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Allanah Pitcher: False fears, genuine grit

In the countdown to Allanah Pitcher’s preparation for her 10,000m walking event at the 2025 Australian Athletics Championships in Perth, the race in which she became national champion, she allowed her mind to run through a series of worse case scenarios of ‘doom’.

The 20-year-old spent time picturing everything that could possibly go wrong in a race that is as mentally gruelling as it physically and technically exhausting. Pitcher conjured the type of situations most people would avoid thinking about through fear of ‘jinxing’ themselves, explaining her process is actually an exercise in empowerment.

“You don’t give your fears power,” the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship athlete said of her unique preparation.

“I have a mental warmup I do before I race. It’s a few different things and quite a long process. I physically write it down before a race and then talk myself through all the things I’m fearing because there are so many things that can go wrong [in race walking].

“But being able to sit with that and disengage from it, is a really important step before starting. I say all the things I’m afraid of: ‘what if my technique starts falling apart and I can’t really fix it;’ ‘what if I start feeling sick;’ ‘what if I drop my water when I really need it,’ or ‘what if I get a cramp in my leg?’

“I have a term for this narrative – ‘fake danger’ – because it’s almost like these fears aren’t a real danger. Races are a construct; a thing we’re putting on for ourselves. Being able to disengage with the fears [comes back to simply understanding] these aren’t things I should let overwhelm me because, at the end of the day, it’s just a race.

“Besides that, my preparation includes sensory aspects, getting grounded with the surroundings, and just focussing on the process because the process never fails you. All of those little prep components . . . even knowing the pace you’re going to sit at . . . the process never fails.”

Pitcher is an undoubted talent, breaking the national record for the 35km walk by a staggering three minutes when she was only 19. Remarkably, the furthest distance she’d completed at training before that race was ‘only’ 30km.

Besides gaining her selection on the national team which competed at the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships, Pitcher’s victory also provided an insight into her sense of humour when she described the toughness of the endurance race as: ‘a lot of fun.’

“My definition of fun is probably a little bit sadistic [laughs], but it’s a cool process to get to do what we do,” said Pitcher, who was a reserve for last year’s Australian Olympic Team.

“I enjoy endurance sports in general. I think it’s super interesting what you can make your body persevere and endure through, but race walking has the extra layer to it. Not only do you have to physically endure the pain, but you also need to stay technically sound the entire race.

“And when you get fatigued [you have to maintain the technique]. I like the analogy that it doesn’t matter that you never see a marathon runner finish a race with a beautiful and impeccable technique, but walkers need to maintain our technique right to the very last stride.

“That extra challenge is always very exciting . . . I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I enjoy that and also analysing my own technique.”

Race walking prioritises precision and discipline. Perhaps that’s not surprising considering the sport is believed to have originated in the 19^th century when English noblemen placed bets on who had the fastest footman, a servant who ran alongside horse drawn carriages to remove any obstacle that might make the carriage overturn.

It evolved into an Olympic event which requires good posture, an exact stride length, hip roll with each stride, arms pumping at a 90-degree angle and an abnormal form of gait because no visible loss of contact with the ground is permitted. It also requires a deliberate foot strike in which has the heel hits the ground first and rolls forward to the ball of the athlete’s foot.

In other words, it’s tough!

And for Pitcher, a Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering, she taps into her sadistic sense of humour when she volunteers how her university degree might help her one day.

“I think sometimes: ‘oh wow, this will probably have consequences in the future’,” said the NSW central coast athlete of the toll her sporting passion is most likely taking on her body. “But I do chuckle because biomechanical engineers are commonly hired to do designs of knee and hip replacements in patients, so I can design my own hip and knee replacement one day! [laughs]”

In the meantime, Pitcher will continue to ensure those pre-race false fears hold no power, and that she continues to endure physical and mental challenges most people wouldn’t even want to imagine.

Daniel Lane, NSWIS

NSWIS athletes competing at the National Athletics Championships, Perth.