When I was selling running shoes maybe a decade ago, we would get the occasional “speed walker” in the store.
This group in particular was only interested in racing flats, which are lightweight, really low-pitch shoes.
On top of this, they only wanted shoes that were dark in colour.
If the soles were too bright, they would even consider painting them out black.
I asked about this, and it turns out that when the shoes are dark, it’s harder for the judges to see if they lift the foot at the wrong time (and thus break the rules of the race walking).
If the foot lifts at the wrong time, then the athlete is air borne, which, is closer to runnning.
Seems like it’s a good time to get clear on the intent around the things that we are doing – if we compete in race walking, then we have an agreement to stick to the rules. If not, we may as well just start running and enter a seperate event.
You can shortcut a system at a low level, but sooner or later it’s going to come back around. If you don’t like the parameters of that game, you can easily choose a different one with a new set of rules.
