---------------------------------------- Racewalking humor Of a walking philosopher Who follows the 1949 IAAF rules ---------- By Margo Schulter June 5, 2013 ---------------------------------------- Q. What message was the IAAF sending with the 1995 racewalking rules? A. "Straighten up and fly right!" ---------- Q. What's the difference between racewalking and a running race? A. In most running races, normal walking is legal. ---------- Q. Do the 1995 IAAF rules define the difference between walking and running? A. Yes, just as Florida's northern border defines the difference between Americans and Canadians. ---------- Q. In the UK, what's the difference between a "Category A" and a "Category B" event? A. "A" stands for "Aerial"; "B" stands for "Bent." ---------- Q. How has learning about racewalking enriched your experience as a freestyle walker? A. I used to walk half-marathon and marathon distances in a maxiskirt as a matter of style and culture; now I realize that I'm also wisely exercising my privilege against self-incrimination. ---------- Q. What's the name of a rumored new Disney movie, a teenage comedy set in Italy about different styles of competitive walking? A. Ginocchio. ---------- Q. What are the three schools of racewalking philosophy? A. Modernist, Neo-Classical, and Gary Westerfield. (1) Modernists hold that "Straight is straight, and bent is bent" (Bohdan Bulakowski, quoted by Bonnie Stein), but view brief flight-phasing as a routine feature of modern elite practice. (2) Neo-Classicists hold that "Contact is contact, and lifting is lifting," but feel that as to knees, everyone should pretty much follow his or her own bent. (3) Gary Westerfield is reminding everyone that when it comes to knees, they should really be saying "extended" or "flexed." ---------- Q. What's the difference between racewalking and the breaststroke? A. At the Olympics, there are other swimming events -- but no freestyle walking events. ---------- Q. Why do some racewalkers make statements that the 1995 rules define precisely the difference between walking and running? A. Because elite racewalkers may tend to exhibit hyperextended knee joints and logic. Q. How might an elite racewalker reply to that? A. Freestyle walkers who are the most obsessed with a true double support phase tend to exhibit the longest flights of fancy and the least contact with mundane reality. ---------- Q. From the viewpoint of someone favoring the pre-1995 contact rule, what is the most important conclusion to be drawn from Jeff Salvage's scientific studies of technique? A. The future of Olympic racewalking is up in the air. ---------- Q. What's the difference between a pure freestyle walker and a slow marathon runner? A. The walker is maintaining continuous contact with the ground -- intentionally. ---------- Q. Why would a book on racewalking likely be more popular than one on pure freestyle walking ("the contact rule, the whole contact rule, and nothing but the contact rule"). A. Because "Walk Like an Athlete" tends to sell better than "Run Like an Elephant." ---------- Q. What does a freestyle walker say when watching a Kenyan sprinter? A. "Wow, she's fast! -- if only she could lose that lifting!" Q. How do you know that a racewalker is present? A. The racewalker will also make a bent knee call. ---------- Q. Translate the French biomechanical and military term "pas de flexion" (from around 1900) into modern American English. A. The art of rucking. ---------- Q. What might some Masters walkers call the aging process? A. The Grim Creeper. ---------- Q. How will an ethical freestyle walker describe her style? A. "I'm proudly racewalking under the 1949 IAAF rules." ---------- Q. How can you tell a philosopher of competitive walking? A. When you see her strolling around campus with a certain far-off look at a pace of around 20 minutes per mile, and ask her what's on her mind, she'll reply: "I'm contemplating whether or not my technique right now might arguably be legal under the 1956 IAAF rules." Q. What's her training goal? A. A 50K freestyle in 10 hours -- with negative splits, no less! ---------- Q. What's the highest compliment I can give a runner or a pure freestyle walker? A. For the runner: "You run like a gazelle!" For the freestyle walker: "You run like a gazelle glued to the track!" ----------- Q. What is the "daily dozen" exercise for a philosopher of competitive walking? A. Think of six biomechanically impossible things before breakfast, and then six technical rules that look great on paper but would be absolutely unjudgeable in practice. ---------- Q. Why is the racewalking establishment so averse to technology? A. They aren't! True, they may not use video in judging; but at the Rio Olympics in 2016, the IAAF is providing racewalkers with state-of-the-art air traffic control. ---------- Q. How can you recognize a freestyle walker with an attitude? A. You'll see the button: "GET YOUR RULES OFF MY QUADS!" ---------- [This part is serious, but also quite humorous at the same time] Q. What is Tregurtha's Law of Biomechanics (named in honor of the late, great, Jack Tregurtha of New Zealand)? A. Tregurtha's Law holds that about as good a test as any to determine if someone is walking in a biomechanical sense is to pick a few people -- not necessarily racewalking judges! -- and have them observe from a distance, say from the other side of the track. "I have found that most people have no trouble distinguishing between runners and walkers simply on the basis that if they look like a runner they are a runner and if they look like a walker they are a walker." . Q. What's an important Exception to Tregurtha's Law? A. Some lay observers may see lots of legal racewalkers as running simply because of the turnover rate. Q. How might the Exception to Tregurtha's Law be finessed at an actual event? A. Have a mixed team of racewalking judges and volunteer lay observers view the action. Here's a logical breakdown of some outcomes: (1) If the judges and lay observers agree someone is walking, the person is walking -- everything's fine. (2) If the judges say someone is biomechanically running but the lay observers say the person is obviously walking, the person is walking -- evidently the judges are having problems realizing that "bent-knee walking" is not an oxymoron. (3) If the judges say someone is clearly racewalking, but the lay observers see "running," the person is walking -- the lay observers can't quite wrap their minds around the turnover rate. (4) If the judges and lay observers agree that someone is biomechanically running, and the judges on closer inspection find good contact, then the person is in that special category: a "flexion walker" or "grounded runner," depending on how one looks at things. Q. How would you handle situation (4) at a walking or run/walk event? A. I'd explain to the athlete: "You are maintaining continuous contact, and are therefore a legitimate walker. At the same time, you are using running biomechanics, which makes you also a runner. Now as someone who is both walking and running at the same time, it might seem unsporting for you to compete against people who are only walking, but not also running. However, you may, of course, fairly compete against anyone who is also both walking and running -- that is, taking advantage of running biomechanics, but also accepting the cost in inefficiency required to stay on the ground. You may additionally, needless to say, fairly compete against anyone who is only running, and not also walking, since they are getting the same advantage without the cost of maintaining contact. "Therefore I'll place you in what we call our `flexion gait' category. You'll be listed in the walking standings, but in a separate group -- along with any other walkers who happen also to be runners." And if this is a run/walk event: "You'll also be listed among runners with a special notation to show you as a `grounded runner,' so people can fairly compare your time with that of runners who are allowing themselves a flight phase." Q. How could all this be handled on an entry form, or in a briefing for walkers before a race? A. Explain to people that there are the following categories -- of which (1) and (4) may or may not be applicable to a given event: (1) JUDGED RACEWALKERS, who agree to follow current IAAF rules. (2) PENDULAR FREESTYLE WALKERS, who agree to maintain contact and use a technique recognizable as walking under Tregurtha's Law (in biomechanical terms, using the support leg primarily as a pendulum rather than an elastic spring or pogo stick; and with potential and kinetic energy out of phase rather than in phase). (3) PURE FREESTYLE WALKERS OR GROUNDED RUNNERS, who agree to maintain contact, but may otherwise use any technique, including a flexion gait with running biomechanics (also known as an "airless jog" or "ultrarunner's shuffle"). (4) USUAL RUNNERS, who are free to use any style of locomotion, typically combining running biomechanics with a flight phase. Also explain that anyone in a given category may compete with other athletes in the same or a lower numbered category: racewalkers with everyone; pendular freestyle walkers with everyone but racewalkers; pure freestyle walkers with each other and usual runners; and usual runners only among themselves. One fine point: just as the 1995 IAAF rules ask that world class racewalkers who may experience brief flight phases be "above suspicion" when it comes to knee flexions which could increase the possible advantage from those flight phases, so walkers using a flexion gait should be likewise above suspicion when it comes to good contact. ---------- Q. What's this about a new sport mixing freestyle athletic walking with America's favorite pastime? A. It's a new kind of softball where baserunners have to keep one foot on the ground at all times, or you're out! -- with especially strict judging when you're stealing a base. Q. How might Andi Drake and Dave McGovern respond to this? A. They might issue a statement: "We applaud this new sport -- however utterly irrelevant to serious walking -- for its truth in advertising. We notice they've kept traditional terms like `run' and `baserunner,' and are pleased to say that given their use of the contact rule only, those terms will almost certainly remain biomechanically accurate." ---------- Q. In racewalking terms, can you explain the big musical controversy in Italy around 1600 between the epic composer Claudio Monteverdi and his arch-critic Giovanni Maria Artusi? A. Well, Monteverdi circulated some madrigals that, according to the old 1558 rules, have lots of pretty clear instances of lifting. So Artusi let the red cards fly, despite the argument "that it is reason and not the ear which discovers the many dissonances." Then Monteverdi replied by explaining that his Fourth and Fifth Books of Madrigals, which Artusi had been trying to DQ, were actually an official announcement of the new IAAF rules. Q. Why is this last joke called a rhetorical quad stretch? A. Because it likens an academic discipline in the medieval quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music) to the athletic discipline of walking, where the author of this somewhat stretched metaphor often tends, during the early part of the stance phase, to experience some eccentric contractions of the quadriceps. ------------------------- SEMANTIC NOTE: This small collection of humor is meant to address the world of athletic walking in mid-2013 as it is, even while suggesting how it could be. Thus I have often used the term "racewalking" to mean specifically a heel-and-toe style, and yet more specifically the "modern heel-and-toe" style defined by the current 1995 IAAF rules. However, I am in favor of using racewalking in its general sense to embrace the entire athletic discipline of walking, with modern heel-and-toe as defined by the 1995 rules as one form or event type, just as the breaststroke is one style or form within the athletic discipline of swimming. We can thus define the universe of racewalking as including any technique legal under either the 1949 rules (any technique maintaining continuous contact with the ground and including a true double support phase) or the 1995 rules (authorizing very brief and subtle flight phases when coupled with a very strictly defined biomechanical form of "pure" walking, a bit like just intonation in music). Anyone who maintains contact with the ground, or satisfies the 1995 rules, is practicing some form of legal racewalking -- which, however, may or may not be legal in a given type of racewalking form or event. So racewalking -- in its generic sense, just a synonym for athletic walking of any kind -- will include modern heel-and-toe as one of its event types and subdisciplines. The 1995 rules don't need to change, although they might well evolve further, based on the practices of the best athletes in this form of walking. But it should be understood that these rules define merely one form of athletic walking, not the entire field (any more than the rules for the breaststroke define the field of athletic swimming)! Modern heel-and-toe has two unique characteristics than can help in envisioning other technical forms or subdisciplines. First, very brief flight phases are legal, a kind of subtle aerial artistry which should be celebrated; secondly, normal walking is illegal! Here are a few ideas for other forms. In "classic heel-and-toe," natural ordinary walking (NOW) with a reasonably upright posture serves as a baseline of legality, and also as the root or starting point for the legal way to go faster than a brisk walk: heel-and-toe (HAT), with a heel strike and a roll through the whole foot from heel to toe. As long as your technique is recognizably NOW or HAT, and your posture stays reasonably upright, any knee flexions or perturbations are on the house -- you're legal! This assumes that you also maintain contact under the traditional or strict rule. You can freely alternate HAT/NOW, sort of like Jeff Galloway's run/walk. What's illegal is altering your natural gait in the wrong direction in order to go beyond a brisk walk, by making your posture markedly less upright, and/or obviously accentuating your knee flexion -- the technical fault of "freestyling"! In "pendular freestyle," the one technical requirement apart from the strict contact rule is that you are biomechanically walking (pendulum mechanism, potential and kinetic energy out of phase): you must pass the Tregurtha Test of "looking like a walker" from a distance, rather than like a runner. As Jack Tregurtha has suggested, biomechanical definitions are possible, but common sense judging is as good as anything! A whole range of hike-y, flex-y, or "powerwalk" styles are legal -- as long as you still look like a walker! In "pure freestyle" or "unqualified freestyle," the strict contact rule is the only technical constraint, with "grounded running" mechanics legal and expected! Some recreational runners, and many ultrarunners, will be "naturals" at this -- legal "as is"! Will adept heel-and-toe walkers ("racewalkers" in the narrower sense) try to outdo them with a classic style, or to beat them at their own game? The latter choice could provide some low impact cross-training! For this form, as also for pendular freestyle, long distances and cross-country settings seem especially fitting. Here's a quick overview, offered simply as an invitation to envision how our athletic discipline should expand and diversify: --------------------------------------------------------------- Subdiscipline Contact Rule NOW? UBW? GR? --------------------------------------------------------------- Modern Heel-and-Toe Modified No No No 1995 IAAF rules --------------------------------------------------------------- Classic Heel-and-Toe Strict Yes No No HAT or natural gait --------------------------------------------------------------- Pendular Freestyle Strict Yes Yes No Biomechanical walking --------------------------------------------------------------- Pure Freestyle Strict Yes Yes Yes Contact rule only 1949 IAAF rules --------------------------------------------------------------- HAT = Heel-and-Toe NOW = Natural Ordinary Walking UBW = Unrestricted Biomechanical Walking GR = Grounded Running --------------------------------------------------------------- Modern Heel-and-Toe may well remain racewalking's flagship style. A biomechanical technique so exacting and pure that it cannot abide the natural knee flexions of everyday walking leads in elite practice to speeds where the classical concept of walking (a true double support phase) no longer quite holds, yet the optical illusion in real time of continuous contact is maintained. Thus we can view this form either as the ultimate biomechanical walking technique, or from a classical perspective as the consummate art of ultratechnical running (minute leaps so subtle as to appear as continuous steps). Classic Heel-and-Toe and Pendular Freestyle may best fit the intuitive concept of a "walking race": the rules require walking both in the classical sense (double support) and biomechanical sense (pendulum mechanism). A natural walking gait is legal, while grounded running (as judged intuitively by the human eye at a distance) is illegal. Classic Heel-and-Toe leaves knee flexions and perturbations unregulated as long as the technique remains recognizably in the neighborhood of heel-and-toe or natural ordinary walking, but excludes the use to gain speed of accentuated flexed-knee and/or flexed-hip techniques -- which become legal in Pendular Freestyle, as long as the style remains recognizable as biomechanical walking. Pure Freestyle, with the contact rule only, requires walking in the classical sense (double support), but permits biomechanical running -- the obverse of Modern Heel-and-Toe. And it can likewise be seen as an interdisciplinary meeting ground for adventurous walkers who wish to explore one of the fastest techniques of locomotion maintaining continuous contact, and runners of a special kind: ultramarathon athletes who pragmatically arrive at a sustainable, low-impact technique which also fits the classical definition of walking! Once we recognize that the 1995 IAAF rules define one principal form or subdiscipline of athletic walking rather than the discipline as a whole, we have opened new avenues of accessibility, inclusion, and choice. Newcomers who are either athletes drawn to walking, or walkers drawn to athletics, will have a range of options; and each form and event, including Modern Heel-and-Toe, will take on new significance when placed in a more expansive perspective. Walking, like running or swimming, will have claimed its rightful estate. Margo Schulter Sacramento, California, USA June 5, 2013