My route home followed the River Thames from Waterloo Bridge to Putney Bridge
I hadn’t walked the section between the Waterloo Bridge and Putney Bridge on the northern side of the river before, although I have done it many times on the southern side.
But this week I have been working in London and decided that was the perfect opportunity to walk home via the city side of the river. And it is quite incredible just how different it is from one side of the river to the other.
The London Eye
Firstly, I got a great photo of the London Eye from across the river and then as I headed up river towards Putney I walked through a number of places that I hadn’t seen before. In fact in the first mile walking from where I was working down to the Waterloo Bridge I passed the famous Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
Big BenRichard the Lionheart on his horse in front of the Houses of Parliament
I had walked the section between the Chelsea Bridge and Albert Bridge before. This is opposite Battersea Park where I often train on a Tuesday night, but last night (Tuesday) I decided that it was too soon after my recent 24 hour race to do any speedwork, but I stopped and took a photo of Battersea Park from across the river as I went past.
Battersea Power Station only has three chimneys at the moment while it undergoes maintenance which will see all the chimneys replaced this yearLooking up river towards Chelsea Bridge with Battersea Park behind the bridgeLooking across the river towards Battersea ParkLooking down river towards Albert Bridge with Battersea Park behind the bridge
It is only about 7 miles from Waterloo Bridge to Putney Bridge, and I actually ended up crossing the river via the railway bridge at Putney rather than the road bridge – another first.
And in total my walk home from London took a little over 3 hours and covered a total distance of a little over 15 miles. Much better than spending 1 ¼ hours on the tube and bus!
For only the second time this year I was back with our Tuesday night training group at Battersea Park . Although tonight there were just two of us – Dan and myself – along with our coach, Mark Culshaw, who had his camera.
Dan and I race at a similar speed over the shorter distances (29 to 30 minutes for 5km and a little over the hour for 10km) but as you will see in the video, we have very different styles.
Definition of Race Walking (From the I.A.A.F. Rule covering Race Walking)
Race Walking is a progression of steps so taken that the walker makes contact with the ground, so that no visible (to the human eye) loss of contact occurs. The advancing leg shall be straightened (i.e. not bent at the knee) from the moment of first contact with the ground until the vertical upright position.
Race walking events are normally judged under either ‘A’ grade or ‘B’ grade rules. ‘A’ grade applies both of the above two rules (continuous contact with the ground and straight leg) but ‘B’ grade only applies the continuous contact rule – which at my speed, isn’t a problem for me.
I don’t really have any ambition to compete in ‘A’ grade races although I am sure that I will one day – once I resolve my bent knee problem.
And races of more than 50km in distance (my focus is on 100km+ events) do not usually apply the ‘A’ grade straight leg rule anyway. It would be almost impossible for a race-walker to maintain a straight leg for 24 hours for example as during races of that length the body goes through a lot of stress, exhaustion, etc, and the athlete needs to regularly adjust their stride and style in order to keep moving forwards.
But having said that, it is interesting to view the differences in styles between Dan and I.
Dan has a faster cadence (leg turnover) than I do (and in most of the video I am trying to turn my legs over as fast as possible). In training and long distance races my cadence is much lower than in the video.
In the side on shots you can definitely see that my knee is bent. Coach Mark says that I need to pull my toes up just before my foot hits the ground and that should help to straighten the leg.
As a runner I used to have a long stride and in walking my stride is also considerably longer than Dan’s. This is probably due to my height as much as anything.
One good thing I have going for me is that I have good arm drive. In race-walking, as in running, your arms and legs are in sync, and what I discovered very quickly after I took up walking was that if I moved my arms faster, my legs would automatically move faster, and therefore my speed would increase.
Anyway, they are some general observations. I will ask Mark to add his thoughts / comments to this blog post at some stage, and then hopefully in six months time we can do some more video analysis and compare the differences, and (hopefully) the improvements in both my technique and my speed.
