Why do Americans spell it as one word. I've never understood that. Race walk, 2 words. OO sorry I dodged your question. Girls like the fact that: I am raising money for charity, I have a good sense of humour, a good sense of humour (with a wink and a nudge), I have integrity, I have stamina... but they get caught up on the fact that I am wholly unattractive. But to be fair to race walking, I dont think it's the reason I'm ugly, so lets give it a pass on that one!
I started when I was 10 years old because, I don't know, I was 10. And I won my first race and I liked winning so I kept doing it. And then I got older, and it was just what I did. I find it easier and more fun than running because, it's what I do. Most common injuries off the top of my head would be hamstring tears. We are much lower impact than running (hence why we have guys were are in their late 40s and still competing at the Olympic level, it's partly that and partly the lack of depth in the event).
But because of the lower impact we have way fewer stress fractures, no cross training, no soft surface training. I see sooo many people that would benefit way more from a health perspective to walk instead of run. Better on your joints and you can still work at every relative intensity you could running. For example my VO2max while race walking is 75ml/kg/min and I can walk 20km with an average HR over 180bpm (my average HR in Rio for the 50km was 174).
Lycra, way too much lycra
Yah so the rule is officially that lifting has to be to the naked eye. So yah we are all off the ground about .04sec per stride (about what the human eye can detect). It sucks and we need to change that to have even the slimmest chance of sticking around. We have insoles that are being tested right now that measure ground contact and we could go to an automated system in a couple years. It would obviously slow the times down massively. But also it would ruin the accessibility that is so great with running and walking, using technology could make it inaccessible to some people. The 50km Walk was one of 2 events in Rio where the top 4 places represented 4 different Areas. Which is pretty cool. Guatemala and Ecuador have both won their first Olympic medals in race walk which shows how accessible it is. Which I like. The Ecuadorian was actually so famous he ran for President and finished runner-up I believe.
My opinion would be to make the races longer. The 50km race doesn't see nearly as much criticism about lifting (the Rio 50km actually received tons of praise world wide for the display of gruelling athleticism that was displayed with athletes passing out at the finish line, guys shitting blood collapsing and then getting up and finishing etc...
Speaking from experience. Yes.
Best example of a week I can give you would be a solid training camp week when we are down in Australia in Jan and Feb or prepping for a major 50km.
Monday would be an easy 10-15km in the morning; 10-12x1km averaging 3:50 or so in the evening
Tuesday: Easy 15km; 90min gym; 8-10km
Wednesday: 35-45km; sometimes throw in an easy 5-8km pm
Thursday: Easy 10-15; 90min gym
Friday: 14km Stromlo- hill in Canberra, 400m net elevation gain. Done as a Tempo; 60:30 pb; Easy 8-10k
Saturday: 40-45km; occasional pm
Sunday: optional easy 10 or off.
My favourite training day when fit and prepping for a 50km is to do a moderate 40km in the morning and a 10km tempo in the evening. In 2016 before Rio I did a 3:07 40km in the morning and then walked a Canadian record 39:20 in the afternoon.
So as I said, way lower impact so no nearly as much stress on the body as running. Race walking looks super volatile and aggressive but its way better on your body. We use a lot more Glut Med than running (vs. Glut Max) so we get some injuries there because it's a smaller muscle mass trying to do a lions share of work. But I'd say overall injury rate is much much lower than in marathon runners.
I started running when I was 9. I was the shortest kid in the class, red curly hair, big thick glasses, born 5 weeks premature so I was a prime target for bullying/ not super athletic but I worked my butt off and loved sport and wanted to find something I was good at and then I did this lunch time run at my school and found out that I could run for long periods of time without getting tired and was quite good so I kept doing it and I loved how easily you could see your hard work pay off... run every day for a week or 2 and go from running 9 laps to 10 laps. Then my older brother who also started running had his appendix out and his high school coach thought while his stitches healed that race walk might keep him fit and not stress the stitches. So he tried it, as the younger brother I figured if he could do it it couldn't be too hard so I tried it, won my first race and stuck with it.