Marathon Walkers Are in a Class of Their Own
Marathon walkers are in a class of their own.
I learned this the first time when I took a racewalking clinic from Dave McGovern in 2017. That clinic plus many training outings helped me to walk a marathon in under six hours in early 2018.
I learned this again yesterday in a 21-miler with my friends Ed, Margot, and Ash. I had decided to walk it with them after hurting a knee on super-steep hills in a run:walk outing seven days earlier.
Babying My Knee
With a marathon looming on January 1, 2021, I wanted to baby that knee by walking the 21 miles yesterday. Walking with Ed spared my knee for the first 16 miles. Ed and I then caught up with Margot and Ash, who had jogged ahead a bit and then made the final turnaround.
As we all headed the five miles back to the parking lot, Margot and then Ed began a bit of a jog. Ash kept walking with me. I tried to run, but my knee pain flared up again with each attempt to run. This killed my desire to run:walk the upcoming January-1 marathon.
I also saw that walking the marathon, even though it stays open from sunrise to sunset, would be futile. I trained this year as a run:walk athlete. Walking all 21 miles yesterday made my outer hips, my iliac crests, and the soles of my feet sore. This made it clear that trying to walk 26.2 miles in a few weeks would be no fun, either.
A Class of Their Own
Ed and Margot are in a class of their own. Each has completed scores of marathons, half-marathons, and other races. More impressive to me, though, is that they do this as walkers, with a bit of jogging thrown in for good measure.
And, they can shift with ease into a jog after walking ten-plus miles. I could not do this yesterday, even when I was willing to endure some knee pain for a jog across an intersection. It was as if my leg muscles said, “No, you walked too much already. We won’t let you switch to running now!”
Elites vs. Non-Elites
Kibiwott Kandie set the latest half-marathon world record only a week ago, with a time of 57:32 in Valencia, Spain. We non-elites need some two to four hours to cover the same distance. We non-elites joke that elites may be unable to endure our longer chip-times.
Some elite runners have said that they don’t have the stamina to stay on the road as long as we do. I wondered whether they were saying that only to make us non-elites feel better.
Today, though, I as a non-elite see — and feel — what they mean. Sure, I can run:walk faster than I can walk. But, run:walk athleticism is different from the ability to walk for several miles and then switch into a jog. My walking friends Ed and Margot have that ability, and I am in awe.
