Enter the ’90s and an influx of walkers who wanted to go the marathon distance. Fortunately, there were some marathons (Honolulu, Portland) whose courses could be held open long enough for a walker to complete the marathon in an open-ended time. Play with the math: At a 15-minute-per-mile pace, a walker can finish a marathon in just over 6 1/2 hours. The conflict came when walkers who were going to take 6 1/2 hours to complete a marathon insisted that they be let into marathons in which the governmental entities that controlled the streets and roads dictated that the course be cleared of bodies after 5 1/2 hours. Some especially scenic marathons (Big Sur, Napa) were thus closed off to walkers, lest the race directors tick off the governmental officials to the point that road permits would in the future be refused.

hapless race director: “You’re making me a second-class citizen.” It mattered not that the whole subject was out of the hands of the race director. “Caltrans [California Department of Transportation] allows us to completely close down Highway 1 for 5 1/2 hours,” Wally Kastner, race director of the Big Sur International Marathon, says. “People can’t expect them to let us close it down forever so someone can stroll from Big Sur to Carmel. We’re lucky they don’t take back some of the 5 1/2 hours we now enjoy.” The occasional race director bearded with the “You’re making me a second-class citizen” guilt trip finally had enough and responded: “You’re the one making yourself a second-class citizen. If you’d make your legs go faster, you’d move up to first class.” The conflict could occasionally become ugly. In spite of the fact that

most walkers understood the difficulty some race directors faced, didn’t take it personally, and gravitated to marathons that were able to accommodate them safely, an arrogant handful decided to take matters into their own feet.

ENTER THE ARROGANT WALKER The Arrogant Walker came equipped with a line of guilt to inflict on the

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They either started early, thereby screwing up the race’s scoring, or they entered races they knew they could not finish within the allotted time and stayed out on the course well past its closing, thereby putting in jeopardy the race’s permits and often years of carefully nurtured relations between race directors and highway departments, local merchants, and police agencies. For some marathon race directors, the solution seemed perfectly simple: Urge the walkers to organize their own races. In many instances, the race directors offered to walk walkers through the briar patch of race insurance, permit application, volunteer coordination, sponsor searches, course certification, race sanctions, and so forth. But of course, that was too much like work for the Arrogant Walker. Better to scab onto existing running races where someone else did all the work. In some areas over the past few years, the threats of overworked and increasingly underfinanced public safety departments barraged with citizen complaints of walking “runners” keeping courses active long past the permit’s stipulations have put some races very near the blade of the bureaucratic axe. Fortunately, some walkers who are sympathetic to the race director’s plight at the feet of Arrogant Walkers and who virulently disapprove of the bad image that most walkers are getting from the efforts of the evil few have taken the matter into their own feet.

In 2003, at the annual Portland Marathon Race Directors’ Workshops, Judy Heller, president of a group called Wonders of Walking (www.wondersof walking.com), outlined her efforts to put together a series of walking races independent of running races. She had gone so far as to plan a walking relay that would cover several hundred miles. “People who put on running races are not our enemies,” she says. “It is easy for any right-thinking person to see and appreciate their dilemma. If walkers want events that cater to them, it’s time to step up and create them. This is not an antagonist situation where it is walkers versus runners. We’re all working for the same goal—only on different tracks. We need to take the lead and put some work into fashioning our own events.” Judy was back at the 2004 workshops with reports that her organization was enjoying quite a bit of success and was energized to do even more to create future walking-only events. “Some of the race directors have been very patient and understanding of the needs of walkers over the years,” Judy says. “But we need to do more to make our own way. We’re all moving in the same direction, walkers and runners both, but at different speeds. We can look forward to traveling parallel tracks for the greater benefit of both.” Now all we have to do is keep the Arrogant Runner from entering walking-only events and spoiling them for the walkers. —Rich Benyo