Walk: Wed. Sept. 30 @ Shoppers

Come out, come out, ye one and ye all, for the last walk of September 2009; a delightful autumn 8K. See you at 7.

Anyone doing the Hamilton Road2Hope Half please note: to guarantee a t-shirt, you must register by Oct. 1. That's this Thursday. Barbara, Bob and I each have an asterisk beside our names in the interests list -- meaning we're signed up. Come on off the fence; it's downhill all the way from here.

Some thoughts on walking form, after Sunday's race in Waterloo: Wardens policed the course on Sunday and, as a result, three people were disqualified (DQ) for not following proper walking form. How disappointing it must be, after all the training and completing the race. Don't let it happen to you.

As competitive walking grows in acceptance, and especially when we represent the Shore Things Walking Club an all-walker race like this, we need to be fully conscious of what constitutes proper walking form. Next year, the KW Walking Classic will include a 5K, 10K and half marathon, all for walkers only, and I'm hoping we'll be "representing" in all three distances.

What is walking? Well, first, walking isn't running; not even a few steps. If you're running with walk breaks, or walking with run breaks, you should register as a runner. It's that simple.

Generally speaking, for our level of powerwalking, walking form requires two things: keeping one foot on the ground at all times (the most important requirement), and landing on a straight forward leg.

Here are a couple of sites that can help. While it focuses on more-rigorous race walking form, this coaching guide from SpecialOlympics.org is actually very useful in describing how to do it right. And this link from DynamicWalking.com takes you to some excellent pictorial cues to fix common walking problems. Plus, don't forget our own Tips on Technique posted on our blog.

Even when disqualification is unlikely, such as in an unpoliced run/walk with a walkers' category, walkers still like to measure themselves against other walkers – or against themselves. It doesn't matter how far down the pack we finish, we all like recognition, such as age-category rankings. Nothing is more irksome than to be bumped from the category by the runner we've been walking behind all through a race.

If this happens to you, spread the word. But please do it in the nicest way possible. Often this happens because runners just need to be educated. We can all be ambassadors for walking, and ambassadors must be, well, ambassadorial.

Meanwhile, let's all work on our walking form so that the only DQ we experience at the end of a race comes with a cone or some butterscotch sauce.