Making the (Age) Grade
I've had the amazing fortune to have trained with world class race walkers for a few clinics. I'm in awe of what some of the junior Olympians can do on a track and how some of the current International team members make speed look easy. In the past two years, I've been ever more fortunate that a few of our Team in Training teams have given me the opportunity to teach walk technique clinics to the runners and run walkers because the coaches see the value it brings.
What most people I train don't understand is what race walk speeds really mean.
After teaching the basic heel-to-toe roll, push off with the toes and unlocking their hips, I typically end the clinic with a "perspective exercise" by asking them to walk two laps as fast as they can using their new techniques. Many runners understand the Yasso 800 technique to be able to project how they will do in a full marathon. The basic idea is that consistently doing two laps at a specific time, when measured in minutes and seconds, usually translates to the number of hours and minutes they will take to finish a full marathon.
Just to motivate the TNTer's to push their limits, I usually offer donations to fundraisers for several categories - top speed, top age graded times, all time record.
After pushing the newly trained walkers through two hard laps (and teaching them various stretches for their burning shins), I explain the Age Grade calculations I make with their times. Age grading measures how good the PERFORMANCE is for someone of that age and gender as a percentage of the world record speed. For example, if the world record holder at your age for the marathon is a 3:00 hour marathon, then running a 6:00 hour marathon would put you at an "Age Grade" of 50% - half the speed of the world record. The times tend to get slower past the age of 29 and are typically faster for men than for women.
Because one of the two rules of race walking is that one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times ("as visible to the naked eye"), walkers are naturally limited to the distance traveled per step. Unlike runners who can experience a 'flight phase' or a period of non-contact. The flight phase increases stride length for runners by up to 30 - 50% of the racer's height. This necessarily restricts the top speed of race walkers. It's very instructive to find that a what sounds like a slow race for a walker (say, a 6 hour marathon by a 50 year old) is actually a better PERFORMANCE (53.68%) than a runner in his prime of 29 running a respectable 4 hour marathon (52.05%).
During the speed-walk challenge, its usually the younger runners that end up winning the pure speed categories. What ends up being very sobering is that very few of the younger runners every place in the top 10 age graded times. What I love to see is when some of the experienced runners and walkers hit the higher age grade rankings in the 60% and 70% range. Anything over 60% is considered "locally competitive". Over 70% is "regionally competitive", 80% is "nationally competitive" and over 90% is world class.
I've seen two scores over 75% during this exercise. Both of them are walkers. Several runners walked times that came in over 70%. For the rest of the crowd that come in over 6 minutes (or the equivalent of a 6 hour full marathon), I explain how many races have hard cutoff times at the 6 or 6.5 hour mark. While walking a marathon is getting more popular, there are still a lot of races where most walkers will have a challenge to finish under the cut off. The request - after now knowing what it feels like to walk - is to give a shout out to the walkers on the course.
It's a great way to put the marathon community on the same page. I'd encourage more walk and run coaches to give it a try.
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