Newfound Respect

I can't even imagine the responses I'd get if I posted this on letsrun, but after last night I have to admit that I have a newfound, albeit probably very temporary, respect for racewalkers. Since my ankle got sore after Sunday’s run/walk and my quads were sore as well (how pathetic is that?!), I decided to just walk yesterday afternoon and not mix in any running segments. In the past I would have pushed on through, but like I said before, I’m trying to be much more conservative and much smarter this time, so I figured a little bit of an easier day might be a good thing.

Anyway, I hit the trails at Greenfield and felt surprisingly good. My ankle wasn’t 100%, but I really didn’t even notice it, and my foot seems to have handled the running on Sunday just fine. That said, I pushed the pace right from the start and was walking somewhere around 14:30/mile. About halfway through, I felt like I was getting some work in, thanks in part to the heat and humidity I’m sure. However, I also realized that I really couldn’t walk much faster. Much of any increase in the pace at all and I would have been forced to break into a jog. That got me to thinking about racewalkers and how fast they’re able to go. Just for kicks, I decided to look up results from this year’s US 10k Racewalk Championships, and the winner averaged 7:31/mile. Wow!

Now I know my walking “technique” could use some help and I’m sure I could go faster if I worked at it, but still, there’s no way I could see myself walking at even sub-10 min a mile, much less 7:30, without breaking into a jog and thereby violating the rules of racewalking. I guess I better stick to easy stuff like running and leave walking to the experts – ha, ha.

Oh, and as a side note, I posted something to this effect as a status update on Facebook last night and got a great response from Jeremy Bartley. Apparently he was down in Portsmouth, VA, one time and had signed up for a 5k when he found out there was also a mile held prior to the 5k. Thinking it would be an easy win and a chance for a PR on a flat, fast course, he decided to jump in the mile too. He said he warmed up and did a few strides and was ready to get after it when the gun fired and he noticed everybody taking off with a very strange stride. The mile was a racewalk, and since he had paid, he decided to go ahead and do it. Not only did he get beat, but he said it was extremely hard to do. Funny stuff!