GUTS to GLORY
Bev LaVeck Is Still Racewalking
After 25 Years and Winning

By Sherry Brosnahan

When you watch Bev LaVeck racewalk, with a style that seems as effortless as it is efficient, you might assume she was a natural. And you’d be wrong. “I wasn’t one of those fortunate people who take to racewalking naturally,” she says.

Bev got her start in racewalking through running. “I got caught up in the running boom of the 1970s,” she says. “And having an irritatingly intact sense of endurance, I loved marathons.” Several marathons and stress fractures later, Bev turned to racewalking to extend her running life.

“In Seattle, there were racewalking clinics, articles, and all-comers events, so it was relatively easy to find out about racewalking,” she recalls. “I liked it right away, but it took a while for me to learn.” She says it was advantageous that she began racewalking in the month of January when nobody could see her training in the dark.

Now a resident of tiny Mazama, WA, Bev laughs as she describes her first local race as a racewalker in 1980 (“I beat the only other walker, and he said I was cheating”) and her first out-of-state race shortly thereafter (“We did everything wrong, went out too fast, had a very embarrassing day”). She was disqualified regularly, but she persevered. “I was pretty good at straight legged running, but after a couple of years I became flexible enough in the right places to racewalk properly.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

By 1983, Bev had mastered the technique enough to rack up world track “bests” at 100 kilometers and 100 miles and she began medalling at national championships in the shorter distances. Today Bev, now 68, holds 15 U.S. masters for racewalking for distances from 3k to 50k.

Bev’s dedication to the sport extended beyond competition. She was one of the first racewalking judges to make IAFF Number One Panel. She served as U.S. Masters Racewalking Coordinator, kept U.S. and World Masters records, and devised Standards of Excellence for National Masters News. In honor of her contributions as an administrator and an athlete, Bev was inducted into the U.S.A. Track and Field Masters Hall of Fame in 1996. “There was so much to do to get racewalking into its present prominence in masters athletics, especially women’s racewalking,” she explains. “I’m proud to have helped.”

For Bev, racewalking has been more than records and trophies: it’s part of a healthy lifestyle. “Walking kept me fit for tennis and hiking with my husband Jerry,” she says. And it helped her through a very difficult time after Jerry died suddenly. “I’m not sure how I managed to get out and walk after that, but I think I simply knew I had to,” she says. “It was very hard, but I had friends in the area who wanted me to come out and walk. If I hadn’t walked, I would have just sat in the house by myself, and I knew that wouldn’t be good.”

According to Bev, enduring friendship is one of the best things about racewalking. “When I was starting out in the 1980s, I had the encouragement and support of women who were competitive and knowledgeable but very generous,” she says. “There was a known genealogy — everyone knew who trained with whom — and I had racewalking friends all up and down the West Coast.”

The most annoying part of racewalking for Bev? Slugs. “In the Portland to Coast Relay, there’s an early morning segment and there are slugs everywhere,” she says. “It’s barely light and you can’t see them so you slip.” Ick!

With a competitive career dating back 25 years, Bev has no shortage of amusing stories to tell. Like the time she was the only racewalker in a women’s road race, in an area where racewalking wasn’t exactly a run-of-the-mill sport. “The runners did their best to ignore me as I warmed up,” she says. “They politely averted their eyes, probably because I looked like I had an unusual disability and they didn’t want to stare. Maybe they didn’t want to have to show me how to do it right.”

At times, racewalking advice was hard to come by. “I was eager to walk a 100-mile race, and I asked Martin Rudow how to train for it, but he had only raced 20Ks,” Bev recalls. “He said ‘go out and walk a lot.’” She took his advice, taking 8 to 12 hour walks around Seattle, and had an outstanding 100-mile race. “As it turns out, his advice was pretty good, since it got me used to being on my feet for long periods of time. It didn’t matter what kind of ambulation I did but for how long.” Since then, Bev dispenses similar advice for first-time marathon walkers: to do at least one five-hour walk within a month of the marathon.

The advice Bev regrets heeding was to skip the 1984 Olympic Trials. “The women’s racewalk was an exhibition event then, and the advice I got was ‘Why travel to an event where you won’t walk your best because it will be too hot?’” Racewalking would become an Olympic event for women in the Barcelona Olympics in 1988.

“There were times I shouldn’t have listened to myself, either,” she admits, “Like the time they were introducing the racewalkers at a major track meet and I wished the track would just swallow me up.” Over time, she learned how to handle the excitement of a big race. “At one of the WAVA races, I told myself, ‘Finally! It’s been so long since I raced, I’m really looking forward to this — this is going to be FUN!’”

The best advice Bev has to offer first-time racewalkers: train anywhere, but avoid construction sites and middle schools unless you’re thick-skinned or hard of hearing. “Men beginning to racewalk should take a female racewalker with them,” she says. “Work on your flexibility and learn how to automatically relax your non-working body parts.” And pay attention to holes in the road and slanted pavement.

Bev, who has been very fortunate in avoiding racewalking injuries, is also a proponent of cross-training. “I think we do best mixing our activity among varied pursuits,” she says. And not simply ambulatory activities, but weights, swimming, kayaking, splitting wood — “all kinds of stuff.” And to prevent injury she recommends seeing a racewalk-knowledgeable physical therapist early on if your back and hip joints begin to hurt — before there’s a problem.”

“And above all else, have fun!” she advises. “It’s all about fun — for life!”

Sherry Brosnahan is a writer, publicist, and the world’s fastest 50-year old female racewalker at the 50k. She holds nine American masters racewalking records and was U.S.A. Track and Field’s Female Master’s Racewalker in the year 2002.