The Complete Guide to Racewalking

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What is Racewalking?

Racewalking is essentially a fast paced from of walking, whereby one foot must always be in contact with the ground.

Historically, the distances covered by racewalkers have exceeded 100 miles in a single event, which spanned multiple days and, in some cases, across multiple states in the US. Recent events are much shorter in comparison, with the Olympic races measured at 20 km and 50 km, and local races anything from 3 km to 50 km+.

In contrast to a marathon, where the distance measured is point-to-point, most racewalking events will actually be measured around a series of laps.

This is mainly due to the judging criteria. Rules are slightly stricter compared to running, which means that judges will need to be in a position where they can monitor each walker’s technique.

However, it’s also worth bearing in mind the following:

While many racewalking events are performed on tracks or involve laps, local track and running clubs have racewalker or walker divisions included in their road races and usually do not involve laps.

The idea of completing laps in an event is probably more true for elite racewalkers and track meets, but the average person learning to racewalk will typically be looking for local road races to try their skills by participating in racewalker and walker divisions. Judges are typically spaced out along the course during judged road races.

Pat Driscoll, NOTC Racewalking Coordinator

A brief history of Racewalking

Although the term itself may have been created fairly recently, walking competitively in one form or other has reportedly been around for thousands of years.

Despite still being a long way from its current form, competitive walking involving the ‘fair heel and toe‘ technique was first observed in England in the early 17th Century. The distance that these races took place over often exceeded 100 miles, and were spread across multiple consecutive days.

After the first English amateur walking championship was organised in 1866, it wasn’t until the start of the 1900’s that racewalking that closely resembles its current form was first granted its place as an Olympic event.

Competitive walking events may seem like a fairly new addition to the Olympics, but it’s actually been an event on the schedule for over 100 years, with the first recorded half-mile walk taking place in the games of 1904. However, during this particular year, racewalking was only to play a small part in the main decathlon event, with a distance of just 880 yards.

Pedestrianism led the rise in popularity of competitive walking in the 19th century

One of the reasons for its appearance in the Olympics was the growing popularity of competitive walking events in the 19th century – which at the time was known as Pedestrianism. One of the best accounts we’ve found on the subject is in a book written by Matthew Algeo, entitled ‘Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk Was America’s Favourite Spectator Sport’.

This book also includes a story of when a New Englander walked from the State House in Boston to the Capitol, in Washington, in 1860. A journey that was originally intended to last no more than 10 days, this was soon documented by national newspapers, increasing the exposure of racewalking to the American public.

It’s generally recognised that this was one of the events that caused walking to become the dominant spectator sport in America, between 1860 and 1880. Before making its way onto the Olympic stage, competitive racewalking then became one of the original events of the Amateur Athletics Association meetings in 1880.

Upon being recognised as an Olympic athletics event, two main distance categories were determined – 20 km and 50 km. While both of these events were originally only made available to men, it wasn’t until 1992 that the first women’s racewalking event was organised.

However, the shorter amount of time that women have been competing in Olympic racewalking doesn’t seem to be reflected in the record books, with records for the top 10 fastest times over 20 km all falling after this year for both men and women.

From its earliest roots being categorized as Pedestrianism, through to its acceptance into the Olympic schedule, racewalking has remained a popular form of exercise and sport. This has led to a number of clubs and organizations being established across the US and the world, and a large number of competitions being held on a regular basis, including a World Race Walking Challenge organised by the IAAF.

What are the rules?

As with the majority of sporting events, racewalking has its own set of rules that you will need to abide by, in order to stay in the race.

Most events will make these rules quite clear before the race starts, and in most cases these will be the same rules you will have to follow at any other racewalking meet.

The list below details the current set of official racewalking rules. There are also some that have been created at specific races, so it’s worth checking if these come into effect before you participate in any competition.

Rules for walkers (extract from USATF rule 232):

Rules for judges (extract from USATF rule 230):

If you would like to read through the USATF’s comprehensive guide to race walking rules, you’ll find them in section VI (rules 230, 231, and 232) of this document. However, due to the fundamental importance that it holds towards correct walking form and defining the race walking technique, we’ve listed rule 232.2 below.

USATF Official Rules:

Despite the limited and fairly straightforward nature of these rules, many athletes, even at a professional level, will still break them on a regular basis.

Excluding a small number of exceptions, this is far from deliberate. The rules simply state that if an athlete is violating the loss of contact rule, then that violation should be visible to the human eye. This means that there may be a few milliseconds where both feet are off the ground, but this would only be picked up by sensors or some form of tracking technology.

To prevent a judge from single-handedly disqualifying a walker, they can give only one red card per athlete. Walkers aren’t told which judge gave them a red card, to prevent blatant rule breaking when passing this same judge on consecutive laps.

Deciding on the number and placement of judges is something we look at in more detail later in this article, but these rules essentially mean that any race needs a minimum of 4 judges – 3 to assign each of the “red cards”, and a chief judge to be responsible for the resulting disqualifications.

Racewalking technique

If you were to walk into any gym, you would probably notice that the equipment has been designed to suit as many different body types as possible.

For example, the running area on the treadmill probably exceeds 60 inches in length to take into account taller runners at faster running speeds, while the cable machines have different settings to let you find the optimal plane of motion for your muscles to move the weight.

In these circumstances, recommended exercise form and technique is fairly universal. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for racewalking.

Because the combination of movements is so unique, it’s often the case that people have a hard time grasping what’s required, and turn to looking at pictures and videos of elite level walkers for a point of reference.

This isn’t something that’s generally encouraged, as each individual person’s body structure will be subtly different. Trying to match the arm movement and foot placement too precisely will usually lead to an unnatural racewalking motion, which will impact your race times and increase the likelihood of injury.

Instead, it’s best to develop your own technique that still falls within the two main rules of the sport. However, there are a few basic words of advice that we can offer.

10 Tips for perfecting the technique:

Ensuring your toes leave the ground at the correct time is important for abiding by the rules,
as well as maintaining good form

History of record holders

As with running, racewalking also has its own list of record holders, segmented into gender and distances. These records are recognised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), and date back to early 1911.

To act as a quick reference guide, we’ve compiled the top 10 most recent record holders for the 20km and 50km distances.

20 km Men’s Records

50 km Men’s Records

20 km Women’s Records

50 km Women’s Performance Records
Unfortunately, unlike the men’s events, there isn’t a 50 km event for Women’s racewalking in the Olympics. That being said, the following table shows the top 10 performances in the US women’s 50 km racewalk, outside of Olympic and professionally judged competitions.

Racewalking videos

If you haven’t yet tried racewalking for yourself, there are a number of ways you can learn about and practice the technique required to take part in competitive races.

How to practice racewalking technique:

Whilst we would have to agree that there’s no substitute for actually getting up and learning the technique from the start, we’ve managed to find a video that does an excellent job of talking through all of the steps involved.

What is Racewalking?

If you would like to watch some examples of what it’s like to take part in a competitive racewalking event, you can find a full collection of video examples on the YouTube channel for the Olympic games.

Finding the best shoes

If you’re considering taking up racewalking, whether it’s as part of a club, on a competitive level, or even both, footwear will play a major role in your performance.

As with running, comfort is paramount. When you consider that the 50 km races will be in excess of the 26.2 miles of a full marathon, the distances travelled may lead you to consider the same shoes as you would use for running.

However, the question is whether or not these will be well suited to the distances you’re going to be walking, and the movement of your feet as they move through the rolling motion of each step.

Due to the higher impact nature of running as an exercise, running shoes will usually have much more cushioning in the heel and throughout the sole. This isn’t altogether needed with racewalking, and you should look for shoes that provide slightly less cushioning but are still going to be comfortable, so as to reduce the weight.

You also have to consider that you’ll be taking more steps than a conventional runner, so every bit of weight saved can have a big impact on your time.

It can also be useful to find a shoe that has a slightly more flexible sole, so that you can maintain the rolling type motion of your feet as you walk at a higher pace.

We’ve put together a shortlist of our recommendations below, to act as a quick reference guide.

Top 6 racewalking shoes

How to prepare for your first Racewalk

Before we take a look at how you can organize your own races and events, we wanted to cover the various stages of preparation for your own personal walks.

In a similar way to cyclists and runners, racewalkers can usually choose between performing their workouts solo, or joining a local club. Whilst finding a local club will be fairly location dependent (more on this later), there are now a large number of clubs around the world, although they are easier to find in some US states than others.

But whether you are preparing to racewalk alone, or as part of a group, the stages of preparation will be almost identical.

Shorter, non-competitive walks will usually be less than 10 km, unless training for a specific event. Over these shorter distances, there are really just a few basic points to remember.

Top 5 preparation tips for sub 10km racewalks

* We’ve also put together a complete guide to MapMyWalk, which provides step-by-step explanations for everything from creating a food log, through to importing .GPX files for creating routes and logging workouts.

Although MapMyWalk is free to use, if you’re looking for an alternative that doesn’t require registration, we can also recommend Plot A Route. This still allows you to plot a route, and even allows you to export routes to file formats that are compatible with MapMyWalk, if you decide to switch services in the future.

10 Benefits of Racewalking

Top 10 useful Racewalking resources

So far we’ve covered everything from the best technique to use, through to a history of competitive walking. Hopefully we’ve been able to provide you with all the information you need, but just in case, we also wanted to provide a quick list of resources to expand on some of the points we’ve mentioned here.

The following websites range from scientific studies through to the personal websites of some of the world’s leading racewalkers.

Finding a local Racewalking club

While there are many of us who love the solitary nature of running and walking, if you’re just starting out with race walking or prefer a team environment for motivation, walking clubs can be the answer.

When we were putting together this section of our guide, we expected to find a collection of useful resources that listed a large collection of clubs, which was updated regularly. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case – at least, none that were as comprehensive as we we’d hoped for.

That’s why we’re going to be compiling a list of racewalking clubs right here in this article. For now, they will be based in the US and UK, but this may be expanded in the near future.

If you happen to be a member of a race walking club and would like to be included, we would love to hear from you via our contact page.

If you don’t see any clubs close to your location, you can always reach out on social media. There are communities on Google+ dedicated to walking, Facebook pages, Twitter hashtags, and Pinterest boards all dedicated to the sport, where you can also ask questions and learn from the experiences of others.

Racewalking clubs in the US

Racewalking clubs in the UK

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