viewer’s attention span can’t handle 10 events over two days, with results determined by quadratic equations. But this year, Reebok’s marketing program created a mock rivalry between Dan O’Brien and Dave Johnson. “Dan vs. Dave – who’s the world’s greatest athlete?” To be, or not to be? Alas, not to be. Dan missed qualifying for the pole vault. Three tries, you’re out. Much consternation among fans in the stands. Does he get a do-over? A mulligan? No, no, no. Reebok marketing rep wailing and gnashing his teeth. Lots of drama, but not the kind of drama they were hoping for. World Outdoor Championship, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, August 2001 Outstanding meet, but not much else to do in this town. Natives call it Deadmonton. Opening ceremony day was sunny, then cloudy; calm, then windy; then rainy. I remarked to a local sitting next to me: “We’ve seen every kind of weather today except snow.” She replied, “Bite your tongue. It has snowed here in August.” 1984 Summer Olympics, Los Angeles Some know-it-all behind us in the bleachers told his girlfriend that hurdlers lose points when they hit a hurdle. Resisted the temptation to whack him on the head with my souvenir program. Some masters meet where we competed. Details illegible due to popcorn oil stain on diary page. Rumor spreading like wildfire: Legendary Sprinter Who Shall Remain Nameless is on the concourse behind spectator stands, signing autographs for two dollars apiece. Why two dollars? Why not ten dollars? or fifty cents? Would he take a Canadian loonie? If I only have a twenty, does he give change? Could I con him by asking for his autograph on my $2 bill and then take it back? But nah, we figured this was just a ploy to cheat us out of two bucks. Instead we spent it on year-old popcorn at the concession stand. Winter weekends, driving from our home in Wisconsin to indoor meets in Illinois --Joliet (…and en route, Romeoville). On each trip, I can’t resist the pun of Romeoville and Joliet, the star-crossed lovers. Even better: when we drive past the equine hospital near Wisconsin’s southern border, I exclaim, “The horspital!” and make a whinnying sound. Hubby just grips the steering wheel more tightly, his version of a standing ovation. --Byron, the site of a nuclear power plant. We always enjoy seeing two-headed cattle out in the fields. --Dixon, near the Illinois/Iowa border, boasts that it’s the boyhood home of President Ronald Reagan. I’d prefer President Richard Nixon, because Dixon/Nixon is so much easier for us geography dummies to remember. Miscellanous masters meets we ran. Where? When? Doesn’t matter. --Elderly woman collapsed as she crossed the finish line. Is this a heart attack?! She’s revived by paramedics and immediately asks them, “Did I win?” --Outdoor nationals in Long Island, NY. All day long, a strong wind blew and blew, and blew some more. A foreign-born friend griped, “I’m reellee pieced of by dis folking wind.” We still quote him to each other on windy days. --One competitor wearing yellow top & yellow leggings; I think of him as Mr. Banana. Another guy wearing skintight white leggings, a classic example of why you shouldn’t wear skintight white leggings. Too Much Information. --Leah Rewolinski |
your choiceIf you don't run, you rust. Leah rewolinskiThe Villages TLC Word Nerd & webmaster Archives
January 2025
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