Walking during a run

bucketybuck

As a beginner to running, I would be interested in hearing opinions from other runners regarding walking in the middle of a run or race.

To explain, I did my first 10k two weekends ago, (my goal was under an hour and I finished in 56.23 so I was delighted with myself). Anyway, for almost the entire way I had a nemesis, a guy who would overtake me and then a few hundred yards later he would be walking and I would overtake him again. I ran at my slow pace for the entire 10k while he rubberbanded around me walking for long stretches.

My first thought was that he was doing it wrong, but in fact he would have finished that race with a time not all that much slower than mine. Was he wrong at all?

I have many times been doing a training run and wanted to stop and walk for a while, but always gritted my teeth and kept on going. But what is the actual effect if I did stop and walk for while? If I am trying to increase my distances will stopping and walking for a while mess up my bodies metabolism or anything like that?

I will be doing the Hal Higdon plan and trying to do the DCM in October. There are some long runs on the Higdon plan, if I walk too much during these how badly am I hurting my chances of finishing the marathon when the time comes?

rom

bucketybuck wrote: »

As a beginner to running, I would be interested in hearing opinions from other runners regarding walking in the middle of a run or race.

To explain, I did my first 10k two weekends ago, (my goal was under an hour and I finished in 56.23 so I was delighted with myself). Anyway, for almost the entire way I had a nemesis, a guy who would overtake me and then a few hundred yards later he would be walking and I would overtake him again. I ran at my slow pace for the entire 10k while he rubberbanded around me walking for long stretches.

My first thought was that he was doing it wrong, but in fact he would have finished that race with a time not all that much slower than mine. Was he wrong at all?

I have many times been doing a training run and wanted to stop and walk for a while, but always gritted my teeth and kept on going. But what is the actual effect if I did stop and walk for while? If I am trying to increase my distances will stopping and walking for a while mess up my bodies metabolism or anything like that?

I will be doing the Hal Higdon plan and trying to do the DCM in October. There are some long runs on the Higdon plan, if I walk too much during these how badly am I hurting my chances of finishing the marathon when the time comes?

For endurance/distance walk run is probably not the best idea. If he slowed down he would probably do a better avg pace and be able to go for longer.

For short distances like 5-10k "sessions" are basically like walk/run where the walk would be a slow jog. Overtime the jogs get less and you can run at the same pace for the full session. However this type of training is generally less important to someone who is running their first marathon as getting your body to burn fat as fuel so you can run from 18-26 miles and not hitting the wall is more important.

For DCM you want to maintain same effort going up the hills so this means slowing down a tad.

This thread is worth a read: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057204941

macinalli

bucketybuck wrote: »

I will be doing the Hal Higdon plan and trying to do the DCM in October. There are some long runs on the Higdon plan, if I walk too much during these how badly am I hurting my chances of finishing the marathon when the time comes?

You should be doing these long runs quite slowly, so you won't need to stop due to being out of breath. You'll also be gradually building up the distance, so there shouldn't be too much of a shock as you get to the longer runs. It's important to remember that there's also a psychological side to marathons, and that you'll get tired and want to stop. Don't! It's easy to start running if you stop after 5k in a 10k race, it's much tougher to restart after 20 miles in a marathon.

It's worth searching this forum for the term HTFU, but bear in mind that it's said in a good natured way;)

Cona

For what its worth, I remember this exact thing happening to me during a race where a guy kept stopping to walk and then sprinting past me. In fact, he actually beat me in the race, it was a 5k. I wondered if his strategy was technically better for posting a faster time i.e sprinting til out of breath, catch breath and then repeat.

In the end, I just forgot about that kind of stuff and focused on getting fitter. I haven't seen anyone with the start/stop strategy now that I have reduced my times so I think it mostly affects beginners who run slower etc

My advice is forget about walking if you can, focus on getting fitter, building endurance, longer miles in legs etc. and eventually you wont need to worry about walking.

Would usually think the walk run (and sprint!) strategy is grand for off road and mountain runs where terrain will dictate that speed has to change, so the focus is not so firmly fixed on maintaining an even pace. On the other hand, the walk run thing seems to me to be kinda alien to road running, where would have thought that an even pace (allowing for certain things like the inevitable acceleration or kick near the end) usually desirable.

bucketybuck

macinalli wrote: »

You should be doing these long runs quite slowly, so you won't need to stop due to being out of breath.

I find its not that I am out of breath, its more that my muscles/joints get sore. My pace is slow enough, 26.30 for 5k and 56mins for my 10k, so I'm not gasping for breath generally. I need to HTFU I guess.

rom

bucketybuck wrote: »

I find its not that I am out of breath, its more that my muscles/joints get sore. My pace is slow enough, 26.30 for 5k and 56mins for my 10k, so I'm not gasping for breath generally. I need to HTFU I guess.

If your new to the sport then that is probably too fast.

If you go to https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/

put in a distance and time for a race you did.
Select "calculate" and then select training paces from the left side of the page. then this will give you a ballpark on where you should be training for each type of run.

YFlyer

If you're running for 50 minutes or an hour or so, there is no harm stopping or walking for a few minutes around the half way mark.

Alf. A. Male

There's an instinctive and cultural leaning towards running the whole distance at a fairly even pace in road racing in particular, or perhaps a strategised plan for differing splits, but there's nothing inherently wrong in walking some of a distance if that's the best use of your resources. Some well set out food for thought on it here