SPORT WALK

How fast can you actually walk? Chances are, unless you’ve taken our My First Ultra or Get Sport Walking courses and have followed them to the letter, you may not know. Well, if that’s you, we want to change that because knowledge is power – power to progress, power to improve.

So what exactly are we talking about here? Speed tests, that’s what! Speed tests are a really useful tool that can help you plot a course from where you are now to where you want to be. Let’s assume that you’re Sport Walking regularly and have a goal that you’d like to complete a marathon in a particular time. How are you going to do that? How will you know if you’re capable of achieving your goal if you don’t know how fast you can walk?

That’s where speed tests come in because they give you absolute facts to work with, rather than speculation and from these facts, you can calculate what a realistic pace might be and from that, you can know how viable your goal is!

Speed tests are really simple to do but it’s important to point out that they only reveal your top speed, not your likely challenge pace. This might seem like a weakness but, in reality, you have to start with absolutes and then you can work out variables. So, speed tests reveal your ultimate top speed and from that, you can work out a potential pace that’s viable for a longer distance.

You can also use speed tests to record your top speed for the purpose of trying to set a ‘Trail Record’, which is the fastest time for walking a defined way marked trail. You’d record your absolute top speed as a reference, against which the data you collect can be measured, to ensure that you didn’t run because, of course, setting a Sport Walking Trail Record is dependent on you walking the whole way and having one foot on the ground at all times. So, defining your top walking speed sets the speed parameter you must work within for your record attempt.

But this is more of an advanced situation. In the majority of cases, speed tests are carried out by Sport Walkers looking to understand where their current ability is at and to help them calculate pace for a challenge.

The Process

To conduct a speed test, find a piece of flat, level ground with scope for you to walk 50 metres (with a bit extra at either end) in a straight line. You want to imagine you’re able to lay out half a 100 metre athletics sprint track and find a location that would be right for that.

Next set yourself a start line and then a finish line. Now it doesn’t have to be exactly 50 metres, the actual distance doesn’t feature in the data, only your speed but 50 metres is a good distance to allow you to reach your top speed. If you try your first speed test and find that you run out of space then look for a different location with more room. You could even do it at a local running track if you have facilities available to you.

You’ll need to have a sports watch that can record speed and pace data or, at the very least, an accurate stopwatch. If you only have a stopwatch, then you will need to mark out your course more accurately in order to calculate your pace and speed over that distance. So in that situation, marking out exactly 50 or 100 metres is really important.

If you have a sports watch that can record live pace and speed data though, the actual distance isn’t that important because it will give you your speed data for the whole course, so if it’s 50, 60 or 75 metres it won’t matter, you’ll be able to see what your top speed was.

Before we go on, a quick word about technique. The information you’re going to record is for your benefit and it’s a clear indicator of your current ability. So…. there’s no benefit in switching to a different walking technique to what you’d normally use in your Sport Walking, in order to achieve a faster speed! That’s not proving anything and it’s not helping you!

You want to walk with exactly the same walking style and technique as you’d normally go Sport Walking with because then you’ll know for sure the speed potential using that technique. Switching to a Race Walking technique in order to produce a bunch of impressive stats tells you nothing about your capability, so stick with your normal Sport Walking technique.

Once you’ve got everything set up and in place, you simply start walking and start your watch or stopwatch at the same time. You want to go out as hard and as fast as you can manage – remember, you’re looking to record your absolute top speed. Keep walking and hold that speed as long as you can. If you’re using a sports watch that records speed and pace data, you can stop as soon as you feel yourself slowing down because you’ll have recorded your top speed.

If you’re using a stopwatch, you’ll need to continue right to the end of the course but if you’re unable to hold your top speed for the whole distance, then you’ll want to shorten the course and then adjust your calculations at the end to reflect that.

Repeat the test two further times, so you have three test recordings and then, either calculate your speed (you’ll find lots of information about doing that online) or view your speed data and track through until you find the peak that shows you your absolute top speed for each test.

From there, you simply pick the fastest speed out of the three and this gives you your absolute top speed potential. Now, obviously, you won’t be able to hold that speed for longer than 50 – 100 metres, so you’ll need to estimate down from there to a speed that feels viable and then test that theory out in training but you’ll still have your top speed as a trophy speed and you can also repeat the tests every six to twelve months or so, to see how you’re progressing because as you get fitter, stronger and more capable as a Sport Walker, your top speed potential will increase, simply by improving your fitness and technique.

You can get more guidance on speed tests in our Get Sport Walking course, which also gives you a manual method for working out your speed if just using a stopwatch.