TimSeaman.com is a site that will introduce you to racewalking, as well as keep you informed about the athletic career of Tim Seaman. If you would like even more information, please check out www.TimSeaman.com just by clinking on the photo on the right!

Click on PHOTO ALBUMS for some photos of the Flagstaff altitude training camp, as well as pictures from the double American Record weekend in Hildesheim, Germany.

Click on Tim's Calendar to the left for information on other races that Tim is expected to compete in. (To be updated soon --- )

Click the above title to see the article entitiled "Farmington's Eastler eyes Olympics." 

This article not only shows what a class act Kevin is, it also does a superb job of explaining exactly what it is going to take to make the Olympic Team (for Kevin or Tim).

A few weeks ago while we were all in Europe, Kevin Eastler mentioned to me that he couldn’t believe that this would be my 16^th consecutive year competing at the 20km National Championships.

I was surprised myself.  Here is the progression:

1993 – 10^th place – Eugene, Oregon

1994 – 7^th place – Knoxville, Tennessee

1995 – 6^th place – Sacramento, California

1996 – 2^nd place – Atlanta, Georgia – US OLYMPIC TRIALS

1997 – 3^rd place – Indianapolis, Indiana

1998 – 1^st place – New Orleans, Louisiana

1999 – 2^nd place – Eugene, Oregon

2000 – 1^st place – Sacramento, California – US OLYMPIC TRIALS

2001 – 2^nd place – Eugene, Oregon

2002 – 1^st place – Palo Alto, California

2003 – 2^nd place – Palo Alto, California

2004 – 1^st place – Sacramento, California – US OLYMPIC TRIALS

2005 – 1^st place – Carson, California

2006 – 3^rd place – Indianapolis, Indiana

2007 – 2^nd place – Indianapolis, Indiana

2008 - ????????? – Eugene, Oregon – US OLYMPIC TRIALS

Once again the race will be held in Eugene, Oregon.  Unfortunately though, there will be no finish for the athletes into the infamous Hayward Field.  Instead, the racewalkers will be competing next to Autzen Stadium.  A big disappointment for all of us race walkers who are also track fans.

Click the above link to read an article on Jolene from the Traverse City Record.

In the article Tim talks about coaching Jolene and about her chances for the Olympics.  It was the FIRST time that Tim has been interviewed this season by any newspaper in any country.  

Erik won the 10,000m Norwegian championships in a new Nordic record on Friday June 13th in a time of 38:32.  His first 10km was 19:21 and his 2nd was 19:11.

 Kjersti also won her 5,000m nationals in a time of 21:48.   

Training in Norway with Kjersti was a big step forward, but the race in Spain was a small step back.  I was able to do a lot of quality training, but during the race, I had some pain in my hip and I didn't want to take a change with pushing through it.  I know that I have to do well at the Olympic Trials.  La Coruna had very mixed results.  Either you did very well or you did very poorly.  It was very much unlike last year, where it took a sub 1:23:00 time to get into the top 12.  This year, that same place was over 1:30:00.  There were 8 men disqualified and 8 who did not finish.  Those are incredibly high numbers.

The Rocket was suberb in winning his second Challenge race of the year.  Kjersti was very smart as she won her fourth Challenge this season.

 Here are the results:

Results from La Coruna
Men's 20km
Pto. Dorsal Nombre Apellidos Pais
1 3 ERYK TYSSE NORUEGA 20.02 2 39.47 2 59.36 1 1.19.21
2 2 HATHEM GHOULA TUNEZ 20.02 1 39.47 1 59.59 2 1.21.52
3 7 JOAO VIEIRA PORTUGAL 20.37 7 41.22 8 1.01.49 4 1.21.56
4 8 SERGIO VIEIRA PORTUGAL 20.37 8 41.22 7 1.01.48 3 1.21.58
5 15 HASSANINE SBAI TUNEZ 20.37 10 41.20 3 1.01.55 5 1.22.38
6 28 ALAN SEGURA COSTA RICA 20.35 3 41.20 4 1.02.51 6 1.25.30
7 26 JOHN NUNN EE.UU 42.31 10 1.04.08 8 1.26.22
8 14 YUSUKE YACHI JAPON 1.28.04
9 21 LUIS FERNANDO GARCIA BECHINIE GUATEMALA 1.28.31
10 29 BERNARDO CALVO COSTA RICA 1.04.54 9 1.28.53
11 12 DAVID DOMINGUEZ GUIMERA ESPAÑA 20.37 12 1.05.47 10 1.29.50
12 23 KEVIN ESTLER EE.UU 1.30.09
13 17 BERTAND MOULINET FRANCIA 1.30.46
14 13 AKIHIRO SUGIMOTO JAPON 20.36 5 41.22 9 1.02.56 7 1.30.49
15 32 FERRAN COLLAZOS LOPEZ ESPAÑA 1.32.10
16 22 TIM SEAMAN EE.UU 1.34.08
Descl. 1 JESUS ANGEL GARCIA BRAGADO ESPAÑA
Descl. 4 ROBERT HEFFERMAN IRLANDA 20.36 4 41.21 5
Descl. 5 ILYA MARKOV RUSIA 20.36 6 41.21 6
Descl. 6 FRANCISCO PINARDO ESPAÑA
Descl. 11 JOSE M. CORCHETE ESPAÑA
Descl. 25 VICTOR HUGO MENDOZA EL SALVADOR 20.37 11
Descl. 27 CRISTIAN BERDEJA VILLAVICENCIO MEXICO 20.37 9
Descl. 31 ALVARO GARCIA CORDOBA MEXICO
DNF - 9 DAVID BOULANGER FRANCIA
DNF - 10 BENJAMIN SANCHEZ ESPAÑA
DNF - 16 MEHER BEN HALIMA TUNEZ
DNF - 18 CAIO OLIVEIRA DE DEN A BOFIN BRASIL
DNF - 19 JOSE M. A BAGIO BRASIL
DNF - 20 RAFAEL DUARTE BRASIL 20.37 13
DNF - 24 WALTER ALBERTO SANDOVAL EL SALVADOR
DNF - 30 JOSE M. FERNANDEZ NIEVES ESPAÑA

Women's 20km
Pto. Dorsal Nombre Apellidos Pais
1 102 KJERSTI PLATZER NORUEGA 23.25 4 45.42 1 1.07.47 1 1.29.38
2 106 SABINE ZIMMER ALEMANIA 23.25 5 45.43 2 1.07.48 2 1.29.40
3 101 ATHNASIA TSOUMELEKA GRECIA 23.14 1 45.44 3 1.08.09 3 1.30.44
4 109 INES HENRIQUES PORTUGAL 23.15 3 45.44 4 1.08.13 4 1.31.06
5 108 Mª JOSE POVES ESPAÑA 23.25 8 45.53 7 1.08.52 7 1.31.16
6 105 OLIVE LOUGHNANE IRLANDA 23.14 2 46.05 8 1.08.38 5 1.31.22
7 104 CLAUDIA STEF RUMANIA 45.49 5 1.08.47 6 1.32.06
8 113 MARIBEL GONÇALVEZ PORTUGAL 1.09.05 8 1.32.22
9 107 SACHITO KONISHI JAPON 23.25 9 1.34.43
10 115 KUMI OTOSHI JAPON 1.35.51
11 117 ALEXANDRA PICAGEVICZ BRASIL 1.36.32
12 130 MARIA GALIKOVA ESLOVAQUIA 1.38.49
13 123 GIOVEANA IRUSTA BOLIVIA 1.40.49
14 121 RAHMA MAHMOUDI TUNEZ 1.42.45
15 131 ROCIO BAJO SELMA ESPAÑA 1.43.58
16 127 VERONICA ELIZABETCHOLINDRES EL SALVADOR 1.45.02
17 120 OLFA LAFI TUNEZ 1.46.03
18 128 ALBA SANCHEZ PABLO ESPAÑA 1.48.09
19 116 FUMIGA KIRYU JAPON 1.51.44
Descl. 103 HELENA GINZO BIELORRUSIA
Descl. 124 EVALINE ROSEMARIENUÑEZ GUATEMALA
Descl. 125 JOLELE MOORE EE.UU.

DNF - 110 ATHINA PAPAYANNI GRECIA
DNF - 111 ANA CABECINHA PORTUGAL 25.23 6 45.53 6
DNF - 112 SONATA MILUSAUSKAITE LITUANIA
DNF - 114 FUMIGA BUDILEANU RUMANIA 23.25 7
DNF - 118 GIANETTI OLIVEIRAde DENA BONFIM BRASIL
DNF - 119 CISIANE DUTRA LOPEZ BRASIL
DNF - 122 CHAIMA TRABELSI TUNEZ
DNF - 126 RACHEL LAVALLE CANADA
DNF - 129 MIRIAM RAMOS ECUADOR

The past three and a half weeks have flown by.  Tomorrow will be goodbye Norway and hello Spain.

Training has gone very well the past few weeks.  Things have really improved and I have gotten so much stronger walking on the hilly courses that we train on here in Softland.  I have gotten to the point where it is no longer a struggle to walk with Kjersti which I can tell you has not been an easy thing to accomplish.  She is in good shape and it has been fun to train with her again.  Also, the past week Kevin has been getting stronger and we have been able to train together for most of the workouts, so that has made things much more normal since we have both trained so much together the past few years.

We haven't been able to train at all with the Rocket...but that's ok because he is in such great shape.

The weather has been super here for us, with almost no days with rain.  It felt like San Diego weather actually, so that was great.  The bad news is that it was their lowest May on record since 1951 so now they are in drought conditions and are not allowed to use any water for their lawns or to wash their cars.  

 Tomorrow though, we will be in La Coruna, Spain once again.  Last year Kevin and I almost had a super magical day with both of us getting the "A" standard.  Instead, we had to settle for one "A" and one "B".  This year, we are a far cry away from where we were last year, but we hope that it will be a good stepping stone for the whole Team Plaetzer group.

The only problem with leaving Norway is that I have been here so much over the years and I am not sure if I will ever have a chance to get back here again.  What I can tell you is that Norway is a beautiful country and if it wasn't so expensive it would be a great place to live :) 

 More updates soon..... 

I had the pleasure to volunteer some time the past three weeks teaching english class to Kiara's class here in Softeland, Norway.

It was a lot of fun and the kids and I learned a lot.  The teacher (Marianne) was very supportive of me coming to the school to assist her and to talk about life in America to the kids.  

Click on the above link to see a video of the Rocket and Trond.  The report talks about how both live very close to eachother but neither train together.  When asked about this, Trond responded that the Rocket was too fast in his interval training for Trond to walk with him...but in fact, Trond walks faster than Erik does in training. 

They then talk about about Beijing and Trond says that he will for sure go for a medal and the Rocket states that he just wants to have a good day.  A good day could be 6th place or a good day will be a medal.   

Things have improved greatly here this past week with training.  I have done a few 20k's already.  Within one week I did two 20km workouts and my heart rate dropped 5 beats with the exact same time on the exact same course.  It went from a 139 average to 134 average in just 7 days.  We have decided to redo my schedule and just get basework in right now.  Coach says that one of the reasons that things went wrong in Russia was that I didn't have enough basework due to my recovery from the surgery so now we are going to go back to the basics and get some mileage in.  Normally things like this don't happen in May before the Olympics, but with the surgery taking place in October and with the very first steps of racewalking not taking place until the end of January, normal plans have to change.

Kjersti and The Rocket's training have been coming along great.  Kevin arrives tomorrow for The Rocket's wedding this coming weekend.  Next weekend Rachel goes to Germany to meet up with Jolene and Sabine for the race in Naumburg. 

Life in Norway:  While I know gas prices have been going crazy in the US, here in Norway things are a little worse off.  Currently the gas prices are about $10 per gallon. The other day, for just a few hours, the gas station all of a sudden raised the prices to almost $11.50/gallon, and then by the end of the day they went back to "normal". 

We tried to go and buy some Soy Milk the other day, but the price was an astonishing $24/gallon.  I think regular milk will have to do while we are here.

More to come soon.....

When things go wrong for Tim, they go very wrong. At the IAAF Race Walk Cup in Cheboksary, Russia, Tim had his worse ever international results, finishing in 94th place in a time of 1:38:11. It was an absolute disaster to say the least. Looking back, Tim is unsure what went wrong, but from the first step his hips just tightened up and they did not want to move. It was like they were completely blocked and he was taking steps of 1 foot long, instead of 1 meter long. The course was good, the fans were superb. The fans were yelling "Go USA!" and "Stars and Stipes", but it was to no avail for Tim.

Tim has one more chance to walk 20km before the Olympic Trials. Hopefully it will be better, otherwise there is no chance that he will be in Beijing. He will be relegated to watching it on TV for the first time since 1996.

Click the above link to see the official IAAF web site for the race.

Things are going well here in Cheboksary, Russia.  The race is tomorrow and there are over 100 athletes competing and the race will start at 1pm local time.  (5am in New York).  In Europe, the IAAF will have live web coverage of the event, but it does not appear to be available in America.

 More tomorrow after the race.....

Today is the last day of our training camp in Weittensheid, Germany. I was able to stay here in Germany with Sabine Zimmer (6th and 8th at the last two world championships) and also her boyfriend Bastian, the 16th best marathoner in Germany last season. Training went very well and for sure I look forward to coming back sometime soon. We trained on a dirt road for the easy days and around the lake on the harder days. The lake is about 20 minutes away and it is a 10km loop. I did my last fartlek (interval) workout today and it went pretty well. I am finally getting adjusted to the time zone change after almost a week here. 9 hours time change is tough, but 11 hours (to Moscow) in a shorter time would be extremely difficult for me. I am really glad that Sabine let Rachel and I come here and train.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we fly to Moscow where I will meet up with the US Team. We leave Germany at about 10:00am and we land in Moscow at about 5:30pm. Then, we were told, it will take about 3 HOURS to get through customs in Moscow. We will have to over night in Moscow before we head to Cheboksary and since we are near the airport we were told that it is doubtful that there will be places to train. Hopefully we can find something. On Thursday we are in Moscow until 10:00pm, then we take the charter flight to Cheboksary, Russia.

I will give you all an update when we get to Russia.

Story to come tomorrow...  Here are the results:

 ) Patrick Stroupe unatt (Fla) 1:30:29.4 ($400)

2) Johnn Nunn US Army (Cal) 1:30:50.6 ($300)

3) Tim Seaman NYAC (Cal) 1:32:48.4 ($200)

4) Michael Tarantino unatt (Cal) 1:33:11.0 ($100)

5) Chris Tegtmeier Concordia Univ (Neb) 1:34:46.2

6) Theron Kissinger Connecticut RWers (Ct) 1:36:06.3

7) Dave McGovern unatt/New Balance (NY) 1:42:40.3

8) Jared Swehosky unatt (Ore) 1:44:57.2

9) Michael Kazmierczak Walk USA (RI) 2:00:06.9

10) Jeremy Bahr-worley Concordia College (Ore) 2:02:22.3

-- Charles Collier Athletics East (NM) DQ

-- Shawn McGee Concordia College (Ore) DNF









1) Teresa Vaill, Walk USA (Fla) 1:36:18.6 ($400)

2) Joanne Dow, unatt./Adidas (NH) 1:38:36.4 ($300)

3) Susan Armenta, unatt. (Cal) 1:39:01.9 ($200)

4) Sam Cohen, Parkside Athletics Club (Wis) 1:40:52.3 ($100)

5) Stephanie Casey, unatt. (Ore) 1:41:47.7 ($100)

6) Jolene Moore, New York Athletic Club (Ill) 1:42:04.1

7) Maria Michta, Walk USA (NY) 1:45:08.8

8) Solomiya Login, Southeastern Pennsylvania AC (PA) 1:45:41.6

9) Lauren Forgues, Maine Racewalkers (ME) 1:45:45.3

10) Loretta Schuellein, Walk USA (NY) 1:46:53.4

11) Margaret Ditchburn, unatt. (CA) 1:49.52.1

12) Kelly Wong, Golden Gate Race Walkers (CA) 1:50:33.0

13) Kristen Mullaney, Pegasus Athletic Club (MI) 1:52:06.0

14) Christina Peters, Goshen College (OH) 1:52:21.7

15) Susan Randall, Miami Valley TC (OH) 1:52:25.3

16) Sara Standley-Gonzalez, unatt. (OR) 1:54:01.2

17) Jamie Burmeister, unatt. (NEB) 2:05:35.4

18) Carmen Jackinsky, Racewalkers Northwest (OR) 2:08:02.2

For the first time in 7 months, Tim Seaman will be toeing the line in a racewalk competition. It is not for lack of trying for the 2-time Olympian, as he has battled back from the biggest hurdle of his career. In October, Tim has major hip surgery to correct a tear in his labrum and as part of the surgery they had to shave down part of the femur (the leg bone). After the surgery Tim was told that the surgery was more complicated than expected, but the surgeon told Tim's dad a different story. Tim's dad was told that it would be highly unlikely that Tim would ever racewalk again.

Tim is determined to prove the doctor wrong as he lines up tomorrow morning on the 1km course outside of Autzen Stadium. The course is a 500m out and 500m back flat asphalt loop with almost no incline.

The weather is expected to be cold and snowy, but Tim has faced far worse in his career. While Tim has not walked 20km in training yet this season, his goal is simple: To finish the 20km race. If he is able to do that, he will finish with a huge smile on his face.

This will be a great step forward towards his goals for this season.

Tim Berrett qualifies for his 5th Olympic Team for Canada.

Click on the above title to see the article in which Berrett talks about how frustrated he is with his federation. Tim seems as frustrated with the lack of support from Athletics Canada as Tim Seaman is with the US Racewalking Committee's Chairman Vince Peters, USA Track and Field and the US Olympic Committee's complete lack of assistance in helping Tim qualify for his third Olympic Team.

Copied with permission from WALK! Magazine. 

Tim Seaman’s road to the Olympics has never been easy.  Tim is one of those guys who as Rob Cole once said, “If it wasn’t for bad luck Tim, you would have no luck.”  It was true before Tim qualified for his first Olympic Team in 2000 and it is true now as Tim tries to qualify for his third and last Olympic Team. 

            Sometime after Tim returned from the Pan-Am Cup in Brazil, Tim noticed that he was having some pain in his right adductor when he was warming up and when he turned around.  He didn’t think much of it and in fact went on to walk his second fastest time ever at the IAAF Grand Prix in LaCoruna, Spain in May.  After that though, things got progressively worse.  Tim was unable to do speedwork before the Outdoor National Championships in Indianapolis and then decided to skip the Pan-Am Games in July so that he could try and “rest” it, while still training for the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan.  While in Japan, Tim finally had the opportunity for an athletic trainer to look at him and the prognosis was not good news…..They had no clue what was wrong with him.  Upon his return from Japan, Tim put his full focus on finding out what was wrong.  The first doctor took an MRI and it said that he had osteoarthritis and the doctor told him to just “not train as much as he did before.”  That answer wasn’t acceptable to Tim, so he found another doctor who thought that it could be something else more complicated.  So, Tim took another MRI.  This one said that Tim had a torn Labrum inside his hip joint.  The doctor said that it was not something that he would recommend that Tim did before the Olympics because it was a very big surgery but the problem was that Tim was unable at that point to run or walk for 2 minutes without massive pain.

            Tim returned to Long Island to visit his family and had an appt with a specialist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.  The doctor advised Tim that he had a femoral acetabular impingement and that was causing the Labrum to tear as well as the adductor longus muscle.  He said that he would not recommend that Tim had the surgery before the Olympics provided that Tim was able to continue to train.  Since Tim wasn’t able to train at all, the decision was made to have surgery.  Three days later on Thursday October 25^th, at 6am in the morning Tim had surgery to correct the problem.  Dr. Coleman went in and shaved down a portion of the femur bone that was impinging the movement of the leg and he trimmed away that portion of the labrum that was torn.  He also had to remove some cartilage that was torn.

            Ten days after the surgery Tim met the doctor again for his post-op checkup.  He only had to use crutches for the first week, so he hobbled into the office on the upper east side of Manhattan. He took a seat on the tall chairs in the lobby that are specially made for hip-replacement patients and waited for his name to be called.  The nurse came out and took Tim into the room to remove the sutures.  A few minutes later, Dr. Coleman came in and showed Tim the pictures from the surgery.  He said that things were worse inside than he had thought and that he couldn’t guarantee that Tim would be 100% because of the missing cartilage.    He said that Tim couldn’t run or racewalk for 6 weeks and during that time he could start to do some easy rehab.

            Currently Tim is awaiting the six weeks to finish so that he can see if the surgery was a success or not.  He had originally planned on being in Germany at a training camp with his Team Plaetzer teammates at the end of November though the middle of December but that had to be cancelled.  Many things were planned in his preparation to qualify for his third Olympic Team, but now the only focus is being able to pain free.