Endurance Walkers Get My Renewed Respect
Endurance walkers get my renewed respect today.
I launched SpryFeet.com last year for endurance runners and walkers.
I did this because it was a walking group, not a running group, that helped me return to marathon training two years ago after being away from it for six years.
But today anyone who can walk — not run — the entire distance of a half marathon, let alone a marathon or other endurance-distance race, gets my renewed respect.
You see, I completed the Seawall Half-Marathon yesterday, and I did it mostly by walking.
All of my endurance races until yesterday had been marathons, and I completed all of them by repeatedly running and walking.
Seawall Half-Marathon in Galveston in November seemed like a nice follow-up to my marathons in Toronto in September and in Tyler in October.
Because my wife coaches walkers to complete half marathons, I decided to walk Seawall with her.
- We had never completed an endurance race together, but we have dear, married friends who do it all the time and love it.
- I thought, “Walking half my usual distance will be a nice break from running + walking marathons.”
Results?
- I loved being with my wife as she and I completed Seawall together.
- I was so wrong with that thought!
First of all, walking engages your muscles differently than running does. Because I am used to walking + running, sticking strictly to walking for 13.1 miles made me sore in new places!
Second, running gives repeated “air” to the foot in the shoe — at least for me. Let me explain. Yesterday during Seawall I could feel a slight pain of foot blisters developing (although they are gone today) from the non-stop walking. So around the eight-mile marker my wife and I tried an occasional thirty-second run. Sure enough, that foot pain temporarily disappeared. And the best way for me to describe it is that I was giving pain-relieving “air” to my feet in my shoes as I ran.
You might say,”Kirk, you’re a wimp!” Or you might think, “Kirk, you don’t know how to walk.” Or you might have some other physical or physiological explanation for why I had trouble walking a half marathon when I usually run + walk marathons.
But the bottom line for me is that today I have renewed respect for endurance walkers.
Ever since I trained with a marathon walking group, I have respected endurance walkers. I know first-hand how someone new to endurance walking can feel different than — read that “less than” — endurance runners. And I know first-hand how easily someone who always trains to run, not walk, endurance races could dismiss endurance walkers as “those people who get in the way on the sidewalk or trail” or “those people who should not be in my marathon” (similar to the opinion expressed by a college’s head cross-country coach).
So, thank you, my dear wife, for renewing my respect for endurance walkers and endurance walking. It ain’t easy.
