March 23, 2006

Patti Purdin, right, and Chelsea Alexander in No Common Scents’ new space, inside the former Eye 1 building.

By Lauren Heaton

Yes, racewalking is an official Olympic sport and has been for 92 years. Yes, it is as taxing as running. No, not many states include it as a high school track and field event.

And, yes, Yellow Springs High School senior Tina Peters is the nation’s high school race walking champion.

Peters walked to first place at the Nike Indoor Nationals in Maryland on Saturday, March 11, beating a field of 21 other athletes. She set her personal record to finish the one-mile race in 7:25.71.

The following day in New York City, out of a field of 30 girls, Tina took the title in the National Scholastic Indoor Championship one-mile race in 7:36.13.

Peters said she was “happy” to have won the top two high school girls events in the country.

“It’s definitely nice to end my senior year of indoors like this,” she said.

She entered the races knowing she had a good chance of winning this year because in 2005 she won her first national title at the Nike nationals and finished second to a senior at the National Scholastic Championship.

But Peters has long had her sights set on a much bigger goal: to reach the 2012 summer Olympic Games in London in the racewalk.

The road to the top is a lonely one, especially for high school racewalkers, who enjoy precious little company in Ohio, where they probably number fewer than 10. But Tina’s coach, Vince Peters, who is also her father and the national chairman of USA Racewalking, is determined to try to promote racewalking as a national sport.

“You’ve heard of the loneliness of the long distance runner? Right now, the only person lonelier than the distance runner is the racewalker,” Vince Peters said. “We need to increase awareness of the event nationwide, start educating at the collegiate level, and make coaches aware of how to coach racewalking.”

What is race walking exactly?

Peters said the racewalk is to runners what the butterfly is to swimmers: “an event requiring more technique for getting from point A to point B.”

Some people think that racewalking will be easier than running, until they try to do it and realize that it can be quite difficult, Tina Peters said.

The two main rules in racewalking are that the body must maintain contact with the ground at all times and the supporting leg must be straight at the knee from the moment the heel contacts the ground until it passes under the body. A walker can be disqualified from a race if three of the five officials observe an athlete in violation of the rules.

Racewalking is also easier on the knees than running, but it requires a hip rotation at the spine for maximum forward motion.

Tina didn’t have much choice about her sports activities. Before she was born she was running with her mother, Jennifer Peters, who ran a marathon when she was pregnant with Tina.

At 2 weeks old, Tina attended her first track meet to watch the YSHS distance team her dad began coaching several years earlier. After her brother, Andy Peters, now a sophomore at YSHS, was born, the whole family ran in the annual Ghost and Goblins runs, the Turkey Trots and other 5K road races and participated in the Miami Valley Track Club, which Vince Peters also coaches.

Peters first began coaching racewalking in the late 1980s to high school student Justin Piatt, whose body was better suited to walking than running. The year Tina turned 7, her father began coaching racewalking at Cedarville University, where Tina became enamored of the older racewalkers. She decided she would try it, and the following year she qualified for Junior Olympic nationals.

Next year Tina plans to attend Goshen College in Indiana, where she received a scholarship for running and walking. She will be the school’s first racewalker, and her father will support her by continuing to encourage the national athletic associations to include racewalking as a scoring event in their conferences.

Though she has tasted success, and her near future is set, Tina said she does not plan to take any breaks. High school track season has already begun, and she is practicing for the mile and the two-mile runs and relays. She is also preparing to travel to the next three big racewalking events, the April 9 World Cup Qualifier, Junior Nationals in June and her last Junior Olympic Championship in July.

Tina is accustomed to training year-round, and though she might take a few weeks off each year, she said she always looks forward to getting back out on the road. When she gets tired of walking, she runs, but either way, training is a way of life she has grown accustomed to and intends to continue.

“You get more energy when you run,” she said. ‘You might take a few days off, but after that you want to get out there and run again.”

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com