#172 - race walking

this is the most ridiculous thing i've seen... possibly ever. i had to post a video of it because there's no way a still photo could capture the ridiculous-ness. still, even this video of one person race walking cannot compare to a whole field of walkers doing this... in high definition... for over an hour... all of it televised... *shudder*...

this is what i know about race walking:

1. one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times - i guess that's what makes it "walking" and not running (it's called "lifting" if both your feet come off the ground). BUT... they show the slo-motion of all the walkers and ALL of them are in the air, dude. so the rules were clarified to say that as long as it looks like one foot is always on the ground to the naked eye, it's okay. wtf. have some intergrity people. sigh.

2. the front leg must be fully extended for each step - how frustrating is to try and race, but have all these restrictions on your range of motion? especially when running is so much easier and simpler than "race walking" and more natural. it must take tremendous restraint to have to keep your body in check when everything just wants to go forward and faster. plus what if you're in the back? you gotta be thinking, just let me run like five strides and i could be in the front please, so frustrating.

3. if you violate these rules three times (you get a yellow "paddle" for a violation), you are disqualified - how sad is that to have to admit that you were disqualified from race-walking?

4. the camera loves the head-on angle - all i see are hips! side to side! eeww!!! y'know those old ladies who speed-walk down the street? they look exactly the same as olympic race-walkers... does that mean that those ladies are super cool or the athletes are very, very sad? the latter, definately. but pretty much all of them wear sunglasses, hats, and little, little bicycle shorts, with their arms swinging wildly and their hips... oh... the humanity.

5. the track is a long flat oval with mist-ers and the race takes about an hour - mist-ers? c'mon, i thought they were olympic athletes? that's like in f-zero when you go through that "beam me up some energy" section to recharge your life. this is not the waiting line at universal studios.

6. still, the race is very hazardous - as the walkers grab water bottles, they seriously throw them down angrily when their done drinking. as i was watching, one person stepped on one of the tons of water bottles on the ground and sprained his ankle. also, they walk in packs and talk smack throughout. okay, the smack talk might be the one cool aspect about race walking.

okay so absolutely ridiculous right? and even if you win the gold medal in race walking, what, you can say that you're the fastest walker? what does that matter when your fastest walking is still slower than some average couch potato's jog? i mean, c'mon, really... just run. it's not worth it. it doesn't look cool. it's not fast. it looks more painful than anything else. just not worth it at all.

but the funniest part about it is that while i was watching this, nicole called me, she was watching the same thing and thought that i'd get a kick out of it, haha, we were both cracking up on the phone.