On August 13, I competed in the 5000 meter race-walk event at the Minnesota Senior Games. The Senior Games are open to athletes who are at least 50 years old. I’ve been eligible to compete in them for the last 10 years, but this is the first year I’ve done it.
The Minnesota Senior Games are
held over a four-day period in Mankato, MN.
They have events in 18 different sports, including running and
race-walking. As a runner, I never
considered competing. The longest
running event is 10 kilometers. I tend
to focus on marathons and ultras, so I wouldn’t expect to be competitive in a
race as short as 10K.
This year, I haven’t done much
running, but I’ve been trying to get back in shape by race-walking. I’ve mostly been training to walk marathons,
but as part of my training, I’ve done a few fast workouts.
In late April, I set out to do
a moderately fast five-mile walk. I took
the first mile much faster than I expected, and I made an impulsive decision to
shorten my walk to 5K and see how fast I could go. My time was 32:41. That’s when I first started thinking about
competing in the Senior Games.
In late June, I set out so see
how much faster I could walk 5K. I launched
into such a fast pace that I was already getting out of breath after only about
100 meters. I had to throttle back my
pace a little, but not much. I managed a
5K time of 30:14.
After that workout, I had soreness
in my glutes and my left hamstring. I
wondered if I had pulled a muscle (or two).
I was able to do long workouts with a manageable amount of discomfort,
but I held off on doing any other speed workouts until the soreness was
gone. That took weeks.
In late July, I did one more 5K
time trial. This time I didn’t start quite
as fast, but as soon as I got warmed up, I made a serious effort to walk as
fast as I could. My time that day wasn’t
as fast. I managed a time of 30:59. Once again, I wondered if I had injured
myself. For the next 24 hours, my left
knee felt a little funny. I took it easy
for the next two days, and then I felt fine.
There are two race-walk events
at the Senior Games: 1500 meters and 5000 meters. I might have considered doing both, but they
were on the same day. The 1500 meter
race-walk event was at 2:00. The 5000
meter race-walk was at 4:00. If I attempted
an all-out 1500 meters, I would probably destroy myself for the 5000.
I’m not used to racing in the
late afternoon. For marathons, which are
typically held in the morning, I’ll eat a light breakfast, if anything. Today, I ate a light breakfast and a light
early lunch. I didn’t want to have too
much food in my stomach. As it is, I
still felt heavy after having a large dinner on Thursday.
I left for Mankato right after
lunch. I wasn’t competing until 4:00, but
I wanted to get there early enough to watch the 1500-meter race. Partly, I wanted to watch the race-walking form
of the various competitors. Also, I
wanted to get oriented to the venue where I would be competing two hours later.
Both events were on the track
at the Mankato campus of Minnesota State University (a.k.a. Mankato State). Before heading to the track to watch the
1500, I stopped at the Taylor Center to check-in. I got my program and T-shirt, and they told
me where the track was. I would need to
check in at the track to get my race number.
Before leaving the Taylor Center, I browsed the list of people who were
signed up for my event. I learned there
were only seven people signed up for the 5000.
Of those, I was the only one in my age group.
Even though I wasn’t competing
in the 1500 meter race-walk, I still sat in on the pre-race instructions, where
the race-walking judge went over the rules.
There are two rules that distinguish race-walking from running. The first one is obvious. You must always have at least one foot in
contact with the ground. Failure to do
this is called “lifting.” The other rule
is less obvious. From the time your lead
foot makes contact with the ground until that leg is vertical, you have to keep
that knee straight. Failure to do this
is called “bent knee.”
Ordinarily, there are multiple
judges around the track who watch all the competitors to look for infractions
of either of these rules. If they see an
infraction, they can give you a “red card.”
A single red card won’t result in disqualification. If, however, you’re given red cards by three
different judges, you’re disqualified
Today, there was only one
race-walking judge. Because of that, he
said he wouldn’t disqualify anyone unless their infraction was flagrant. If he saw less flagrant infractions for which
he would normally give a red card, he would instead hold up a yellow paddle
during the race and discuss it with the walker in question after the race. Even though he wasn’t likely to disqualify anyone
today, he wanted us to know if we had form problems that could get us disqualified
at nationals.
As I watched the 1500-meter
event, I had an opportunity to observe the walking form of walkers of different
abilities.
Besides the race-walking
events, there were also power walking events.
Power walking is similar to race-walking, but their rules are a little
bit different. One difference is that
they’re required to make contact with their heel before shifting their weight
through their toes. I think most
race-walkers do that, but it’s not a rule for race-walking. The more significant different is that their “bent
knee” rule is much more liberal. You can
get by with bending your knee a little, as long as it’s not flagrant. I chose to do race-walking instead of power
walking, because the rules are better defined and I was already familiar with
them.
One of my goals today was to
qualify for the National Senior Games.
To do that, I had to place in the top four in my age group and meet a
minimum qualification standard. The
standard for my age group was 32:15. I
knew I could do that, having done it twice in training, but I also knew it
would take an all-out effort.
I already knew the event would
be thinly attended. Two of the seven people
who signed up couldn’t make it, so there were only five of us on the
track. With that in mind, my mindset was
that I was only competing against the clock.
At this time of year, afternoon
temperatures are typically in the 80s or 90s.
Today, the high temperature was a relatively comfortable 79 degrees. That helped.
The last two times I timed myself on this distance, it was warmer.
As I toed the line, I had three
things on my mind. First, obviously, I
wanted to start fast enough. In a
distance this short, you can’t make up for lost time. My top speed for 5K isn’t much different than
my top speed over shorter distances, so there just wasn’t much room to speed
up. Second, I didn’t want to walk so
vigorously that I injured myself. That
was a real concern. The last two times I
timed myself over this distance, I felt like I came close to an injury. Finally, I had to keep my form legal. The harder I pushed to go fast, the more I
risked changing my mechanics in ways that I might not be consciously aware of.
When the gun went off, I
started my watch. I didn’t use GPS. I didn’t know how accurately a GPS watch would
measure my distance around a track, and I didn’t want to be misled by inaccurate data
from my watch. Instead of getting splits
from my watch, I glanced at my time as I completed each lap.
We started at the beginning of
a turn. I was lined up in the middle, so
I tried to start quickly, so I could race ahead of everyone and get into lane
one before going too far around the turn.
There was one other walker starting at the same pace, and he was already
in lane one. I picked up my effort in a
frantic attempt to get ahead of him. I
didn’t want to stay in lane two any longer than necessary, but I also didn’t
want to move over too quickly and cut him off.
One consequence of racing for
the inside lane is that I quickly established a rapid cadence. Sometimes, when I’m trying to go faster, I
start to overstride. Today, I did a
better job of speeding up by increasing my turnover. I never felt like I was overstriding.
By the time I got around the
first turn, I was already getting out of breath. That wasn’t too surprising. I’ve sometimes had the same experience
walking 5K on my own.
We were on a 400-meter track,
so I had to do twelve and a half laps.
On the side of the track where we would finish, there were lap counters,
the official timers, and a sign that showed the number of remaining laps for
the leader. I led from wire to wire, so
I could always look for that sign to see how many laps I had left. That was convenient, but it wasn’t actually
necessary. The laps counters told every
walker their lap count each time they crossed the finish line.
The first time I went through,
I was only done with 200 meters. I
checked my watch. Before the race, I
figured out what time I would need at this point to be on pace for 30 minutes,
and what time I would need to be on pace to break 32:15. They were 1:12 and 1:17, respectively. I went through at 1:10. I knew I was starting at a good pace, but I
was still surprised to be this fast. I
was on pace for 29:10, which would be an all-time PR.
I checked my time again at 400
meters. It was 2:23. I slowed down by a few seconds, but I was
still on pace to break 30 minutes.
My time at 600 meters was
3:35. I was still on a 30-minute pace,
but I was already having to fight for it.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to sustain this pace much longer.
I didn’t think to check my pace
at 800 meters, but at 1,000 meters, I saw that I was slowing down. For the rest of the race, I only checked my
time on the side of the track where I would finish. I also gave up on a 30-minute pace. Instead, I paid attention to whether I was
still doing my laps at a pace that would bring me in under 32:15. After a few more laps, my pace stabilized at about
2:30 per lap. That’s about five seconds
per lap faster than I needed to be.
By now, I was starting to lap
some of the other walkers. By the end of
the race, I would lap everyone at least once.
I lapped most of the other walkers multiple times. Fortunately, there weren’t that many other
walkers on the track. One thing that was
annoying is that I always seemed to overtake other walkers when I was on a
turn. I rarely made it through a turn
without having to go out into the second lane, which adds a little extra
distance to the turn.
There were occasional wind
gusts from the north. I only felt the
wind when I was going around the turn at the east end of the track. Going around that turn, my mouth always got
dry.
With six laps to go, I was
really struggling to hold the pace. I
had one had that took 2:40. Before that,
my slowest lap was 2:31. That one slow
lap scared me, and I fought hard to pick up the pace. After that, every remaining lap was 2:30 or
faster.
With three laps to go, I felt
like I was hanging on for dear life, but I put in as much effort as I
could. I eventually finished in 30:43,
winning the race and easily meeting the performance standard to advance to
nationals.
I knew the race-walking judge, because
I see him every year at the FANS 24-hour race.
After the race, he told me my form was perfect for the first 10 ½ laps,
but fatigue was affecting my form in the last two laps. In those two laps, it was getting to be
questionable as to whether I was straightening my knee by the time I made
contact. It might not be enough to get
me disqualified in a more tightly officiated race, but it’s something I need to
work on.
Overall, I was pleased with my
performance. The best part is I didn’t
have any unusual soreness after the race.
I was really worried I wouldn’t be able to race this fast without
hurting myself.
I’ve only walked one other
judged 5K race. That was 30 years ago. My time then was 29:38. In 30 years, I’ve only lost a minute and five
seconds.
At some point, I’ll get an
invitation to the National Senior Games.
Those will be held next May in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Whether I’ll go is still up in the air. It’ll depend on several factors. Am I back to running by then? Am I doing sufficient race-walk training to
have a good race at nationals? Does it
conflict with other races that are more important to me? I don’t know any of those answers, but it’s
nice to know I’ll have the opportunity.
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