RACE REPORT: 3k Trackwalk - 22min 41sec.
INDOOR ATHLETICS is something
else!. Having watched top meetings on TV for ages, my impression was
that this was for the elete. The 'London Indoor Games' however is a
two-day meeting for all, with track events up to 800m, field events,
and a 3k racewalk, quaintly timed for 9.30 a.m.
On an otherwise dismal January
morning in NE London this state-or the-ark, spectator friendly
warm-air heated venue was alive with athletes of all ages including
juniors and performers of international standard.
The 3k walk involves 15 laps of
the 200-meter track with a surface that feels like very firm matting,
more comfortable for walking than a tartan outdoor track
or tarmac/concrete roads.
The racewalk was 'run' in two
races. Good and average walkers in the main race, preceded by around
ten trundlers in the first race, obviously to avoid the main race
being cluttered up with folks being lapped. The main purpose being to
taste and enjoy the indoor scene, it was of no concern that even at
this pace and distance competitors dropped out and that the only two
walkers to finish behind me were both disqualified.
This absurdity arose because the
oval shaped six-lane track is banked up at each end so that fast
moving runners can handle the sharp bends without falling outwards.
Slow-moving walkers therefore have to consciously lean outwards to
handle the sloping bend and (in this case apparently) two folks lost
concerntration on hitting the straight section and trod just inside
the first lane either once or twice. Such over-zealous decisions by
the judges are unnecessary as no advantage is to be gained and one of
the more senior 'offenders' cheerfully admitted that his eyesight was
a bit suspect.
As to a finishing time some 59
seconds slower than the previous effort at this distance, I was
assured by really experienced walkers that the banked up bends always
make for slower finishing times!
CONGRATULATIONS DAVID ON REACHING YOUR 80th BIRTHDAY
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