My walking club met at the Capital University indoor track today. (It’s cold outside!) I decided to take advantage of being on an indoor track and work strictly on racewalking form and not worry about speed. My focus was on planting my heels, rolling through to my toes, keeping my knees straight, etc.

For those who have never attempted to racewalk, it feels weird when you do it wrong. It feels stiff, unnatural, choppy and as if you are very slow. But suddenly you will get a smooth, “floaty” feeling and it is almost effortless. That’s how you know you have it right!

After several laps of “thinking” about racewalking and waiting for my shins to warm up, I achieved that smooth, floaty feeling. It felt great! I kept the pace consistent and just worked on maintaining that smooth feeling. I’d get distracted when talking to other walkers and notice my steps felt choppy, but was easily able to get that smooth feeling back.

After 57 min I had no idea how many laps I did, but could feel the blood pumping through my legs (I love that feeling!) and was sweating. This suprised me because when I anticipated working on form, I expected to be slow.

Now here is the cool part. Other members of the Buckeye Striders said my form looked great! A couple mentioned that I was fast! Woo hoo!

Maybe I really AM a racewalker! I need to find some judged races to find out for sure. Later today I’ll start looking for some local indoor races.

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