Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #252: Michael Roth-Raleigh Walkers

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#252: Michael Roth-Raleigh Walkers · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field world Juvenal tuned in to our humble servant
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  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message on Gil
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  Athletics connections. All right, Welcome back here to
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  the Guild Athletics Connections podcast.
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  Really, really excited you guys have joined us here.
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  We continue here in Season 5 just adding multiple guests that
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  are just adding so much value. I hope you are receiving value,
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  'cause that is really the name of the game here.
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  I'm so humbled to be your host, Mike Cunningham, National
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  Business Development Manager for Guild Athletics.
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  And today we're going to, we're going to have a lot of fun.
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  I like learning new things, and so I'm willing to bet I'm going
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  to learn some new things today. And you are as well.
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  Help me welcome the coach of Raleigh Walkers, the Wise, the
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  wonderful Mr. Michael Roth. Michael.
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  How are you Sir? Great.
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  Mike, how are you doing today? I'm awesome.
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  I'm probably going to bounce between Michael and Mike a lot.
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  I just realized when I called you Michael, and I was like I
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  was calling you Mike earlier. Bunch of mics.
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  Either one works. Yeah, just got a bunch of mics
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  here. Absolutely.
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  Thanks for being here today, man.
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  I'm really excited about this actually.
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  Really not only your own journey, which I know a little
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  bit about, but also to just have a kind of a greater discussion
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  of the race walk in general about, you know, where should it
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  fit, where does it fit, why should it fit maybe in a larger
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  scale. So I'm excited to have that
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  conversation with you as well because man, Michael, there is,
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  there are advocates, there are fans and then there is whatever
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  level you are on. How I feel about coaches, I feel
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  is how you feel about race walking like I'm trying to match
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  your energy for race walking towards coaches man.
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  So I I'm, I really love passion and that exudes from you in
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  regards to the race walk specifically.
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  Yeah, sometimes it'd be an unhealthy obsession.
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  I think would be a better way to term it.
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  I'm glad you said that because I wanted to.
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  We're going to have that discussion as well, I think.
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  All right, perfect. Well, Michael, before we get
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  there, you have an extensive coaching background as well and
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  that's what I wanted to dive into first.
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  So why don't we kind of get in our way back machine here
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  somewhere coaching became like an idea of like, oh, it could
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  actually be a career for me, not just maybe something that was
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  done to you assuming you were an athlete.
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  Where does track coaching, Where does it start for you?
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  It really goes all the way back to high school.
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  I was moderately successful, you know, like I I was AI was sort
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  of like the Swiss Army knife on the on the team.
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  I could pretty much jump into any event and between my junior
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  and senior years of high school, my best friend to sort of Segway
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  over to the side a little bit. My best friend at the time was a
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  junior national champion in the race walk and I just love the
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  sport so much and wanted to learn how to do it so that I
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  could coach it. That was always sort of the
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  mentality. I was like, I figured at some
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  point I'd be coaching this sport and his father taught me how
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  over the summer and then I didn't really do anything with
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  it in my senior year. But when I got to college it was
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  in our college conference. And the coach you you may have
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  heard of a he to the Hall of Fame coach Steve Borbay.
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  He's at Bayshore High School. Well, he, I believe he just
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  retired. But he was my college coach and
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  it was in our conference and he was like anybody who knows how
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  to do this or is willing to do this gets a varsity letter.
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  And so my hand went up knowing where I was already on the team.
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  I was like this might be my shot.
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  And so I, you know, originally started out being mid, you know,
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  408 hundred guy and just rolled over into that and started doing
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  it as an athlete. But always with that mindset of
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  coaching it and through college I did a lot of coaching of
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  myself, you know the the, the workouts I kind of got from the
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  coaches, you know, distances and times and stuff like that, and
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  then did my own research. But the technical end of it, I
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  was self coached. So let's go back to high school.
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  So one you were introduced to the race walk in high school.
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  That's interesting. Where did you grow up 'cause
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  it's not. It almost seems like it's
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  pockets of race walking not universal here in the USI.
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  Was in Suffolk County in New York, which is part of the
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  eastern half of Long Island. And at the time I was doing it,
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  the boys coaches in New York had already removed the event from
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  the state meet and it had been there for about 10 years or so.
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  But on Long Island it was still strong and the sort of the guru
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  of Rice walking in that area is a guy named Gary Westerfield.
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  And I became connected to him over the years and he was
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  coaching me for a while. But he pretty much anybody who's
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  been on Long Island over the last 20 or 30 years has been
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  coached directly or indirectly by him or one or two other
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  people. And you mentioned this was
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  really interesting to me when you were introduced specifically
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  to the race walking, but track in general, you said I kind of
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  always had an eye that I was going to coach.
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  I'm probably paraphrasing that here a little bit.
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  What was it about in high school that you kind of seem like, you
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  are like, I'm going to be a coach, so let's figure out all
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  these events. What?
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  What was it? Why in high school?
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  That's pretty early. I I I don't know that that would
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  be a great quite like, you know, if I had a DeLorean or some
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  other time machine go back and try to ask myself that question.
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  But it was it was that that was the mindset.
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  It was like, I'm going to coach on some level.
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  And I mean, maybe it was because I wasn't a high achiever as an
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  athlete and recognize that I never was going to be.
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  Interesting. What What kind of relationship
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  did you have with your high school coaches?
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  It was always great. I mean, they challenged me.
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  I I remember the the first time I ran the 400 and the assistant
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  coach who was our Sprint coach came up to me and he goes, if
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  you're going to run the 400 like that, you're never going to be
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  good. Oh, and it was like, I've been
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  punched in the face. And I was like, he's trying to
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  tell me something here, Right, Right.
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  And so I asked I was like, what do you mean?
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  And he goes, that was the, that was the question I was looking
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  from for you was, OK, what do you mean by that?
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  And then he broke down the 400 meters for me right there, like
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  the first week of practice, And again limited on athletic
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  talent. But I understood that event at
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  the highest level after that 'cause he was, he was a really
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  good coach. What?
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  What? You know, I have the, I have the
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  I I'm, I'm kind of like playing this movie in the head that
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  you're telling it. Did you do the stereotypical,
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  you know, go out as fast as you can and come home dying?
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  Or did you do the reverse, like I'm gonna jog the 1st 200 and
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  then I'll bring it in do? You I I don't remember what I
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  did. I just remember the the feedback
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  was jarring. Yeah, harsh.
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  It's never gonna work out this way.
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  Yeah, but. But he broke the event down to
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  me. And it's the model that the pro
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  athletes use today when they're running the 400 and you know,
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  all all the different phases of the race.
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  And I mean in my older, slower self, I, you know, when I get
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  out there and do and do stupid things and go run in like an all
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  comers meet, it's, you know, I still follow that pattern and it
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  hurts just as much as it always did.
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  Yeah, it's a little bit better outcome at the end.
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  Yeah, right, right. So where did you go to school
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  and what did you study thinking in your head?
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  I'm going to be a coach. They had nothing to do with it.
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  I went to Stony Brook University on the North Shore of Long
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  Island. They're a pretty good, pretty
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  successful D1 program. Now.
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  Back when I was there, they were D3 and I went to school for
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  history. OK.
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  Yeah. So that really wasn't, you know,
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  look, look, didn't help me in the job market.
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  But but with the thought of like I'm going to go teach history so
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  I can coach. At at at some level, yeah.
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  There was a thought that I was going to teach high school and
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  that didn't work out. I know I've been in and out of
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  schools a little bit here and there, but didn't really ever
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  get a, you know, full time teaching position.
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  Yeah, OK. So how did it go in college,
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  though? Because you continued on you,
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  you know, you raised your hand as soon as it was at varsity
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  letter time, which I I would have done this.
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  My introduction of Trek is kind of similar.
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  They said, you know, hey, we have indoor track if you'd like
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  to do it. And I was like how you probably
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  didn't have this attitude. I was like, how hard can indoor
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  track be? And I'll get a varsity letter.
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  Sweet. I learned subsequently that it
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  was extremely hard and I was not very good.
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  But but yeah, I was that. I was that hand raiser as well.
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  It's like, all right, yeah, cool, I'll do that.
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  How did college go learning the events and continue it on?
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  It was a struggle the first two seasons cause the the technical
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  nature of the event and I wasn't training for the race walk full
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  time. I was doing a little of this and
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  a little of that and still doing 408 hundred and running cross
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  country. And so you know kind of at that
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  age you really need to be focused on an event area so that
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  you can maximize the motor learning and all that other
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  stuff if you want to dive into the sport science.
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  And I wasn't doing that. I I was just trying to get by on
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  I knew the technique and I was in good shape and but the end of
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  my sophomore year I went to coach Moore Bay and I was like
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  I'm a race Walker from now on. I'm I'm not doing cross country.
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  I'm going to I'll train during the fall.
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  But I I need to get better at this because this is what's
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  going to help the team the most. And that junior year I was
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  undefeated in all the race walk events that I was in that were
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  conference based. I mean I didn't win Penn Relays.
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  I got crushed there. But that's all you know, that
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  that's like a pro meet. So and then my senior year, the
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  only person that I lost to was my teammate who had transferred
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  in from another school, the same guy whose dad taught me at a
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  race walk. We ended up going to school
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  together for our senior year, my senior year, his junior year.
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  What? What do you think?
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  You know, it's so interesting. We've heard this type of story
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  before where someone just falls in love with an event whether
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  they were good or not good, that that seems to be kind of
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  irrelevant, you know, whether it's the court.
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  So you had a you could have been 1/4 Miller like that could have
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  been no matter how good or not good you are, you could be like,
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  man, I just love the challenge of the quarter.
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  It's one lap that you know there's something about that.
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  What was it you you went in going into your junior year
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  until coach. Hey, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm out
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  because I am in. I am in on this event.
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  What was it about that event that just drew you 100%?
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  Part of it was the ability to contribute to the team.
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  So as a 400m runner or cross country runner, like the the
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  joke on cross country that is I was captain C 'cause I was the
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  15th or 16th fastest guy on the cross country team.
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  So I was the captain of the C team and then on the four by
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  four it went running track as I was always the first guy not
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  picked for the relay. So you know, it's just, you
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  know, I, I, you know I'd be in the 3rd or 4th heat in an open
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  event. So you know I wasn't scoring
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  points for the team and that was important to me to feel like I
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  was contributing and this was in an area where I could make a
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  difference and we won conference meets because of my points.
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  So and the coach was like you know I see where you're going
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  with this. You want to make sure instead of
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  scoring two or three points, you want to score 10 and that was
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  it. Seems like a pretty good point.
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  That and the technical challenge.
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  I've always been, you know, somebody who likes to dive into
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  something and figure it out and it was so difficult.
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  And even today I still, you know, go over the very basics
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  when I'm doing my own training and reminding myself of all
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  these basic techniques that I need to remind myself of because
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  it it didn't come naturally to me.
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  So this the challenge. And what's the status of race
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  walking where you're you're at a Vision 3 school, is it at
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  nationals, at D3 at this time? You mentioned it, it's a
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  conference. What's kind of the like?
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  Where's your role of what what race walking is at this point?
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  The at at that time in the the late 80s or early 90s, there
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  were a good number of schools in New York, New Jersey,
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  Pennsylvania, that whole Mid-Atlantic region and then
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  even up into New England that that were D3 schools that had
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  race walking. And there were two conferences
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  in that area that one of them was the PAC Public Athletic
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  Conference and then the CTC, the collegiate track conference.
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  And the because of the schools involved and their race walking
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  backgrounds, they had it in their conference championships
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  and so it was indoors and outdoors.
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  We had, you know, two big meets every year and then there was in
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  a lot of the invitationals and dual meets and it was treated
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  just like every other event in the sport and we were pushing to
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  get it into the ECAC meet and then hopefully trying to push to
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  nationals and it just never happened.
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  Yeah, So, so your big meet would have been the conference meet
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  that was where you're going to help contribute to the team and
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  that was your event. And yeah, and and it was, the
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  culture was big enough there that there were, it was a full
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  heat. Like there was plenty of guys
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  and gals doing it. Yeah, yeah, and and.
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  And one of the big coaches in the area at the time was when
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  Russ Ebbets was still coaching up at Union College.
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  He had, he had some just killer athletes up there.
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  They used to destroy me. Yeah, I remember Russ.
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  Yeah, absolutely. OK, so you go through college,
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  halfway through you decide, hey, you know, I am a race Walker.
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  This is how I'm going to contribute to the team.
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  I love that team attitude from you there.
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  What you graduate. Did you graduate with a history
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  degree? Is that what you ended up
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  getting? Yeah, yeah, I love it.
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  What was the first you? You said you wanted to coach,
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  got this great history degree. What was the first job out of
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  college? I rolled into grad school with
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  the idea of trying to get a teaching degree in New York.
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  You you, you need a master's degree to teach.
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  Yeah, you're not going to get a teaching job unless you have a
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  master's degree in in most of the area.
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  You know, if you go real rural you might be able to get jobs,
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  but so I went into a master's degree to get the teaching
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  certification. And then at the same time we've
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  had a change in coaching at Stony Brook and there was an
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  opportunity for grad assistant job.
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  And so I jumped in and was coaching some of the athletes I
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  trained with previously. But then was also learning the
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  coaching ropes. And you know, pretty much being
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  again that kind of that Swiss Army knife type of guy in the
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  office and dealing with recruiting and working with some
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  endurance athletes, but then also working with jumpers and
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  throwers. My favorite question I I love
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  that you went into grad school at your undergrad because my
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  favorite question is always to ask how did you handle the
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  transition on? I always put it this way.
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  On Friday you were hanging out with your boys.
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  That was your team, you know, playing well.
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  You didn't play Xbox back then, but you know you're having a
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  good time with your friends. Super Nintendo, yeah.
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  All Super Nintendo. See, I'm an NES guy, but yeah,
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  all right. And then on Monday, it's now
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  grad assistant. But you're you're Coach Roth.
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  How did you handle that transition position, you know,
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  going from, you know, we're peers to, you know, I may not be
• 15:32
  a full time coach, but I got, I got additional responsibilities
• 15:35
  over you guys. How did you handle that?
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  It really wasn't an issue because I I I think parcel
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  because the head coaching situation had changed and so
• 15:44
  there were different expectations and and and the
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  like. I I don't recall whatever really
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  being an issue because many of the people that I have been
• 15:51
  teammates with had either graduated or you know the the
• 15:55
  younger team members who were there were in different event
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  areas. So we didn't have as much of
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  that buddy buddy mentality. But you know, I I don't recall
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  it ever being a concern in either direction.
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  You know it's just this is my job now.
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  My role has changed and would just that's the way it is
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  that's. Good.
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  Love that. I I think, you know, the grad
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  school for coaches. I think that's awesome.
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  So I think when you're that young, you know, when you're
• 16:22
  20212223, you should taste a lot of things to figure out what
• 16:26
  your actual life is going to be about.
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  It's still crazy to me that we make 18 year olds pick a major.
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  That's going to be their career path the whole their whole life.
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  Like when you're 18, you don't know anything.
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  Yeah, but I I I think, like, this is going to be a harsh
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  statement. I think more people who go to
• 16:41
  grad assistant coaching should get out of coaching than than
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  not. And here's what I mean by that,
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  is it's there to try it out and see if you really like it.
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  And if not, great. You're getting a great degree,
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  you've got a great undergrad degree, maybe you go on and
• 16:52
  start a business. Or you know, whatever.
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  How did you enjoy the coaching and you'd been doing some kind
• 16:59
  of coaching and and things like that even as undergrad and in in
• 17:03
  high school and stuff. How did the now kind of more
• 17:05
  full time coaching go for you and did it, did it hook you?
• 17:07
  Was it like, Oh yeah, this is, I'm supposed to be a coach?
• 17:12
  It was the most enjoyable part of the day, other than the times
• 17:15
  when I really enjoyed the the academic and my the research and
• 17:19
  of Academy. Taking my the Master's degree, I
• 17:22
  just would. I'd be in the library till
• 17:24
  midnight. I I loved doing research but the
• 17:29
  being in the office and working with the kids you know I was
• 17:34
  still a kid then too but and then I I really got involved
• 17:39
  with the recruiting and this was the just around the time where
• 17:42
  high tech came out and so I I was a computer guy.
• 17:46
  So getting involved right at the beginning when they had their
• 17:49
  old DOS version and trying to figure out how to time meets
• 17:52
  with that thing and it was not easy it.
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  Was a mess the early. Versions were difficult, but so
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  getting into meat management and then that rolled me into
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  officiating and all, you know, it's just sort of piled
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  everything right on top of each other.
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  So where did you go after grad school?
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  Did you go to start teaching coaching?
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  I was doing, oh, some club coaching after grad school, a
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  little bit of high school and then it's mostly been, you know,
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  either high school or club and now it pretty much exclusively
• 18:30
  club with. I mean, there were some high
• 18:32
  school athletes that I work with, but they're, you know, a
• 18:36
  lot of that ends up being remote work too, which is great with
• 18:39
  the Internet that you can coach people and and other than, you
• 18:42
  know, like doing like we're doing right now, like there
• 18:46
  there's an athlete in Florida that I was coaching her for like
• 18:48
  2 years before we had ever really met face to face.
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  But you went into full time, you coached it some institutions,
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  right? Mostly high school.
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  I the time at Stony Brook was about, I think it was about five
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  years or so where I was there either part time or full time,
• 19:06
  you know, that grad assistant sort of thing.
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  But going from there, it was it was a bunch of different high
• 19:11
  schools afterwards, both in New York and in North Carolina.
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  No collegiate. No.
• 19:18
  Other collegiate No. OK, got it.
• 19:20
  OK, not for lack of trying. I still have the folder of
• 19:28
  emails and resumes and cover letters that I sent out and it
• 19:32
  was well within the triple triple digits over the years
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  and. Why do you think that is?
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  Coach, I mean it's a it's a community of people who know
• 19:44
  each other and being more on the race walk and it's difficult to
• 19:50
  break into that community because I was doing more walk
• 19:53
  based coaching than I was doing the NCAA traditional events of
• 19:58
  you know what people are used to and sort of being isolated from
• 20:03
  the, you know the interactions. So it it it was a difficult
• 20:07
  bridge. To, you know, to gap or to or to
• 20:10
  cross. And you know, I realized that.
• 20:12
  And I also realized that this is what I really enjoyed working
• 20:16
  with. So let me just stay in my lane.
• 20:20
  And I I've applied to, you know, four or five jobs over like
• 20:23
  maybe the last 15 or 20 years or so since the when I was really
• 20:27
  looking to do it full time. And it was, it's things that
• 20:30
  were open, that were local. So it wouldn't have involved me,
• 20:34
  you know, packing my life up and moving somewhere.
• 20:37
  Now we don't get into the XS and OS here, but what I'm surprised
• 20:41
  about is my assumption is that race, walk training and distance
• 20:46
  training have all more similarities than not.
• 20:49
  I know there's some technical aspects, some technique stuff
• 20:53
  and I actually do kind of want to go over that here in a little
• 20:55
  bit because I, I, I, you know, it is unique.
• 20:56
  So I'd like to, you know, maybe educate, help educate some
• 20:59
  people there. But I I would think that the,
• 21:01
  you know, the cardiovascular, the endurance side of it would
• 21:04
  be similar. I don't even want to do air
• 21:06
  quotes there, It is similar. It's.
• 21:07
  Could you have not crossed, you know, been a distance coach
• 21:10
  that? Oh yeah.
• 21:11
  And, yeah, and and I've worked with runners, you know, on and
• 21:15
  off. But having had that, you know
• 21:17
  what, when people see race walk, they don't realize that it's 99%
• 21:21
  the same thing. I mean, you're you're you're
• 21:23
  taking somebody's body and you're making them go from A to
• 21:26
  B in a time period. So you're going to, you're going
• 21:29
  to learn you know all the different thresholds that you
• 21:32
  need to work within you, how how you build up their endurance
• 21:34
  space, how you're working on speed and paces and and it's
• 21:38
  just math after that. And then it's the only
• 21:43
  difference on the technical end is the, you know the the arms
• 21:46
  and really the arms are moving the same way.
• 21:48
  It's just the way you put your feet down.
• 21:50
  Right, right. You know, it's it's amazing,
• 21:54
  Michael. When you look back at your
• 21:56
  career so far, you know it has been from the outside looking in
• 22:01
  it has been very singularly focused in the race walk which
• 22:05
  is of you know we're already in a small sport we're we're the
• 22:08
  most participated sport both on high school and collegiate level
• 22:11
  with track and field. But in in generalization of like
• 22:14
  you know TV ratings, payment of coaches, payment of athletes,
• 22:17
  things like that. We're already in a niche sport
• 22:19
  as it is and now you know inside of track we talk about niche
• 22:23
  events, right pole vaulting or throwers etcetera.
• 22:26
  Now we're we're taking it down even farther of a niche 'cause
• 22:30
  we're talking about an event or events that aren't happening in
• 22:35
  the majority of high schools aren't happening, the majority
• 22:37
  of colleges aren't happening. The majority of our of elite
• 22:40
  meets I think every Team USA has a race walking component to it.
• 22:45
  To it correct me where I'm speaking wrong here but you know
• 22:48
  I think of the Olympics world champs.
• 22:50
  Those all have a race walking. Yeah components to them and you
• 22:53
  have continued to be the the megaphone for these events like
• 23:01
  your your advocacy to add them to high school and collegiate,
• 23:06
  etcetera is unmatched. It's unparalleled that I know
• 23:08
  of. You may say hell no there's five
• 23:10
  other of me's out there. But certainly on the you know,
• 23:13
  where I live on the social media side, I see the the, the passion
• 23:16
  and the megaphone of you coming out completely.
• 23:20
  How has I love that, by the way, 'cause I love passions.
• 23:24
  That that to me is what makes people so amazing over every
• 23:28
  other group in the world. You know giraffes don't have
• 23:30
  passion. They have passion to eat and
• 23:32
  survive. Panda, you know humans are like,
• 23:34
  man, I find something. I lock into it.
• 23:37
  How has, when you look back at it at this point in your life,
• 23:41
  how has race walking affected molded your life up to this
• 23:46
  point? It's provided a lot of
• 23:54
  opportunity for me and over the years just tremendous
• 23:59
  experiences realizing early that I wanted to be at a high level
• 24:06
  of the sport and that I wasn't going to do it with my arms and
• 24:09
  my legs and my lungs. They were not going to take me
• 24:11
  there and but always as an athlete and even going back you
• 24:15
  know just sort of the the pre track time when I was a baseball
• 24:18
  player and again that it became a mental game for me because the
• 24:24
  physical talents weren't there. But I out I out thought my
• 24:28
  opponents and just being able to use those skills to advance
• 24:33
  myself. I I looked at it and said well I
• 24:37
  want to be around the pro end of the sport.
• 24:39
  How do I do that? Well, I can try the coaching
• 24:41
  aspect of it. And like you said, it's, you
• 24:45
  know, it's already a niche sport.
• 24:47
  And then I went into the Quantum realm.
• 24:50
  It went to the smallest I I was Ant man, stuck in the Quantum
• 24:55
  realm. I'm a Marvel guy, I get that.
• 24:57
  Yeah, and and and finally the van turned back on and I shot
• 25:01
  back out and then there was no one here.
• 25:07
  But right now, some aspect of people listening are like that
• 25:10
  was the greatest analogy I've ever heard in the in my life,
• 25:13
  because I'm a Marvel person. Other people are like, what in
• 25:15
  the world is this guy talking about?
• 25:17
  I literally just. Came to me right now, but that's
• 25:23
  kind of where you know, I, I and I've always liked to help
• 25:25
  people. So the coaching aspect comes
• 25:28
  becomes part of that. But then becoming an official
• 25:31
  was how I bridge that other gap and fill that need in my own
• 25:34
  life was, you know, being able to officiate at the few Olympic
• 25:39
  trials, dozens of big meets around the country, a couple
• 25:44
  international events and then family got in the way.
• 25:48
  And I was like, that's too expensive to be traveling around
• 25:51
  the world when I need to buy diapers.
• 25:53
  So took a big step back from that and you know, but I, I I
• 25:57
  can still be effective and and liking to help people and you
• 26:01
  know feeling like I'm making a difference in the sport in an
• 26:05
  area where that where it's needed.
• 26:06
  Like how many distance coaches do you know you know cross
• 26:10
  country coaches thousands, thousands and thousands and you
• 26:14
  know Sprint coaches and jump coaches And even when you get to
• 26:17
  the something like the pole vault which is pretty niche, you
• 26:20
  can rattle off people. I mean Becca.
• 26:22
  I mean think of Becca right off the top.
• 26:26
  She's one of my favorite people but there are hundreds and
• 26:31
  dozens of those. But then it's like you know
• 26:33
  again taking the pimp pills and going to my little world.
• 26:41
  You know, just being able to have an effect on the sport on a
• 26:46
  large level is kind of, you know, where my head is with it.
• 26:51
  You know, it's clear you have a servant leader Part I I love how
• 26:56
  you said that that works for others who you mentioned a
• 27:00
  couple. What other coaches poured into
• 27:03
  you and helped guide you towards this continual serving others?
• 27:10
  Oh, I should have put a list together.
• 27:12
  That's OK. Well, I always put people on the
• 27:13
  spot, don't worry. Oh, no.
• 27:15
  I mean, but I'll just rattle off names.
• 27:20
  Matt Brand was what was my high school head coach.
• 27:24
  Maybe at some. I don't even know if he's on the
• 27:25
  line. I haven't spoken to him in
• 27:26
  years. I'd love to reconnect with him,
• 27:28
  if he's watching any of his track stuff.
• 27:29
  Who He was a great guy. It was a lot of fun.
• 27:31
  Art Curtis, I'm not sure if he's still with us.
• 27:33
  He was. He was a bit older, but those
• 27:36
  were my 2 high school coaches. Steve Bourbet was my college
• 27:41
  coach and I talked to him probably once a month still, and
• 27:45
  it was 30 something years ago. Gary Westerfield, Jake Jacobson,
• 27:52
  who recently passed, I think it was about a year ago.
• 27:54
  He passed away, but you know, still in touch with some of his
• 27:58
  his family, his son and his daughter and the relationships
• 28:02
  that you build over the years. But other other coaches that
• 28:06
  I've just had the opportunity to you know work with as peers.
• 28:13
  There's a friend of mine from South Carolina Ian Watley.
• 28:16
  You know I I I don't think a week goes by that we don't
• 28:21
  bounce something off of each other.
• 28:23
  Dave McGovern up in New York if you've ever heard he he more
• 28:28
  than anyone and you think I'm the pied piper race walking this
• 28:31
  guy actually makes it his entire career.
• 28:34
  I I I don't know that he's ever had a like a real nine to five
• 28:37
  job. He's been a race walk coach for
• 28:40
  his entire life and he does clinics all around the world and
• 28:47
  that's, I mean he literally lives and breathes the event.
• 28:52
  But having these friends and colleagues and people that were
• 28:55
  mentors and then you kind of, you know, you're on the sort of
• 28:59
  the same level with them and you're speaking that this, you
• 29:04
  know, at the same events and you know it's no longer master and
• 29:08
  teacher. You're both kind of masters
• 29:10
  together and you have your own Dojo.
• 29:12
  That's good. I love that.
• 29:16
  I love that. You know, it's we are built on
• 29:19
  the shoulders of other men and women out there.
• 29:21
  So what's interesting to me is, you know, you mentioned a lot of
• 29:24
  great people that have poured into you and it's sometimes hard
• 29:29
  for us to imagine it. But there are people that are
• 29:32
  standing on your shoulders, Michael.
• 29:34
  There are race walkers, race walk coaches, race race walk
• 29:38
  advocates, track advocates beyond a single event that have
• 29:42
  learned from you, have watched your passion and have emulated
• 29:46
  that because of what you've poured into others.
• 29:48
  I love, you know, kind of seeing that full pyramid, if you will,
• 29:51
  that never ends by the way of people that you know have come
• 29:54
  because of you and then the because of you because of others
• 29:57
  that you have come from as well. So I appreciate hearing those
• 30:00
  people. I love it.
• 30:01
  I love it. Excuse me.
• 30:04
  OK, let's have a conversation here.
• 30:06
  We, you know, we could have our own podcast by the way, the MM
• 30:09
  and Mike show here, which could be dangerous.
• 30:11
  I think that think there was one on WFAN in New York.
• 30:15
  Yeah. Was was they might have owned
• 30:18
  that one already. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:19
  It was was probably the keyword there.
• 30:23
  OK. Oh, it.
• 30:23
  Was Mike and the Mad Dog. That's what it was.
• 30:25
  It was Mike. And the Mad Dog?
• 30:26
  We we might make that come true right here as well.
• 30:28
  OK I want to have a discussion about race walking and I mean
• 30:32
  discussion not argument. I now I'm going to I'm going to
• 30:37
  be real. What's the word here not humble.
• 30:41
  I'm going to show some humility and tell tell you a couple of
• 30:44
  mistakes that I've made in regards to race walking and I do
• 30:48
  not make them anymore because of of you know we learn from our
• 30:51
  well hopefully we learn from our mistakes and I I luckily have
• 30:54
  learned from this. But I do want to you know
• 30:57
  explore a little bit about the race walking where it sits in
• 31:00
  our vernacular today where you think it should be in in your
• 31:04
  own role in that as well as it relates to what you do for your
• 31:08
  passion and your outs out outreach and outspeak for for
• 31:12
  the event. So let me tell you a few
• 31:13
  mistakes I used to come from the attitude of that race walking
• 31:18
  was the dumbest thing in the world.
• 31:19
  I'm sorry. I know that hurts you so bad,
• 31:21
  Michael. I feel bad even say I don't.
• 31:23
  There are times when I agree with you.
• 31:25
  OK, good, good. Let's feel a little better.
• 31:27
  I used to feels like a long time ago teach USATF level one
• 31:33
  coaches education courses and I'm a sprints hurdles background
• 31:36
  so I never taught the distance. But at one school, the distance
• 31:42
  coach, an emergency came up and I did have to coach or teach the
• 31:45
  distance. Now I used to work for Al
• 31:48
  Schmidt at Mississippi State who is one of the, you know,
• 31:51
  brilliant, you know, scientific guy.
• 31:53
  You know, I remember the first Trek meet we go to when I was
• 31:56
  working for AL at Mississippi State and he's reading a
• 31:59
  Physiology book and like a textbook.
• 32:02
  And I was like, what a nerd. It's like I'd never love it
• 32:05
  though. I love that, love that, love
• 32:06
  that. So I was trying to invoke a lot
• 32:07
  of, you know, his as I'm teaching distance and part of
• 32:10
  the curriculum at least back then there was for good or bad
• 32:14
  there was 1 slide, only one slide for the race walking.
• 32:18
  And I, you know I'm so young and dumb and now I'm just old and
• 32:22
  dumb. I made the statement when the
• 32:25
  when the slide came up of I I can't remember exactly what I
• 32:27
  said but I did not say something nice.
• 32:29
  I said something like you know this event shouldn't even be
• 32:32
  here. So we've got one slide, it's
• 32:33
  going to be in your test. So let's talk about the three
• 32:35
  things or whatever three bullet points that they had on there.
• 32:38
  Well, at the end of every level one, if you've taken this, you
• 32:41
  know this, you get to evaluate. Well, you got slammed, lo and
• 32:45
  behold. There was a race Walker in the
• 32:48
  audience and like like an accomplished one.
• 32:49
  She like, I can't remember what she had won something like she
• 32:52
  was an accomplished race Walker and oh, yeah, Oh my.
• 32:55
  It was just like, you know, you jerk, how dare you.
• 32:59
  And I was like, oh and I and and that was part of my, like I
• 33:04
  think it was the final straw for me of like, oh, I whatever.
• 33:08
  However I feel about the event, I really do care about people.
• 33:12
  And I hurt a person. That was really what kind of
• 33:15
  hurt me like, oh man, you know, I'm how would I feel if someone
• 33:19
  said, hey, Mike, track is the dumbest thing in the world and
• 33:22
  you've dedicated your whole life to it.
• 33:23
  Like what a way. And I'd be like, Oh my God, like
• 33:26
  you're a terrible person. Track is amazing because of the
• 33:28
  people. So that really hurt me.
• 33:29
  Now go back a a decade. So I stopped.
• 33:33
  That was the last throw and she's listening.
• 33:34
  Thank you for being honest and and standing up for yourself and
• 33:37
  your sport, 'cause that? Really.
• 33:38
  Did sometimes we need an adjustment 100% and there are
• 33:42
  times where you know you get hit with reality and and sometimes
• 33:47
  it's painful. But then, you know, you look,
• 33:48
  you take a step back and you think about what you were said,
• 33:51
  somebody, what somebody said to you.
• 33:52
  And you're like I needed that. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 33:56
  I I almost kind of wish she would have said it to my fate.
• 33:59
  You know, I I had to read it. But, you know, I I kind of wish
• 34:01
  she'd be like, hey, I'm just letting you know, man, that was
• 34:03
  rude. And you know, you hurt me and
• 34:05
  my. I would, you know, because then
• 34:07
  I'd be able to say, oh gosh, I'd be able to see the person and
• 34:09
  apologize. I, you know, I couldn't
• 34:10
  apologize. Anyway, go back maybe a decade
• 34:13
  before I'm coaching coach for 10 years and I was the for several
• 34:19
  years I was the national junior high hurdles coach for USA TF.
• 34:24
  So I basically I got to take the five best 19 and under high
• 34:27
  hurdlers to camp in Chula Vista and one morning we get up early
• 34:31
  to go out to the track and the race walkers are out there.
• 34:34
  You know the Chula Vista. I don't.
• 34:35
  Know. Yeah, the the the Chula Vista
• 34:37
  program. Yeah, yeah, I'm friends with all
• 34:39
  those. I would assume, yeah, yeah.
• 34:40
  You know, I've actually think I was like man, Michael, you might
• 34:42
  have been there. They're out there practicing and
• 34:47
  you know, I've got a bunch of, you know, sprinters or guys and
• 34:50
  and even I I'm brand, I don't think I've ever even seen the
• 34:53
  race walk up to this point. You know the guys are doing
• 34:55
  their race walk workout and you know the kids are also like
• 34:58
  coach what the, you know, what is going on?
• 35:01
  And I was like, I got no idea. Why don't they just run, You
• 35:03
  know the typical stuff you probably heard, you know why
• 35:06
  don't they just run or whatever, yada, yada, yada, whatever.
• 35:09
  But now while I'm and I told you we were going to have this
• 35:12
  conversation, I'm a skeptic. Meaning I'm not a big.
• 35:15
  I'm not a fan of where race walking sits in the sport.
• 35:18
  Maybe you'll change my mind today, but now I have respect
• 35:22
  for it's like, oh, these men and women who are doing it and who
• 35:24
  are coaching it are talented. It's an it is an event.
• 35:28
  Like, it's not, you know, it's not The Who can whisper the
• 35:31
  loudest or whatever. I've heard people say, you know,
• 35:33
  those kind of dumb jokes. It's like, wow, that it does
• 35:35
  take talent. It's amazing.
• 35:37
  So I have a lot of respect for people who do those things and
• 35:39
  do it at a high level. It's amazing.
• 35:41
  So all that to say, I'm not going to argue with you.
• 35:48
  Let's start with where does race walking sit in America today.
• 35:53
  What I mean by that is tell us where is it at the at any of the
• 35:58
  NCAA championships JUCO etcetera.
• 36:00
  Is it is it state meet anywhere You mentioned it used to be in
• 36:04
  New York. So can I give us a background of
• 36:05
  like yeah it used to be in this many states what whatever you
• 36:08
  know or don't know you're you are a history major.
• 36:10
  So I'm going to kind of look to you be this, can I give us a a
• 36:12
  global, not global, a 30,000 foot level of race walking in
• 36:15
  America today, please. So as far as the history major
• 36:20
  thing and all that research, that's all on a website that
• 36:23
  I've run and I've run it for started out in, I think it was
• 36:26
  in 2000. What's it called?
• 36:29
  High school race walk. It's hsrw.net.
• 36:33
  Hrw.net OK, so there's a lot. Of high school race walk.
• 36:36
  Yeah it's got as much history on the event and the statistical
• 36:40
  stuff that one guy can do in all of his spare time.
• 36:45
  And. And then when I talked to the
• 36:47
  unhealthy obsession, it started because I was working with a
• 36:51
  group of athletes in New York as part of a club named Walk USA
• 36:56
  back in the early late 90s, early 2000s and we had some
• 36:59
  really good athletes. But this was just when Die Stat
• 37:02
  started and I got to know John Dye and he was posting some of
• 37:07
  my results online and performance lists and he didn't
• 37:10
  have the time for it. And I I was like, I get it,
• 37:13
  you're, you know, you're revolutionizing the sport and
• 37:16
  this is not in your wheelhouse. I'll just do it.
• 37:18
  And then he goes, and you do what?
• 37:20
  I'll post it. So we it started out that way
• 37:22
  and then he got too busy. So I ran it on my own site and
• 37:26
  it's been going since then. And because Dyset actually had a
• 37:32
  a gap in when it was actually a viable website when ESPN owned
• 37:36
  it and then mothballed it, my site's the longest running track
• 37:39
  and field website in the country.
• 37:41
  Oh, that's a cool stack. Cause yeah, dice before mile
• 37:44
  split. Yeah.
• 37:45
  Wow, that's cool. So I have all the all this data
• 37:50
  and to answer your question, Maine has it outdoors for boys
• 37:55
  and girls and they do a 1600 New York used to have it indoors and
• 38:00
  outdoors for boys and girls at 1500 for the girls and 1600 for
• 38:05
  the boys. And then in 1984 the boys
• 38:08
  coaches decided that they couldn't be bothered with it.
• 38:11
  So they took the event out and the girls still have it indoors
• 38:16
  but not outdoors, which is makes no sense.
• 38:19
  You you get them going and then you shut them down, right.
• 38:23
  You know and and and it hurts their ability to be recruited.
• 38:26
  Sure. And there are a few other states
• 38:30
  that have a little bit of it here and a little bit of it
• 38:32
  there. Virginia has some stuff.
• 38:35
  Maryland has some stuff. There was a very vibrant
• 38:42
  community down in the McAllen and far areas of Texas for about
• 38:47
  15 years or so. The leader of that group coach
• 38:52
  named AC Jaime, who was just producing dozens of athletes
• 38:58
  every year like fielding the entire under 20 team from his
• 39:01
  club. He passed away a few years ago.
• 39:04
  Actually it was during COVID he he ended up passing away then
• 39:07
  but he had already retired from coaching.
• 39:09
  But so but he had built a community down in South Texas
• 39:12
  and was I mean talk about changing lives.
• 39:14
  It's the poorest area of the country and he was putting these
• 39:17
  kids into college. Oh wow.
• 39:20
  Love that. So again, guys who are changing
• 39:22
  lives and talk about mentors, they're just one of the greatest
• 39:25
  humans I've ever known up in the Chicago area.
• 39:29
  There's some stuff that goes on and Ohio had a really vibrant
• 39:35
  community for a while, but it comes and goes to based upon
• 39:37
  leadership. You know, when coaches retire,
• 39:41
  if there's no one to take the reins, things fall apart.
• 39:45
  But the NAIA has had it in their championships.
• 39:51
  I think if they started it was either late 70s or early 80s.
• 39:54
  I don't recall the when it began, but they've had it at
• 39:59
  varying distances over the years and right now it's 3000 indoors
• 40:03
  and 5000 outdoors and they're. I don't know if you know who
• 40:09
  Evan Dunphy is. I know the name championship and
• 40:12
  Olympic medalist. He came through the NAIA, was an
• 40:15
  NAIA champion, and now you know, he's probably one of the top 10
• 40:20
  walkers of all time at this point.
• 40:22
  If he's listening to this, his head's going to be like, Oh no,
• 40:25
  and he's like he's actually one of the most humble guys ever.
• 40:28
  And he's American because my. Canadian.
• 40:32
  OK, 'cause my very limited race walk knowledge is that we don't
• 40:36
  do very well internationally, more Cuban and Mexican I.
• 40:42
  Remember. Not Cuban?
• 40:43
  No, I can't. I can't ever recall a Cuban.
• 40:45
  Walk. Maybe I was wrong there.
• 40:46
  But Mexico? Mexico.
• 40:48
  And South America. South America.
• 40:49
  Yeah. OK.
• 40:50
  Yeah, yeah. Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia,
• 40:53
  Mexico, though and and then Canada's had some success in, in
• 40:59
  spite of them only having usually, you know, 5 to 10
• 41:01
  athletes a year. They got really, really good.
• 41:04
  They all moved in together basically.
• 41:06
  And they trained as a group, you know, and that's it.
• 41:09
  It's not a mystery or magic. If you do that and you have some
• 41:13
  skill and you put in the work, you get results.
• 41:16
  Right, right, right, right. So they're saying AIA but no
• 41:20
  NCAAA. No, no junior college, no, no
• 41:24
  NCAA. So how you kind of when you
• 41:27
  mentioned there about Evan going through NEI, you brought up his
• 41:29
  name specifically that I kind of get the idea that not a lot of
• 41:34
  our Team USA athletes, men and women are going through the
• 41:37
  collegiate system then then. So how are they being birthed,
• 41:40
  so to speak? We try by hook or crook to get
• 41:47
  and you want to do this. A a lot of the Team USA, Team
• 41:52
  USA athletes come through the NAIA occasionally.
• 41:55
  You get situations. You may be familiar with the
• 41:59
  name Tim Seaman. He was on the track at Chula
• 42:01
  Vista when you were out there going What are these people?
• 42:04
  Doing. He's a coach at Koya Maka, I
• 42:08
  think is how you pronounce it and.
• 42:10
  Like, he's legendary. Like, I I know that you said the
• 42:12
  name was like, Oh yeah, I remember that guys name.
• 42:14
  He was on every team. Yeah.
• 42:15
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:16
  So he's the cross country and distance coach out there with I
• 42:19
  think Tom Hunt is out there as well.
• 42:22
  And why am I drawing a blank? Tony Campbell is one of the
• 42:26
  coaches at that school too, The hurdler.
• 42:28
  See. I was thinking I was like, oh,
• 42:30
  must be another race Walker, but I know him as the hurdler.
• 42:33
  Oh wow. That's the hurdler.
• 42:37
  And they're all out at there in what I I believe he's in
• 42:40
  administration, but they're all out at the school.
• 42:43
  And it's a, you know it's a junior college and he's taken
• 42:48
  athletes that came to his cross country team and said, you know
• 42:53
  you're not a great cross country runner.
• 42:55
  You, you know, who names are horrible with my sometimes Nick
• 43:00
  Christie. That's what I'm thinking of.
• 43:02
  Nick Christie was a decathlete in high school and went to this
• 43:07
  college and went there for two years and Tim Seaman converted
• 43:11
  him to a race Walker got him a scholarship at to Missouri
• 43:14
  Baptist. He went there and he won the
• 43:16
  NAIA championship, broke the national record there and you
• 43:20
  know, now he's an Olympian, but he was a, you know, a a decent
• 43:24
  high school and junior college to Cathlete.
• 43:28
  He he was going to the Olympics in decathlon.
• 43:30
  Though no, and not unless he bought a ticket.
• 43:35
  That's awesome. So, so they're coming through.
• 43:41
  I think you said hook by crook, they're they're just coming
• 43:43
  through however you can find them.
• 43:46
  OK. So let's talk a little bit about
• 43:48
  not technique. Let's get a little bit more in
• 43:50
  the weeds here though. A little bit.
• 43:53
  OK. I want to ask, how do you
• 43:55
  identify a good race Walker? But before I do that, let's talk
• 43:58
  about for someone who has no idea or only thinks they have an
• 44:01
  idea of what race walking is, let's first talk about
• 44:04
  technique. We know it's a distance event
• 44:07
  and my my follow up question 2 after technique is going to be
• 44:10
  why does it have to be a not only a distance event but talk
• 44:13
  to us about, you know, the the Olympics are like, I don't know,
• 44:15
  a billion miles or something like that.
• 44:16
  Why in the world does it have to be, you know, these ultra
• 44:19
  marathons, which I'm, you know, I'm sure there's going to be
• 44:21
  some, you know, mud guys here, you know, Mountain Ultra
• 44:25
  distance guys. Not a fan of that at all.
• 44:26
  That's just crazy stuff, that. That we'll we'll call up Camille
• 44:29
  Herring. And we'll Oh my gosh, she's.
• 44:31
  She's the nicest in the world. So much trouble for my ultra
• 44:34
  marathoners and stuff. It's just crazy stuff.
• 44:37
  So talk to us about the technique.
• 44:38
  What makes race walking a a 5000 different than running a 5000?
• 44:44
  So basically there's a technical requirement the athlete to and
• 44:50
  this is kind of where people get misunderstand how how it works.
• 44:53
  But there are judges out there who observe the technique, the
• 44:58
  similar to how umpires will observe hurdling technique.
• 45:02
  So you have to hurdle correctly or you have to walk correctly
• 45:06
  and in the hurdles. If you hook that trail leg,
• 45:10
  well, they're going to throw out the flag and your day's over.
• 45:14
  The the judges out there who are observing race walking want to
• 45:18
  make sure that you're doing two things.
• 45:21
  You're as to their observation using their eyes and not cameras
• 45:25
  or anything else. You've got to have one foot on
• 45:28
  the ground at all times. There is a flight phase, no
• 45:32
  argument there it it happens. If you take high speed video or
• 45:35
  you take still shots, you're going to catch it.
• 45:37
  But the human brain and the human eyes can only process
• 45:42
  movement to a certain degree and so when it's outside of your
• 45:45
  ability to process it effectively, it doesn't happen.
• 45:49
  We we know what's happening, but you know we're going to live in
• 45:54
  that in that world. The other thing is that what
• 45:57
  differentiates walking from running is you're not using your
• 46:01
  quadricep to propel you upwards. You when you lock your knee when
• 46:06
  you make contact with the ground, forces change and we can
• 46:09
  get a whole thing of physics and motor, motor skills and all the
• 46:15
  other science and that, but that would be ours.
• 46:18
  We don't have that kind of time, but basically because they're
• 46:21
  locking their knee, they're not propelling themselves with their
• 46:25
  quad, and reaction forces and kinetic and potential energy are
• 46:32
  being moved differently. And so that's where you get a
• 46:34
  little bit of that hip movement that people make fun of.
• 46:38
  If the walkers are doing it right, they don't have that hip
• 46:40
  movement. It's the walkers who are doing
• 46:42
  it poorly. Oh, that's sachet.
• 46:45
  And they look like they're on the runway and that's all that
• 46:47
  they have weak hip muscles, so they're compensating it.
• 46:50
  And their brain basically said I have a puzzle I need to solve
• 46:54
  and this is the only way I can do it 'cause I'm not strong
• 46:56
  enough. Interesting.
• 46:58
  OK, so the two, I'm gonna say main rules 'cause?
• 47:03
  I'm sure there's two rules, yeah.
• 47:04
  OK, 2 rules. One, I'm gonna go backwards on
• 47:07
  that first contact. So they're they're front side
• 47:09
  mechanics if you will for think about a sprinter or runner when
• 47:12
  that when that makes contact on the ground, that knee has to be
• 47:15
  locked. Yeah, just like when you come
• 47:17
  over the hurdle. So if you let's say someone
• 47:20
  doesn't do that, what is the infraction?
• 47:23
  So the first time that they're observed or if the official is
• 47:30
  looking at it and goes, maybe it's on, maybe it's off, you
• 47:34
  know where where they're trying to give them that kind of Gray
• 47:36
  area, that's when they show them a yellow paddle.
• 47:39
  And that's the one that looks like the less than or greater
• 47:42
  than sign. So if you see a yellow paddle
• 47:44
  with that little symbol. Yeah, I I know exactly.
• 47:49
  Don't have one behind me. I I I sometimes have a paddle.
• 47:52
  I'm really surprised you don't have those just hanging out.
• 47:55
  With They're in my bag that I went to South Carolina with
• 47:57
  yesterday. So it's that, it's that you know
• 48:00
  greater than, less than, is that supposed to be the knee bend?
• 48:02
  Is that why it's it's that? That's a knee bend.
• 48:04
  Yeah, it's. It was the easiest way to.
• 48:05
  See. We're learning.
• 48:06
  I love it. OK, All right.
• 48:09
  Now, the first rule, the way you explained it, actually makes it
• 48:12
  it. It clears up a lot of my
• 48:15
  thought, not thoughts and feelings, but you know, I've
• 48:17
  seen the pictures. You know, when people want to
• 48:19
  bash on race walkers, they show the the single frame of where
• 48:22
  there's a flight phase and say, see these, you know, they're
• 48:24
  supposed to have one foot on the ground at all times.
• 48:26
  But look, it's happening all the time.
• 48:27
  What a farce, yadda yadda yadda. But I think the way you put that
• 48:31
  actually makes a lot of sense of the rule is not for every
• 48:36
  picture. You know, I I go back and do
• 48:38
  video replay. It's the judge.
• 48:40
  And by the way if you have a problem with that, that is
• 48:43
  pretty much our entire sport of track and field.
• 48:46
  By the way, we are still human judged here.
• 48:48
  The landing of the shot, you got to pick where you're putting it,
• 48:51
  etcetera, false starting, which I know there's an electronic
• 48:55
  component to it but there's still a human.
• 48:56
  So if you have a problem with that, you have a problem with
• 48:58
  our whole sport. So I like that it's the you know
• 49:01
  to the best judgement of the judge is there contact all the
• 49:04
  way through. So what happens when a judge.
• 49:07
  So you said the yellow paddle with that little, you know,
• 49:10
  horizontal V if you will for the.
• 49:12
  Yeah, a little symbol like this. Yep, yeah, there you go.
• 49:15
  What? What's the infraction for if
• 49:17
  someone says yeah, I see you fly time here.
• 49:21
  So one one thing also to know before answering that question
• 49:25
  is that when you see a yellow paddle shown to an athlete,
• 49:28
  that's the judge alerting the athlete that they may be in
• 49:32
  danger of breaking a rule. OK, so so it's not an actual
• 49:35
  infraction at that point, it's. Not, it's not a foul at that.
• 49:37
  Point. Hey man, just be careful.
• 49:39
  Be careful. Yeah.
• 49:40
  So like in the throws, when you see the yellow flag go up when
• 49:43
  there's 15 seconds left, it's the same.
• 49:45
  It's it's a warning or a caution that you need to get your stuff
• 49:50
  together. The the other the squiggly line
• 49:53
  one that would be the tilde sign on the keyboard.
• 49:58
  That is, when the judge sees both feet off, the ground is.
• 50:01
  It is it still yellow? It it's still a yellow paddle,
• 50:05
  the judges will have two paddles, yeah.
• 50:08
  And so they show those paddles to the athletes when in their
• 50:12
  observation, they believe that the athlete is in danger of
• 50:17
  breaking one of the rules. And it's our way of saying, hey,
• 50:19
  you know, get yourself checked out, go through whatever it is
• 50:23
  that your coach has taught you to make these corrections.
• 50:26
  And then if they see it again, that's where you get what they
• 50:30
  would call a red card and those get turned in and it's the same
• 50:34
  kind of red card that you'd see in a soccer match.
• 50:36
  Essentially. We don't show it to the athlete
• 50:39
  because then they would know it's from you.
• 50:41
  So this kind of on the sly, we have to fill up this little
• 50:44
  piece of paper and send it over to another official who's sort
• 50:48
  of like a clerk. We call them a recorder and then
• 50:52
  they post the violations on a board so the athletes know when
• 50:56
  they have fouls and if they get 3 fouls.
• 51:00
  In most races and you know for the discussion we don't have to
• 51:04
  go over the the four fouls in the penalty lane the
• 51:07
  international races use. But basically they if they get 3
• 51:12
  fouls and it needs to come from individual judges like.
• 51:16
  So say you were walking and I write you up a red card for a
• 51:21
  bent knee and it gets turned in. You're not disqualified.
• 51:26
  You have one foul, like if you foul on the long jump, you still
• 51:29
  got two more attempts. The other judges out there on
• 51:32
  the course then need to make a determination, independently of
• 51:37
  mine, that you also have committed fouls when they see
• 51:41
  you. And then if three of those come
• 51:42
  in, then the chief judge shows them a big red paddle and their
• 51:45
  day is over. OK.
• 51:49
  Couple questions. So does that mean there's a
• 51:51
  minimum of three judges per race?
• 51:54
  If there's not 3 judges, it's not a legal race.
• 51:56
  Is there a maximum? On the track it's five and on
• 52:00
  the road it's 9. And when, if and when they get 3
• 52:07
  foul. Again, you are.
• 52:09
  I don't care if and no one listens to this podcast.
• 52:13
  I am learning a crap ton about race.
• 52:15
  Faulkner. Thank you for this man.
• 52:16
  OK. When, when and if they get 3 red
• 52:20
  cards from three independent judges, I get that component.
• 52:23
  I love that comparison to the to the long jump fouls as well, by
• 52:26
  the way. Meaning they're now they're
• 52:32
  they're dequeued, right. They've got yeah.
• 52:35
  Do they get dequeued? Let's say they're in the middle
• 52:37
  of 5000. This all happens in the 1st 2000
• 52:39
  meters. Do they get told at 2000 meters?
• 52:42
  Hey, you're you're you've had three.
• 52:44
  Just stop. OK, good.
• 52:44
  So they don't have to complete the race and then find out.
• 52:46
  And and and they're removed on on purpose, because if they have
• 52:51
  those 3 fouls and then they if they weren't pulled out of the
• 52:54
  race, they could affect someone else's race by deciding that
• 52:57
  they're going to change paces, run alongside them.
• 52:59
  I mean, at that point, they're like, I'm already out.
• 53:01
  Who cares? So we.
• 53:02
  We we remove them from the race so that they can't contaminate
• 53:05
  the the athletic opportunity of the other athletes.
• 53:08
  Got it. And backtrack here, real quick
• 53:10
  thinking about participation. No NCAA S, but yes, in NEI, no
• 53:15
  JUCO, some high school and definitely some club AAU and
• 53:19
  USATF juniors and stuff like that.
• 53:22
  Well, the AAU only, I mean they don't really have like a juniors
• 53:25
  program but they have their indoor and absolute
• 53:27
  championship. Yeah, the age group stuff and
• 53:30
  and there's 2 summers ago the AAU Nationals were in Greensboro
• 53:36
  at A&T and they had 350 walkers, 20 races and I had to chief
• 53:46
  judge all of. Oh geez.
• 53:47
  God. But I mean, no complaints.
• 53:51
  I mean it was hot out of sweaty and it and it, but it was
• 53:54
  wonderful. It was just one race after
• 53:56
  another for two days, so. A.
• 53:57
  A US got race. And and USATF does in the in the
• 54:01
  Junior Olympics and the USATF under 20s and the USATF youth.
• 54:05
  Yeah, Yeah, the youth. The youth meets are kind of
• 54:08
  sketchy. They don't get a lot of
• 54:10
  attendance, but the J OS are enormous.
• 54:13
  OK. But there's there's what I'm
• 54:14
  thinking is there's opportunity for kids to be introduced to.
• 54:17
  OK, All right. All right.
• 54:18
  OK. So let's go back to our rules.
• 54:19
  I love again really kind of clear the fog up of, you know,
• 54:24
  it's up to the judge's decision, which again that's a lot of our
• 54:28
  sport and it's 3 fouls just like a long jump, triple jump,
• 54:32
  etcetera. Then then that gets you out of
• 54:34
  the race and you are done with the race if and when those 3
• 54:38
  fouls happen. Yeah, why you mentioned in New
• 54:42
  York they used to do the 15 to 16.
• 54:45
  I think you said in any IA they do a three indoors and a 5000
• 54:48
  outdoors and then when we get to, and I'm not sure about you,
• 54:52
  you tell me about like USA trials.
• 54:53
  But I know maybe I shouldn't even say that.
• 54:56
  I don't know. I believe the Olympics and stuff
• 54:59
  are like the 50K type stuff. Walk us through What are those
• 55:02
  distances? And why in the world do they
• 55:04
  have to be so far? And I don't mean that.
• 55:06
  Like, I don't know. I mean, like, I just would think
• 55:08
  like, oh, I could probably be more palpable to watch a 1600m
• 55:11
  race walk. I'm, I'm not watching a 50K
• 55:14
  race. Well, just like I'm not running
• 55:15
  A50 watching a 50K bike ride, to be real honest with you.
• 55:18
  So tell us about the distance. So, so with the at the sort of
• 55:23
  the pro level of the sport the under 20 meet used to be a 5 and
• 55:28
  they moved it up to A10 and that was both domestic and
• 55:33
  international. The at at the over 20 level your
• 55:39
  your pros. That was a 20 and A50 and then
• 55:45
  the Olympics decided that they didn't want the 50 anymore for
• 55:51
  reasons and World Athletics got sued for gender equality by AUS
• 55:59
  athlete and she won the lawsuit and so they added the 50K for
• 56:04
  women and that was right around the time where the IOC just went
• 56:07
  Oh well gender equality we can't have that And so they they put
• 56:12
  enough pressure on Subco to get rid of the 50 and so the 50 went
• 56:17
  away and got replaced by the 35 which is essentially just a
• 56:20
  longer version of the 20 because of Physiology and you don't
• 56:24
  really hit the wall until you get to 4037 to 40K.
• 56:27
  So it's really just a longer 20 and the same athletes end up
• 56:30
  winning and then that went so well that they decided well we
• 56:35
  can't have that anymore. It actually I mean they were
• 56:38
  exciting races the great races and you're you're getting men
• 56:43
  and women who are able to double and just races that are to the
• 56:48
  last lap and not a lot of disqualifications which I mean
• 56:52
  it was really dynamic television and it that was nice to see
• 56:57
  because the 50K was always really dynamic too.
• 56:59
  Guys coming back in the last two K of a race and then just
• 57:03
  passing 6 guys and getting a medal or and they started this
• 57:07
  relay thing which we don't know how this is going to work out.
• 57:12
  I I get part of why they're doing it.
• 57:19
  I don't know how well it's going to work out because it's the
• 57:22
  first time they're doing this internationally.
• 57:24
  I mean our domestically, we had a really good event in Chula
• 57:26
  Vista. Excellent more like I'm sorry,
• 57:29
  not Chula Vista. It was technically in Santee.
• 57:32
  Tracy Sunland put that on. I just saw him this weekend.
• 57:37
  And he's everywhere. He he is Mr. Everybody, one of
• 57:40
  the greatest guys. Absolutely.
• 57:43
  So we'll see how it works internationally.
• 57:45
  But it's it's an odd event because it's teams of two and
• 57:49
  they each have to do essentially 10K, then take 45 minutes off
• 57:53
  and then go to another one. So how do you train for that
• 57:56
  all? Right.
• 57:57
  I I had about 7 athletes out there and some of them handled
• 58:01
  it well and some of them didn't and but it was like we'll just
• 58:05
  rolling the dice here and see what happens.
• 58:06
  So explain that you explained it as if they both do a 10K and
• 58:11
  then have like a 45 minute half time and then do another 10K
• 58:14
  not. No, it's a relay.
• 58:15
  Yeah. OK.
• 58:16
  That's what I was. OK, so they.
• 58:17
  Do there's an exchange zone like, yeah.
• 58:19
  Got it. Got it.
• 58:19
  Got it. Slap hands.
• 58:20
  Yeah, I. Heard the slap pants.
• 58:21
  Yeah, yeah, that did not help the race walking thing, by the
• 58:24
  way. Yeah, I don't know how it's
• 58:25
  about put a baton in their hand. I don't know.
• 58:27
  But the slap and thing does not help with the whole.
• 58:29
  The respect thing is the is the relay replacing.
• 58:35
  The 35, which will replace the 50, But then there's going to be
• 58:38
  a 35 in the World Championships again and I don't know whether
• 58:41
  the relay's going to be there. This is an Olympics thing, so I
• 58:43
  don't know. OK, so in the Olympics, there'll
• 58:46
  be a 20K for men and a relay individual.
• 58:50
  Yeah, and then there'll be a relay.
• 58:51
  Is the relay a Coed or single sex?
• 58:54
  And that's a Coed. And each one does 22 legs, so
• 58:57
  the men lead off with A12K12 point, you know 195 so that the
• 59:02
  distance is a marathon. OK, I was gonna ask why in the
• 59:05
  world? OK, got it.
• 59:06
  OK, that. Makes.
• 59:07
  Why didn't they just make it a 40?
• 59:08
  I don't know. Yeah, but when you say the
• 59:09
  marathon, that makes sense. OK yeah so so the the the guys
• 59:12
  start first, they do a 12.1 or whatever, then the the women or
• 59:16
  second leg. And then the men and then the
• 59:19
  women. So they always finish.
• 59:20
  It's kind of like the mix 3, the mix 4 by 4.
• 59:22
  In 12.1 for each leg. No, it's then it's 10/10/10, so
• 59:28
  it becomes 42.195. Oh, so the first leg is the long
• 59:32
  leg 12.1 and then alternating 10K's for the next three legs
• 59:37
  and that gets you your whatever 26 miles.
• 59:39
  Your marathon, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:40
  Got it, got it, got it. OK.
• 59:42
  OK. OK.
• 59:42
  OK. So they'll be individual 20s and
• 59:44
  then a relay as well for race walking for the Olympics, world
• 59:47
  champs. They're still trying to figure
• 59:48
  out when the world they're going to do a 35 or etcetera.
• 59:50
  OK, All right. So why do they have to be these
• 59:54
  20K35K50K? Why can't it be a mile 4 by 8?
• 1:00:01
  I'm just, you know, I'm just thinking.
• 1:00:04
  It's it goes back to the history of the sport and yeah, where
• 1:00:08
  where is the? Can you give us a 10 second
• 1:00:11
  version of that? Where where does race walking
• 1:00:12
  start? We think of tracking war times,
• 1:00:15
  right? So we threw a hammer during war.
• 1:00:16
  We threw a javelin during war. We had to hurdle things to get
• 1:00:19
  rid of people trying to kill us. Where where did race walking
• 1:00:21
  kind of start? How did you get to war?
• 1:00:25
  You marched the. Politicians.
• 1:00:27
  Oh, sorry, no, you marched. Oh, OK.
• 1:00:31
  And it's kind of comes from that sort of mentality of these long
• 1:00:35
  marches. Got it.
• 1:00:37
  And race walking predates modern track and field 'cause they had
• 1:00:40
  the pedestrianism in the 1800s. Really.
• 1:00:43
  And it was a professional sport. There were hundreds and
• 1:00:46
  thousands of dollars bet on these guys walking for six days
• 1:00:49
  in Madison Square Garden in with all the smoke and the cigarettes
• 1:00:53
  and everything and these guys would walk for six days and you
• 1:00:56
  know, whoever was still breathing at the end, I guess
• 1:00:58
  won the race. Wow.
• 1:01:02
  OK, that's cool history. I knew that that that's again.
• 1:01:05
  It's so interesting if you're not in race walking and even
• 1:01:09
  worse if you're on the anti race walking side, which you know I
• 1:01:12
  was, you don't know the this is really interesting like things
• 1:01:17
  like you know where it started in the marching, why they're
• 1:01:20
  doing a relay, why they're doing this, things like that that
• 1:01:22
  that's really it's really interesting.
• 1:01:24
  I'm glad I did this, Michael. So to to answer your question
• 1:01:28
  though how it got to where it was.
• 1:01:30
  The original Olympic races were 15103 K and the concern over the
• 1:01:36
  ability of judges way back in the day, who didn't understand
• 1:01:42
  bio mechanics and and, well all the other stuff involved with
• 1:01:46
  training and observing how the body moves, making judging
• 1:01:50
  decisions. And so they determined that the
• 1:01:53
  athletes were moving too fast to be judged at those distances.
• 1:01:57
  So they wanted to slow them down and the only way to do that was
• 1:02:00
  to make them go longer. And so it went 1500 to 3K to 5K
• 1:02:05
  to 10K20K50K and they're they're guys who do 100K and they're out
• 1:02:10
  of their mind. And I agree with you that I
• 1:02:14
  think the sport would be better served to have all these
• 1:02:18
  distances because not everyone is a 35K or A20K guy.
• 1:02:25
  I mean I'm best suited for somewhere between 10 and 20 K
• 1:02:28
  when I'm training, but getting into a 50K, I could never get
• 1:02:32
  through it. And it may have been my best
• 1:02:35
  opportunity, but I couldn't do the training to get there.
• 1:02:38
  And you get guys who come from, you know, they have more Sprint
• 1:02:41
  mechanics and Sprint Physiology. Why can't they go walk a 3K at
• 1:02:45
  the international level and they used to have that at world
• 1:02:48
  indoors. But the the concerns over
• 1:02:51
  judging from people who are on the outside looking in and
• 1:02:56
  getting hysterical over look, look at that.
• 1:02:59
  That's this, that's that. And is there no Is there no
• 1:03:02
  world indoors? Walk.
• 1:03:04
  They got rid of the world indoors.
• 1:03:05
  I believe it was 96 ish somewhere right around there.
• 1:03:12
  But they used to have heats of the thing.
• 1:03:14
  You'd have to go do a 5K and then come back the next day and
• 1:03:18
  do another one. And these guys were walking, you
• 1:03:21
  know, 1830. Can you really you?
• 1:03:26
  You mentioned you know someone coming back in the last two K
• 1:03:30
  Can you really kick in race walking or, and this to me
• 1:03:34
  doesn't take take it away. This isn't a negative in my
• 1:03:39
  opinion. The way I'm going to explain it
• 1:03:40
  here, can you really kick? Meaning I get faster over the
• 1:03:44
  last 100 or 400 of this race to overtake the person in front of
• 1:03:48
  me? Or is it more about who can
• 1:03:51
  decelerate the least, kind of like 100?
• 1:03:53
  You know, the the 100 you are decelerating and who decelerates
• 1:03:56
  the least wins. So is it actually I can get
• 1:03:58
  faster in the last 100 to overcome someone or is it I I
• 1:04:03
  fatigued less than that guy so I'm able, you know, he's falling
• 1:04:05
  back faster as I'm catching up. That makes sense.
• 1:04:08
  It's, it's, it's a bit of both, OK, OK.
• 1:04:10
  And it depends on the athlete, you know, Just like you've got
• 1:04:14
  your Steve Prefontains who wanted to bury you and then
• 1:04:18
  you've got your Why am I drawn in, drawn a blank on the Kenyan
• 1:04:28
  who became an American. Just 5K guy, MEB, not MEB.
• 1:04:33
  No, he was 15105 K guy. But you just never wanted to
• 1:04:37
  have a slow pace because he was going to kill you in the race.
• 1:04:40
  And he's a coach at Arizona now. And why I can't remember his
• 1:04:43
  name, I don't remember. But they would always just sit
• 1:04:46
  and let him kick. And it was like, what are you
• 1:04:48
  doing? You're just letting him win Tip.
• 1:04:55
  We're gonna be upset that we can't remember his name when
• 1:04:58
  we're done with this. I can see his face that that's
• 1:05:01
  what I'm saying is like, I can. See his shaved head?
• 1:05:03
  He would always racing ROP and would just sit on ROP and and
• 1:05:06
  get him, but no. One's yelling at us right now.
• 1:05:09
  Yes, yeah, they're like, why can't you?
• 1:05:11
  He's the greatest American ever. Why can't you remember his name,
• 1:05:13
  'cause I can never remember anyone's name, that's why.
• 1:05:17
  But the the kicking and race walking outside of short races
• 1:05:22
  where the you know your youth and your high school kids are
• 1:05:25
  going because you know a 1500 for some of those athletes is a
• 1:05:28
  long race because they don't have the physical maturity to
• 1:05:32
  hold the technique at speed. But when you get to the pro
• 1:05:35
  level, there's some kicking, but it's more like you think of it
• 1:05:40
  more like a surge. So they're gonna, instead of
• 1:05:44
  doing it in the last hundred, they really need to do it over
• 1:05:47
  like an 800 where it's a constant change of gear and they
• 1:05:52
  ramp up to the point where, OK, this is as hard as I can
• 1:05:55
  maintain a pace at legal technique before they just fall
• 1:05:59
  apart. And then it's it's not cheating.
• 1:06:03
  I do, it's not cheating. People are like, oh, the walkers
• 1:06:06
  cheating old man yelling at the television.
• 1:06:11
  It's their technique broke down because they're trying to do
• 1:06:14
  something they can't do. And so they're they're
• 1:06:17
  competitive spirit and the adrenaline's going go faster, go
• 1:06:20
  faster, go faster. And so their technique just
• 1:06:23
  falls apart. And you know you've seen that in
• 1:06:25
  the hurdles where a guy just, he runs up on the hurdles or he
• 1:06:30
  can't get his legs to where they need to and he crashes them.
• 1:06:34
  The and the technique events do this all the time.
• 1:06:36
  The throws where somebody's just fatigued and they they're in
• 1:06:38
  round six and it's in the cage. Yep, Yep, Yep.
• 1:06:41
  Makes sense, Makes sense. Where do you think race walking
• 1:06:49
  should be? And let me preface that as
• 1:06:52
  you're thinking about how you you already you already have the
• 1:06:54
  answer because you've it's what you do in your whole life.
• 1:06:57
  So it's my obsession the. Obsession.
• 1:06:59
  The marathon is not part of track and field in my opinion.
• 1:07:03
  What I mean by that is they they don't finish on the track, they
• 1:07:07
  don't run it all in the track. They start outside.
• 1:07:09
  Sometimes they'll finish, you know in certain marathon is very
• 1:07:13
  much a road racing event and that's fine.
• 1:07:16
  You know that that's not a derogatory, I'm just saying it's
• 1:07:18
  not part of track and field. Should race, walking, be a part
• 1:07:23
  of track and field, meaning it's all in the track or should it be
• 1:07:26
  like a road racing again that that does not mean it's it's
• 1:07:29
  taking it down in my opinion. Should it be its own sport?
• 1:07:33
  Its own culture? I think there there could be a a
• 1:07:40
  sort of a a happy medium of both.
• 1:07:45
  Think about your 5K10K. How many five KS and 10 KS are
• 1:07:48
  on the track and on the road? Yeah, I I would tick off every
• 1:07:52
  distance runner by saying that. Also 3000 steeple should be the
• 1:07:55
  highest we do on the track in my opinion.
• 1:07:57
  I I every distance you're going to yell.
• 1:08:00
  I mean, I know, I know, I know. But.
• 1:08:01
  Oh no, no, no. I was going to say I've I've
• 1:08:02
  spent many, many, many years umpiring track meets and Oh my
• 1:08:07
  God, if they're doing another 5K like I'll be out of meat and
• 1:08:09
  they'll have seven of them in a row and I'm like, Oh my God,
• 1:08:13
  this is too much, too much. But by the way, 100 heats of the
• 1:08:17
  200 is also too much. Just put that out there, you
• 1:08:20
  know, it's not like I want to watch 100 heats of the 200
• 1:08:22
  either. I would watch 100 heats of the
• 1:08:24
  hurdles. I'm not going to lie, I I
• 1:08:25
  personally. But.
• 1:08:27
  They should be running them in both directions soon.
• 1:08:28
  They're doing that. I was just at the Nike High
• 1:08:32
  School National Championships and they did the the shuttle
• 1:08:35
  hurdle and I tweeted that because that to me is the most
• 1:08:38
  phenomenal event in the world. Is the shuttle hurdle.
• 1:08:40
  That that's why I would, I love it.
• 1:08:42
  I would watch that a million times.
• 1:08:44
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:08:44
  Sorry. Have you have you seen when the
• 1:08:46
  armories run the steeplechase indoors?
• 1:08:48
  No, but I saw there's it's so amazing.
• 1:08:50
  And I was like, Oh my God, I wish they were doing that cause
• 1:08:52
  I've heard about it. Yeah.
• 1:08:54
  It's really, really cool. They do it over like a 2K or
• 1:08:56
  something like that, but there's a place for it in and out.
• 1:09:03
  And because most of the pro level of race walking is Rd.
• 1:09:10
  based, athletes need to get used to that world if that's where
• 1:09:13
  they're going to go. But having race walking have a
• 1:09:17
  an existence and a vibrant existence on the track at the
• 1:09:21
  same distances without the steeplechase, 'cause that'd be a
• 1:09:24
  little messy. I'm not really sure how you
• 1:09:25
  judge that, but we joke about it often.
• 1:09:29
  I we should do the 3K race walk steeplechase, but you know you
• 1:09:32
  give us 10 meters on each side of the barrier.
• 1:09:34
  Right. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:36
  Right. So we can, we can hurdle and I I
• 1:09:38
  would have done well in that because I ran the 400 hurdles in
• 1:09:40
  in school. So I know how to hurdle, but
• 1:09:45
  yes, it can have a place the the same way you have your fifteens,
• 1:09:49
  your threes, your fives, your 10s.
• 1:09:51
  And in the areas of the sport where it does exist, I I don't
• 1:09:56
  understand why it's not in the same number of meets that you
• 1:09:59
  would have for your runners and and that's even with the
• 1:10:02
  programs that are supporting it. And you know, if you're taking
• 1:10:05
  your 1500m runner or your 5K runner to a meet every weekend,
• 1:10:09
  why is your race Walker staying home?
• 1:10:12
  They should have the same number of competitive opportunities,
• 1:10:17
  soapbox coming down off, but you know it, but it it's a slow
• 1:10:23
  progression. And I'm, you know, constantly
• 1:10:26
  talking to coaches and trying to get them to to recognize that
• 1:10:29
  the benefit it is to their own athletes.
• 1:10:31
  Because the more times you race, the better you're going to be at
• 1:10:33
  racing. And then when you get to
• 1:10:36
  nationals, if you only race three times and then you're at
• 1:10:38
  Nationals and you the nerves get you, bad things happen.
• 1:10:41
  Right, right. Let's talk about it's a terrible
• 1:10:47
  transition. Like, let's talk about you.
• 1:10:51
  Oh, no, What I mean by that is, and this is where I was really
• 1:10:55
  projecting when I said we're not going to have an argument here.
• 1:10:58
  You know, again, your passion, man, It's, I mean, I think.
• 1:11:05
  I'm unhinged. I think I'm passionate about
• 1:11:08
  track and field coaches and then I see you and I'm like, man, I
• 1:11:10
  got some ways to go to show my passion.
• 1:11:13
  I love that you just said that. Unhinged.
• 1:11:15
  There are times, Michael, and this is where either this
• 1:11:20
  interview just derails and never sees the light of day, or
• 1:11:24
  because Mike and Mike and I are both of us are adults, we can
• 1:11:27
  have this conversation, your social media presence.
• 1:11:33
  There are times when in my opinion you go you stay at
• 1:11:39
  attack mode you're you're you're certainly an advocate.
• 1:11:43
  I see a lot of post and replies were you know you know awesome
• 1:11:47
  that they had the race walk here, great job from this person
• 1:11:49
  and things like that. And then there are conversations
• 1:11:53
  that aren't about race walking at all that you come out of left
• 1:11:57
  field and hey how come race walking wasn't there.
• 1:12:00
  Imagine if they did this with the race walk here and I'm just
• 1:12:02
  like man, there are times Mike, I am I believe I am one of the
• 1:12:07
  most empathetic people when it comes to social media.
• 1:12:12
  Meaning I know we don't always show our true colors.
• 1:12:15
  They're like sometimes we you know because we're we got our
• 1:12:17
  thumbs we can say some things. And so there are times where I'm
• 1:12:20
  like, man, Mike why would you step in here?
• 1:12:23
  Why you've replied off of my some of my stuff that I'm just
• 1:12:26
  like why it's had nothing to do with you Mike.
• 1:12:29
  But I also know man Mike is a caged tiger for race walk.
• 1:12:33
  So I also get that you know do you ever you said the word
• 1:12:37
  unhinged. Do you ever?
• 1:12:40
  I'm going to say the word regret.
• 1:12:42
  Do you ever have some regret? Sometimes, OK.
• 1:12:46
  I have shot myself in the face, OK, yeah, you commented.
• 1:12:55
  We had Cliff. There are climates for yeah.
• 1:12:57
  We had Cliff Ravalto on the show, head coach at Kansas
• 1:13:00
  State. If you haven't listened to that,
• 1:13:01
  you got to go back and listen to it.
• 1:13:02
  He was great and we talked at the end.
• 1:13:03
  I wanted to make sure I had a conversation with him about two
• 1:13:05
  things, changing track and field, that I knew he was
• 1:13:09
  involved in and and maybe had some passion for.
• 1:13:11
  One was raising the women's hurdles from 33 to 36 and the
• 1:13:14
  other was moving the women's hiptathlon to the women's
• 1:13:17
  decathlon. And and you those are both two
• 1:13:20
  good things I. Agree with you 100%.
• 1:13:23
  You posted you commented on the YouTube video.
• 1:13:27
  Hey Cliff, can we also get your support for the race walk?
• 1:13:29
  And I was like, like what were you doing?
• 1:13:31
  I was just like, what are you doing?
• 1:13:34
  Throw it out there and see what happens, 'cause you know, when
• 1:13:37
  you, I mean. And that that was not an attempt
• 1:13:40
  to like, you know, Sideswipe, anyone.
• 1:13:42
  Because I I don't know Cliff personally, but I've, I've
• 1:13:47
  listened to Cliff talk and other venues and I know that he's an
• 1:13:50
  advocate for sort of the underdog in in, in in many
• 1:13:54
  regards. And if you don't throw the topic
• 1:14:01
  out, no one's going to talk about it.
• 1:14:03
  And it's sort of it's, it's kind of like all PR is good PR, even
• 1:14:08
  though sometimes you'll you'll throw some out there and it
• 1:14:11
  blows up. Yeah.
• 1:14:13
  And it doesn't work out the way you wanted to do, but at least
• 1:14:15
  somebody was talking about it. So there are times and and and
• 1:14:19
  that was in that case that that was what I was looking to do.
• 1:14:22
  It's like, oh, let's just see, does Cliff have that you even
• 1:14:25
  have an opinion on it? Right, right, right.
• 1:14:27
  You know, and it he's entitled to whatever opinion he has.
• 1:14:31
  You know, he he's earned that. And you know, so is I pretty
• 1:14:34
  much everybody else. But why don't we have that?
• 1:14:39
  You know, what would be the reason?
• 1:14:41
  Because I've, I've asked coaches privately, coaches who were at
• 1:14:47
  institutions like the University of Houston, like why don't we
• 1:14:50
  have a race lock? You know what?
• 1:14:53
  What's the rationale behind it other than I just don't want to
• 1:14:56
  deal with it And that ends up being the majority of the cases
• 1:14:59
  they just don't want to deal with?
• 1:15:01
  It and now that I can, I get because I think about on the
• 1:15:05
  high school level, we're adding and trying to add in a lot of
• 1:15:09
  states, the javelin and a lot of the pushbacks.
• 1:15:14
  The pushback always comes back to which what I call a face, a
• 1:15:17
  fake pushback. And that's safety.
• 1:15:19
  And I'm always like you do the discus.
• 1:15:21
  If you can do the discus, you can already do the Javelin in
• 1:15:23
  regards to safety. And you play football where
• 1:15:26
  people hit each other in. The rack, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:15:29
  And and two, the other thing comes back is, and it's more
• 1:15:32
  privately because no one wants to kind of say this the the
• 1:15:34
  quiet part out loud of I don't want to deal with that.
• 1:15:37
  I don't want to learn how to coach.
• 1:15:38
  And it's like that's a terrible excuse.
• 1:15:40
  You know, I'm from the state of Alabama and we figured it out,
• 1:15:44
  for crying out loud. So you can't tell me that Texas,
• 1:15:48
  you know, all these other states can't figure out how to
• 1:15:51
  eventually coach. You can learn clinics etcetera
• 1:15:54
  and become a a a good javelin coach.
• 1:15:56
  So I do agree with you in regards to the race walking side
• 1:15:59
  of like hey, you don't want to deal with it.
• 1:16:01
  That's why you're not giving kids an opportunity.
• 1:16:03
  That doesn't seem like a very valid pushback.
• 1:16:08
  And and then when this, when the same coaches are out there
• 1:16:11
  going, well, this is an opportunity for everyone.
• 1:16:14
  We're an inclusive sport or diversity, equity, inclusion,
• 1:16:17
  you know, whatever buzzwords you want to throw out there.
• 1:16:19
  And then 5 minutes later they're going, Oh no, can't talk about
• 1:16:21
  that. Except for the race walk.
• 1:16:22
  Yeah, right. Yeah, I I do have to ask you a
• 1:16:25
  question. Alabama or Auburn?
• 1:16:28
  Neither. I went to the greatest
• 1:16:29
  university. I went to the greatest
• 1:16:30
  university in the world. I went to Troy University.
• 1:16:32
  My son's name is Troy, so it is Troy 1st and then somewhere not
• 1:16:36
  too far down. I did grow up very close to
• 1:16:38
  Auburn and had a lot of friends that played there.
• 1:16:40
  So yes, Auburn over Alabama. I'm sorry, Dan, I'm.
• 1:16:43
  I know Dan Waters. My my girlfriend was wouldn't
• 1:16:46
  have made me asked if she was in the room because she's an
• 1:16:48
  Alabama grad. Oh gosh, I'm so sorry.
• 1:16:50
  Not, not, not so sorry. That don't mean that negatively
• 1:16:53
  because again, I'm a Troy guy. First and foremost, all
• 1:16:56
  institutions are great. Only one of my sons, he was
• 1:16:59
  named after an institution, and that was Troy.
• 1:17:00
  So yeah. T is on top, is that why?
• 1:17:03
  Troy, baby, It's always That's where I found my faith, my love
• 1:17:08
  of life, track everything. Everything came from my years at
• 1:17:12
  Troy University. Awkward pause.
• 1:17:19
  What were we talking? About I know I was.
• 1:17:21
  I was like, I was like about that, so.
• 1:17:24
  Equity and inclusion in the sport and everything.
• 1:17:26
  Except for race walk, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:30
  So you you had said you put it a lot harsher than I would have
• 1:17:33
  said. I'm going to say it might much
• 1:17:34
  more not harsh. You said you you'd shot yourself
• 1:17:36
  in the foot sometimes. Do you have an an example that
• 1:17:40
  you're willing to share that's. A topic off the top of my head,
• 1:17:46
  no, but I'm sure there are 1000. If I scroll through my Twitter,
• 1:17:49
  I'm sure I could find. Someone's called you the race
• 1:17:51
  walking jerk, I imagine, but I know.
• 1:17:53
  I'm sure they but they're use other four letter words.
• 1:17:56
  Sure. But I imagine no one has not
• 1:18:01
  participated in the in the event because of that.
• 1:18:05
  If anybody was going to participate in race walking, I
• 1:18:07
  don't think they're like, you know what, this guy's too much
• 1:18:08
  of A bulldog. I'm gonna just stay over here to
• 1:18:11
  the 5K or something like that, so.
• 1:18:13
  Yeah. You know, I like your point
• 1:18:14
  about, especially for an event that is.
• 1:18:17
  I don't know if this is the right word.
• 1:18:19
  This may be too harsh. You you smacked me back?
• 1:18:21
  Here, I've I've heard it. That's bastardized.
• 1:18:24
  It's it's it's it's the weird cousin in the corner and I'm not
• 1:18:27
  sure it should be. I still am not on board with the
• 1:18:29
  50K thing. I just can't wrap my head over
• 1:18:32
  any race like that for track and field.
• 1:18:34
  The 50K is not an event for everyone and I I as much as I
• 1:18:38
  was passionate about supporting it, I understand where they're
• 1:18:42
  coming from when they're trying to have a mass market sport that
• 1:18:46
  appeals to larger audiences. And as compelling as those races
• 1:18:51
  were over the especially over the last decade, I get why they
• 1:18:56
  went away from the 50K and to offer the opportunity at these
• 1:19:00
  shorter distances where things are quicker and they're done in
• 1:19:03
  an hour on the business end, it makes sense and I get it.
• 1:19:07
  Yeah, if I if I had to race walk an 800 meter, it still wouldn't
• 1:19:10
  be done under an hour. So I I get that where so wrap
• 1:19:15
  us, wrap us up here Mike. Where is race walking going?
• 1:19:20
  What's in the works? What you talked about some of
• 1:19:22
  the changes we're making on the Olympic level still hasn't moved
• 1:19:26
  maybe to the world champs level from what I'm hearing.
• 1:19:28
  What's? Are there any states that are
• 1:19:30
  entertaining this? Is there a movement within
• 1:19:33
  incident of Layer Junior College?
• 1:19:36
  Is it is it going to stay club? What's what are we looking?
• 1:19:39
  What should we be looking for here in the next 5-10 years in
• 1:19:42
  the race walk events? So the focus primarily of the
• 1:19:48
  grassroots, slash youth and collegiate development areas is
• 1:19:53
  to build numbers to get, you know, a bigger bottom of the
• 1:19:55
  pyramid And my primary focus and with the the others that I work
• 1:20:01
  with around the country, both club and high school and mostly
• 1:20:06
  NAIA, but a smattering of NCAA schools too.
• 1:20:10
  Is just getting the athletes connected to the coaches and
• 1:20:13
  getting more athletes staying around longer.
• 1:20:16
  If you look at the youth end, there's a drop off from the
• 1:20:21
  lower age groups, the 12 and under.
• 1:20:23
  And then once they get to 13 and older, the participation numbers
• 1:20:27
  kind of drop by about 1/3 to 1/2 because they are these.
• 1:20:32
  A lot of these athletes now have high school teams where they
• 1:20:35
  don't have the opportunity and so that they're not with their
• 1:20:38
  club anymore. Or if they are, they stop race
• 1:20:41
  walking because they're doing more running.
• 1:20:44
  So trying to grow that and spending every waking hour doing
• 1:20:52
  social, trying to get these kids the attention that they deserve,
• 1:20:57
  taking that and trying to push that lower end growth in the
• 1:21:03
  youth end. And then to the high schools
• 1:21:06
  where I got a message the other day and that they're looking at
• 1:21:10
  something in Connecticut and I don't know what's going to
• 1:21:13
  become of it, but you know, we'll see, We'll see.
• 1:21:19
  The NAIA is sort of the one bucket where there's been some
• 1:21:27
  level of success both in the high performance and in the
• 1:21:31
  growth of just the, you know, the average athletes and
• 1:21:34
  participation. And over the last four years,
• 1:21:38
  the participation level at the NAIA has doubled.
• 1:21:41
  Oh, I was gonna ask, 'cause I'm strong, like there's no talks of
• 1:21:44
  removing. It getting there.
• 1:21:45
  OK. Well, at the coaches meeting
• 1:21:48
  every year, there's some harebrained scenario proposal
• 1:21:52
  that comes from a handful of coaches, which is just the same
• 1:21:55
  massage language twisted. It turned sort of like a
• 1:21:59
  congressional bill that they try to get past to remove race
• 1:22:03
  walking and they'll hide it or they'll be open about it.
• 1:22:07
  But it's it's once you look at it and you go, oh, I see what
• 1:22:10
  they're doing here. They're they're they're going to
• 1:22:11
  use this to get rid of race walking.
• 1:22:14
  There was the one this past year and the coaches shot it down yet
• 1:22:17
  again because why are you telling another coach what, what
• 1:22:21
  he can and can't coach. I mean I you don't have to coach
• 1:22:24
  it. That's fine.
• 1:22:26
  But don't tell another coach or another athlete what they can
• 1:22:28
  and can't do. The the opportunity should be
• 1:22:30
  there. If you choose to give those
• 1:22:32
  points away. Thank you.
• 1:22:35
  You know, I know coaches who will take them but so over the
• 1:22:39
  last five or six years or so in in in, even with COVID shot in
• 1:22:43
  the middle of that, the participation numbers on the
• 1:22:46
  NAIA have doubled and it should only get better.
• 1:22:49
  And this year, for the first time, they had heats in the
• 1:22:53
  national championships, just like they do for the 3000 run.
• 1:22:56
  They had heats of the three K and the talk is that they may go
• 1:23:00
  heats in a final in the future and because if they can run it,
• 1:23:05
  why can't they walk it? Right, right, right.
• 1:23:07
  And so it's growing that and trying to build.
• 1:23:10
  I I've been trying to spend more of my time, energy, money,
• 1:23:14
  whatever, building that lower base.
• 1:23:16
  Because if you don't have that grassroots bottom of the
• 1:23:19
  pyramid, you can't ever have the elites 'cause you're just gonna
• 1:23:22
  self select out. That's right.
• 1:23:24
  That's exactly right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense,
• 1:23:28
  Michael. This was more fun than I
• 1:23:32
  thought. I knew I was going to learn some
• 1:23:34
  some stuff and I learned a ton. Like actually you really kind of
• 1:23:38
  lifted a veil off my eyes in regards to the competition side
• 1:23:41
  of it. Of the, you know, the three, the
• 1:23:42
  three fouls and you know, the the, the, the vent rules are the
• 1:23:46
  human nature of the judge, not anyone still photo and video and
• 1:23:50
  things like that. So that was really phenomenal.
• 1:23:53
  Where do we go to learn more? Someone out there is listening
• 1:23:56
  and it's like, hey, you know what, either I I I have it at my
• 1:23:59
  club, but I really don't know a lot about it.
• 1:24:01
  But you know, I'm not going to give up those points.
• 1:24:03
  But I'd like to learn more or someone's learning, listening
• 1:24:05
  right now and they're like, hey, you know what, maybe I should at
• 1:24:06
  least look into it. Maybe there's an opportunity for
• 1:24:09
  kids in my area. Is the right place to go?
• 1:24:11
  Is the hsrw.net? Is that the 1st place to come?
• 1:24:14
  And go that that's sort of like the clearing House of everything
• 1:24:19
  that both I've put together and link to other resources.
• 1:24:22
  And so there's a bunch of statistical information on
• 1:24:27
  there. There are links to other
• 1:24:28
  websites where you can learn things and taking a cue from
• 1:24:34
  everything that you've been doing and I know we talked about
• 1:24:36
  this earlier, but the I too yet have a have a YouTube channel.
• 1:24:42
  Yeah, I'm good to ask that. I'm glad you said that.
• 1:24:44
  Yep. The The High School Race Walk
• 1:24:46
  YouTube channel which is linked on the website.
• 1:24:48
  But if you just let's search for HHS Race Walk on YouTube, you'll
• 1:24:53
  find it. There's just short of 1000
• 1:24:58
  videos on there of all different areas involved with race
• 1:25:00
  walking, with training, with coaching there.
• 1:25:03
  Every race video that I can find is on a playlist somewhere.
• 1:25:09
  And then there's the content that I produce, which is some
• 1:25:12
  interviews, some coaching stuff. Not as not, not as much on the
• 1:25:17
  coaching stuff as I wanted to, but also a lot of highlights and
• 1:25:21
  PR for the athletes who don't get the same exposure.
• 1:25:24
  But that would be where you'd want to go to find that.
• 1:25:27
  And if you're looking at this from the coaching aspect,
• 1:25:29
  there's a coaching education playlist that has links to the
• 1:25:34
  awesome content that coaches have put together from around
• 1:25:38
  the US and around the world. And you can find it all in one
• 1:25:40
  spot without having to go to all of their channels.
• 1:25:43
  You can go there and then just play the playlist and there's
• 1:25:45
  like, I think there's about 100 or so videos just on coaching
• 1:25:48
  Ed. Wow.
• 1:25:51
  Dude, thank you. I I I just, I really am blown
• 1:25:55
  away. This was a lot of fun.
• 1:25:58
  I have even more respect for the event.
• 1:26:01
  Like I said, I I dropped my childish anti race walking a
• 1:26:06
  while ago now, but I definitely, you know, I'm more of a fan.
• 1:26:12
  I'm less of a skeptic. I told you when I started, I'm
• 1:26:15
  kind of a skeptic. I am less of a skeptic because
• 1:26:18
  of your background. Again, I love when things take
• 1:26:21
  people from one place and make higher for them.
• 1:26:24
  And so for you Michael, you know you could if you didn't find
• 1:26:29
  race walking, you might be some accountant in New York
• 1:26:32
  somewhere. Or Industry A.
• 1:26:34
  Library historian or something. You.
• 1:26:36
  Know that would actually be cool.
• 1:26:38
  And that's awesome. I'm a huge library fan.
• 1:26:40
  I'm on the board of our local library.
• 1:26:42
  I'm a huge librarian. So no knock on librarians, but
• 1:26:44
  it wouldn't have helped me and my sport, right?
• 1:26:46
  So I love that you found a calling, A real calling.
• 1:26:50
  I mean, like this is you're the type of person I cut you.
• 1:26:54
  You bleed out race walkers, you bleed out yellow paddles.
• 1:26:57
  That would have much better. I was gonna say.
• 1:26:59
  Yeah, Yellow Paddles. Much better, much better.
• 1:27:02
  And so I love that. That is really what interests me
• 1:27:05
  in the human race is passions. And so you know, it's evident
• 1:27:09
  and I love it. I love that you know hell or
• 1:27:12
  high water, you're going to megaphone for race walkers.
• 1:27:16
  And I have a lot of respect for that because you know, I'm
• 1:27:19
  similar esque on that side for track and field coaches in
• 1:27:22
  general. So I really love that Mike and
• 1:27:24
  I'm so thankful for you, man. You're thankful for your time.
• 1:27:27
  It's one of the, you know, you missed out on like 20 tweets to
• 1:27:30
  go get someone during this time here.
• 1:27:33
  So I'm just so thankful for your time and your passion and and
• 1:27:36
  really grateful for you. Thank you very much and I
• 1:27:38
  appreciate the opportunity. Absolutely.
• 1:27:40
  All right. Go check out hsrw.net and then
• 1:27:44
  also on YouTube if you just search HS racewalk that that'll
• 1:27:50
  get us there. Yeah, if you go to youtube.com
• 1:27:52
  HS racewalk. HS racewalk Perfect.
• 1:27:54
  Go there, check it out. And I would challenge you if you
• 1:27:58
  have any inkling of like this should be in your club.
• 1:28:02
  Or maybe you know what, I love that the NEI has doubled
• 1:28:05
  participation. But something tells me that
• 1:28:07
  there are still a lot of NEI schools that are not
• 1:28:10
  participating. It's kind of like the schools
• 1:28:12
  that don't do pole vaulting. And I love how Michael put that.
• 1:28:15
  You're giving out those points. Thank you.
• 1:28:17
  I'll take those. Stop giving up those points.
• 1:28:20
  I bet you there are coaches out there right now that aren't
• 1:28:23
  doing the race walk for their program that could and should be
• 1:28:26
  doing it. And you do it at a pretty high
• 1:28:27
  level because you're a really smart coach.
• 1:28:29
  So I'd encourage you reach out to Michael on social media.
• 1:28:33
  I'm going to go out on a limb. If I Google his name, his e-mail
• 1:28:36
  or something will pop up as well.
• 1:28:38
  But reach out to him and you know, if he can't be the one to
• 1:28:42
  help you because of geography, etcetera, he's got a network.
• 1:28:45
  So I just encourage you to reach out.
• 1:28:47
  Yeah, I figured. I was going to say I've got a
• 1:28:50
  list of all the recruits for 24 and 25 if you're looking.
• 1:28:53
  To recruit. Yeah, come on, let's get this
• 1:28:54
  started. Let's.
• 1:28:55
  With their Instagrams, let's. Double the double in NAI because
• 1:29:00
  I agree with you Mike. You know the base has to get
• 1:29:02
  bigger if you're going to have a a higher point and you know I've
• 1:29:05
  seen in Team USA where we don't do historically we don't do
• 1:29:08
  great. We've had great people like
• 1:29:09
  Seaman and and many others. But we need to just like we want
• 1:29:13
  to dominate all of our track events.
• 1:29:14
  Well, this is part of track and field, so let's dominate the
• 1:29:16
  race walk as well. So Michael, thank you so much
• 1:29:18
  for being here. Thank you guys and gals for
• 1:29:20
  being here and listening. Just so humbled that you guys be
• 1:29:23
  here every week, man. So let's join us next week.
• 1:29:25
  We'll do it all over again. Thanks everybody.
• 1:29:27
  Have a good one. If the goal team appreciate the
• 1:29:35
  coach, the ones appoint people most every season needs a voice
• 1:29:39
  of reason speaking. The growth you got to prep
• 1:29:41
  before you carry the load. It's called to the soul.
• 1:29:44
  For those of us to stand to go proper handoff.
• 1:29:46
  To stay in the zone which you're packing for the road.
• 1:29:49
  There's more than one way to go. Take notes.
• 1:29:51
  That's paying. You're told.
• 1:29:52
  It ain't practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
• 1:29:54
  can't happen to you. Listen what both is.
• 1:29:57
  Can't mentor without a mentor. Years of experience you can
• 1:30:00
  reinvent those years. Every plan's got a standard live
• 1:30:03
  up to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 1:30:06
  It's a choice and to fight not a win or lose it's not a ploy but
• 1:30:09
  the vice of y'all can make more moves It's not about how to it's
• 1:30:13
  all about why you don't know till you know who you all beside
• 1:30:16
  6,000,000 waste of time choose none.
• 1:30:18
  So we all course finish line the work ain't done So we learn from
• 1:30:22
  the experts. We all got to put in the leg
• 1:30:24
  work kill athletics network. It's all about connections put
• 1:30:27
  together for the profession. To every track coach could be
• 1:30:30
  blessing you.