Advanced Technique & Performance

This page is for competitive walkers already racing regularly and looking to progress toward regional, national, or international level .

The competition pathway

International championships: - Olympic Games (every 4 years): 20km (men and women), plus the Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay (42.195km), introduced at Paris 2024. The men’s 50km was discontinued after Tokyo 2020. - World Athletics Championships (odd years): from 1 January 2026, the 20km and 35km events have been replaced by half marathon (21.0975km) and marathon (42.195km) race walks. - Commonwealth Games: 20km events, a discipline New Zealand has a proud history in — Alana Barber’s silver at the 2018 Gold Coast Games remains the country’s best modern-era result. - World Race Walking Team Championships (biennial): individual and team medals, with New Zealand regularly sending a small squad.

New Zealand domestic structure, administered by Athletics New Zealand: -National 10km Road Championships; - New Zealand Track & Field Championships (historically 3,000m/5,000m track walks — check current ANZ regulations for the up-to-date programme) - New Zealand Masters Athletics championships for 35+ athletes, regional and national

The junior pathway runs from Colgate Games (primary level) through Secondary Schools Championships (regional and national) into age-group nationals (U18, U20), with some athletes progressing to World Athletics U20 competition or straight into senior representation while still age-eligible. Selection for national teams weighs qualifying standards, national championship results, and World Athletics rankings.

Race-day execution

Preparation: - Warm up for 20–30 minutes: easy walking, technique drills, a few short accelerations - Have a genuine pacing strategy rather than a vague target — decide your splits in advance - Arrive 60–90 minutes before your start with a consistent, practiced routine

During the race: - Start conservatively — it’s far easier to speed up mid-race than recover from going out too hard - Chunk the distance rather than dwelling on the total: focus on the next aid station or the next kilometre marker, not the whole race - Alternate attention between association (internal focus on technique, breathing, pace) and dissociation (external focus, scenery) — association tends to serve experienced athletes better, but dissociation has its place in the hard patches - If you receive a warning paddle, treat it as information, not failure — correct immediately rather than getting rattled. Technique degrades under stress, so staying calm is itself a technical skill - In the closing kilometres, this is genuinely where races are decided mentally — trust your training and hold form to the line

After: - Cool down properly (10–15 min easy) - Give yourself 24–48 hours before analysing the race objectively — what worked, what didn’t, what you’ll change. Avoid harsh self-judgement in the immediate aftermath; useful reflection needs a bit of distance

Mental preparation as a trainable skill

Treat this the same way you treat physical training — it improves with deliberate practice, not by hoping it shows up on the day.

Goal-setting that actually helps: - Outcome goals (“win the race”) are the least controllable — motivating, but not something to build your whole race around - Performance goals (“walk 10km under 50 minutes”) give clearer training direction - Process goals (“relaxed shoulders, quick arms”) are the most controllable and the most useful mid-race, when outcome and performance goals aren’t something you can act on directly

Visualisation: 5–10 minutes daily in the weeks before a key race — rehearsing the full race, including how you’ll respond to fatigue, being passed, or a judge’s warning, not just the parts that go well.

Handling disqualification or a bad race: it happens to elite walkers too. Feel the disappointment, don’t dwell on it during the day itself, and do the real analysis 24–48 hours later once the emotion has settled. One bad race is data, not a verdict.

Staying motivated over a long season: reconnect regularly with your actual reason for doing this — health, community, challenge, competition — especially in the flat, unglamorous middle of a training block. A training log that shows the long-term trend helps on the weeks when nothing feels like it’s working.

Training at this level

At 100+ km/week, the structure shifts: some athletes add a second daily session several days a week, interval and tempo work becomes more precisely targeted, and the classic hard-day/easy-day pattern still governs everything even as total volume rises. A few tools become relevant here that aren’t necessary earlier on:

• Heat acclimatisation — 10–14 days of gradual, deliberate heat exposure before racing in hot conditions

• Altitude training — some elite walkers use training camps to stimulate adaptation, though it needs careful planning and enough time to actually absorb

• Taper discipline — in the 10–14 days before a major race, cut volume by 40–60% while holding on to some intensity work, so you arrive fresh without losing sharpness

Coaching and further development

A coach becomes increasingly valuable at this level — for technical refinement under fatigue, individualised programming, and the outside perspective that’s hard to get training alone. Options range from a club coach (most accessible, group-based) through to personal or remote coaching for more individualised attention.

When assessing a coach, useful questions include their race-walking-specific experience (not just general endurance coaching), how they structure programmes, how often you’d communicate, and whether a trial period is available before committing.

For self-directed study, a few titles worth knowing about: Race Walk Like a Champion (Jeff Salvage) and Training for the Complete Racewalker (Dave McGovern) are race-walking-specific; Daniels’ Running Formula (Jack Daniels) and 80/20 Running (Matt Fitzgerald) cover training-intensity principles that transfer directly, even though they’re written for runners.

On judging — RWA already has real depth here within the club, with a WARECS-accredited judge and a Level 3 judge among the membership. If you’re interested in officiating as your own next step in the sport (many serious walkers eventually do), that’s a conversation worth having directly with the club rather than starting from an online course.

Talk to a coach or committee member if you’re weighing a serious step up — pathway decisions like this are worth a real conversation, not just a plan you build alone.