Dylan Richardson and Allanah Pitcher win State walks ahead of International Meets

25 June 2023

Dylan Richardson and Allanah Pitcher win State walks ahead of International Meets

Central Coast training partners, Allanah Pitcher and Dylan Richardson won today’s NSW 10km Team Walk Championships shortly before they head overseas for major competitions. Competing at the Armory in Newington, Allanah clocked 46:00 while Dylan recorded 42:30. In just 10 days Allanah will embark on her journey to the world championships in Budapest, via a training stint at altitude in St Moritz. Dylan heads to China in late July for the World University Games, but more immediately he heads for two weeks to America to attend his brother’s wedding.

Teenager, Allanah Pitcher, was rather pleased with her time today as it was largely a sprint distance for her as she will tackle 35km in Budapest at the world championships in August.

Dylan Richardson was also pleased.

“42:30 today and at National I clocked 41:56, so second fastest 10k ever so happy with that,” he said.

Dylan had good opposition to test him, with 2022 World Championships representative Carl Gibbons also racing. Mid-race Carl broke away from Dylan and looked to be heading for the win, but Dylan fought back to take the lead and go on for the win.

Carl Gibbons had an incredible 2022 year where he competed at two global meets and now Dylan is following in his footsteps onto the international stage.

“For me personally it has been motivating seeing Carl at the world championships last year and on National teams and I want to be there on those teams with them (including Allanah Pitcher),” he said.

Dylan flies out tomorrow morning at 4.00am to American for his brother’s wedding, then is back to Sydney for a week, were he needs to secure his visa for China, ahead of training at Chengdu in China for six days for acclimatation ahead of the World University Games.

Dylan’s 2023 campaign has seen him PB in almost every race from distances from 5000m to 35km walk. But these rewards don’t just happened, but at the result of hard work and discipline. Dylan gave us an insight to just how hard athletes at his level train and why he thinks he has improved so much this year.

“Last year I stepped up my consistency and the distance; I was averaging 100k training weeks and I think having that behind me helped. Then this year I’ve had weeks up to 150k, and consistently around the 120 or 125k mark. It is mostly walking and it is normally around twelve to twelve and half hours of training (per week),” said Dylan.

He trains early in the morning. “If I can get out and train before 8am, it is easy to back up in the afternoon with an easy 6 to 10k before it is dark.”

With that much time training, Dylan is aiming to make it pleasurable.

“Competing and racing is the fun bit, but finding a way of making those 150k weeks enjoyable, not fatiguing or grinding is the goal.”

Certainly for Dylan this includes getting selected for teams. I had two trips to Japan for five days and you don’t get to see much, but it is an experience.”

National teams on the radar for Dylan include 2024 World Race Walking Teams Championships; 2025 world championships, World Unis and World Race Walking teams championships, then in 2026 is the Commonwealth Games.

David Tarbotton for Athletics NSW
Image: Dylan Richardson (courtesy of David Tarbotton)