Sport Walk is the home of Sport Walking. We’re working to build awareness of and participation in Sport Walking – walking strongly with a purpose for fitness, challenge or adventure. Sport Walk was created by Roger Burlinson in 2016 after creating and walking an 80km ultra challenge route in the New Forest, Hampshire.
In 2017, Roger refined his approach further, taking on Race to the Stones and completing the 100km event non-stop in under 16 hours. His performance that day (where he finished in the top 50% of all non-stop entrants, both runners and walkers), was a proof of concept and confirmed his beliefs about the potential of walking an ultra challenge.
In 2019, Roger took his Sport Walking up another gear, taking on the South Downs Way, solo (supported) and he completed the 100 mile route non-stop in 27 hours 56 minutes. With the 100 mile distance being something of a pinnacle challenge within ultra running, discovering whether he could walk it within the normal cut off time for a 100 mile ultra race – 30 hours – was a key goal.
Sport Walk’s purpose and mission is to develop and grow Sport Walking as a major participation activity and THE go to way to use walking for fitness. Our development plan sets out our aims both to build awareness of Sport Walking and to grow a community of Sport Walkers worldwide.
It plans to provide resources for walkers, so that they can build challenge into their everyday walks, as well as creating opportunities to take on Sport Walking challenges.
The overriding objective is to turn Sport Walking into one of the most popular and accessible outdoor challenge activities there is.