Three kilometres into his race through East Boston Memorial Park, Kevin Gaiesky was on a personal-best pace at the CanAm Dual race walk match.
Maintaining a speedy pace is one thing, but success in race walking means being fast while staying within the rules and Gaiesky was coming dangerously close to disqualification in Sunday's junior mixed 10-kilometre race.
"It was actually a terrible race, my time was pretty bad" said Gaiesky, a bronze medalist last month at the Canadian senior national championships in Calgary. "I started out on a PB pace and it felt pretty comfortable, doing a kilometre every 4:50. But I passed the DQ board and I saw I had two warnings, so I had to slow down."
Gaiesky finished 10th in 59:01, well off his own best time of 53 minutes.
Race walkers are allowed only two warnings for rule infractions and one more to Gaiesky would have resulted in his disqualification. According to the judges, he was guilty of not straightening his advancing leg at the knee from the moment of contact with the ground until the leg passes the vertical upright position.
"They were both on the same lap and none of the judges said anything to me, I just saw it as I passed the board," said Gaiesky. "My knee wasn't locking so I had to slow down. I just have work on my technique, trying to find the most efficient way to do the sport effectively. With race walk, you have to find that area where you're really close to being DQ'd, but you're technically fine."
Race walkers also have to maintain contact with the ground with at least one foot long enough so that there is no visible gap between the ground and the foot. The front foot has to be on the ground when the rear foot is lifted. But that wasn't a problem for Gaiesky.
Ben Thorne of Kitimat, 18, won the 10km junior race in 43:13 and Bruno Carriere of Quebec was third in 49:30. Thorne, the Canadian junior 10km record holder, posted the fourth-fastest time in the dual meet's 23-year history. Based on the combined men's, women's and junior results, the United States won the dual meet 24-20.
The dual meet was run in warm and humid conditions and Gaiesky said he had plenty of energy throughout his 10km race.
"It was a slow time - it wasn't tiring as much as it was disappointing," he said.
It was the first international race for Gaiesky, a 17-year-old Prince George Track and Field Club member who started race walking at age 9. Aside from his result, he said the trip to Boston was thoroughly enjoyable.
"It's a really old city and it's really cool just to walk through it," he said. "We went to places like Paul Revere's house and Old North Church, all the buildings and everything is amazing there.
"These race walk-only meets give you a different experience than team events. In a team event you might have only one or two race walkers on a team but with these you have seven race walkers on one team in one place."
