Striding For Greatness Racewalking Helped Cal Brown Turn Life Around

Calvin Brown walks like a duck.

“Quack, quack, quack,” yells a passer-by as he racewalks down Highway 27.

“If I had a swing like that I’d put it in my back yard,” yells another.

But Brown keeps racewalking, past jokesters and osteoporosis, past a pulled hamstring and inevitable toll of years right up to a gold medal at the USA Track & Field National Masters at age 60.

He bikes, too. Enough to raise more than $10,000 in the last four years for multiple sclerosis. At Goodale and Barbieri, where he manages the STA Plaza, Crescent Court, Washington Trust Financial Center and the Farm Credit Building, people half his age can’t keep up.

His resting pulse is 50. He’s the same weight - 155 - he was in college and he finished the Coeur d’Alene marathon this year five minutes faster than he did a decade ago.

His victories have been so low-key that even his wife, Carrie, didn’t see the national meet last month in San Jose.

He won in pain. Injured just two weeks before, Brown struggled to not limp before judges who checked his form every 100 yards. He followed the lead racers for more than 18 kilometers, assuming he was fourth, then third, until he looked up and saw he had the winning time and sat down, alone, and wept.

“I hurt so bad, I was so tired and so happy I couldn’t help myself.”

“He’s an inspiration to all of us,” said Tom Barbieri, vice president of Goodale and Barbieri. “It puts being 60 in a whole different light.”

Brown’s journey to a national championship began at the end of a downward spiral 15 years ago, where, bankrupt, divorced and nearly paralyzed by a back injury, the one-time banker and developer lay in his Spokane home, near bottom.

In his misery, he rediscovered his faith in God, found a Canadian doctor to treat his ruptured disc and in 1986, picked up a book and videotape on racewalking from the Seattle Pacers, a racewalking club.

Walking from the Spokane Valley toward Rockford on Saturday mornings, he perfected the curious gait of the racewalker: the exaggerated plant of the heel, knee stiff as the body passes over the foot, one foot always on the ground, with his arms bent at 90 degrees, pumping. He felt, well, a little foolish.

He got over it. At road races and marathons, he hogs the center line, walking as straight a line as possible, getting the most propulsion out of the stride.

“He looks almost like he’s moonwalking because it’s so smooth and fluid and efficient,” said Cindy Algeo, a Spokane racewalker who organized the Spokane Striders.

“He’s walking faster than we’re running,” one runner complained at Bloomsday.

“Shut up,” hissed her husband.

Brown loved the camaraderie of such events and the psychological boost he got from feeling fit.

Still, racewalkers were so scarce it wasn’t until 1992 that he even had the chance to compete against another one. His first real race placed him up against the nation’s elite - at the National Masters held in Spokane.

Brown wondered aloud what he was doing there - then finished third. Four years later, when the Nationals were again held here, he finished third in the 5k, second in the 20k.

When he heard the national competition was in San Jose, he knew he had to go. This was the dream of a small, skinny kid growing up in Los Angeles, always the smallest and skinniest, who finally found his stride in track.

Brown trained for a year, plunging into 2-1/2-hour evening workouts at Sta-Fit in the Spokane Valley, followed by long Saturday morning walks. He walked 9-minute miles and lived on broccoli, rice, fish, fruit and vitamin supplements to help his body recover. His memory and competitive edge at work seemed sharper for the workouts, encouraging him further.

“In my generation, when someone was 60, I thought they were ready to retire or push off. That isn’t true,” he says. “At 60 my daughter says, ‘Dad, you walk faster than I can run.’ That’s fun.”

The August gold medal was a sweet moment that Brown notes was reported in the newspaper - across from the obituaries.

After the victory, Brown decided to take a month off training to spend more time with his wife and their 15 grandchildren from their blended families.

Next, he plans to resume competing. He helps the Spokane Striders hold race-walking clinics every spring, attracting new converts to the nearly two dozen members. He’s also refereed at Hoopfest for seven years, donated 17 pints of blood and, of course, rides 150 miles each spring for multiple sclerosis. But he also indulges in Louis L’Amour novels, and sometimes, he just wants to take a walk.

“When he says, ‘Let’s walk this one together,’ I grab on,” his wife says.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. Race watch You can see racewalkers at a 5k championship Sept. 21 at Medical Lake, sponsored by Inland Northwest Track and Field.

2. More information For more on racewalking, contact the Spokane Striders at 747-2486 or algeor@aol.com. The group publishes a monthly newsletter on racewalking.