I wouldn’t say they do. “Walked on the plank” just sounds like he’s walking along a wooden board that’s sitting on the ground, or else using a gangplank for its intended function. “Walked the plank” specifically conjures up images of a gangplank cantilevered over the side of a pirate ship.
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Guess I needed the /s there.
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You also hear “walk the straight and narrow” (from the Biblical passage, walking the straight and honest path), or also sometimes “toe the line” (from the literal sense of setting your feet at the starting line of a race).
Speaking of lines, there’s the Japanese ことわざ,「好い線を行く」(be on the right track).
The earliest uses of the phrase were used in reference to sailors in the Royal Navy lining up on deck for inspection, with their toes along the seam line between two planks. It’s not recorded in a sports context until about sixty years later, and even then it was boxing, not racing.
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Running? 
Where are the lines in boxing? 
It’s the places where boxers are supposed to stand before the match begins.
I don’t remember that in Hajime no Ippo. 
That might be because Hajime no Ippo isn’t set in 1840s Britain.
I wouldn’t know for sure, though. I’ve never watched Hajime no Ippo.
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