run/walk vs. steady pace (Page 2)

CRunner10 - 2010-03-09 2:57 PM

this idea of run/walk is killing me. i'll probably be hung for saying this. but if i have to run/walk in a race especially if i'm planning to run/walk then i don't feel that i was ready for that race distance in the first place. why race a 5k if you can't even complete a 5k in practice. yes your legs gradually get tired but a 30 second walk isn't going to give them some kind of re-charge, IMO. the tiimes that i have walked my legs were still tired when i started back up, they never felt better. that's the reason for a base. you can go longer time wise and farther distance wise without struggle, or the need to walk. now when i do my first HIM and IM will i walk? survey says yes haha. but in my training i will never plan to walk, it just goes against my nature.

and i still can't wrap my head around being faster by stopping. if train A and train B leave the station at 90 MPH and train B makes three stops while Train A continues at 90 mph there is no way Train B will beat train A to the next station.

CRunner10 - 2010-03-09 3:57 PM

and i still can't wrap my head around being faster by stopping. if train A and train B leave the station at 90 MPH and train B makes three stops while Train A continues at 90 mph there is no way Train B will beat train A to the next station.

SAWFISH50 - 2010-03-09 4:09 PM

Humans are not Trains and over a long distance a Human will slow down wearas a train will not.

The big point that Galloway preaches that makes this work is you have to take the walk breaks from the begining.  You can't wait till your 10 miles into the run and get tired then start taking walk breaks.  If the ratio for your Time goal and fitness level is Run/walk 4:1 then you have to take your first 1 minute walk break at that first 4 minits into the run and every 4 minuits after that.  Galloway does say that if at mile 18 to 20 if you feel great then run without breaks from that point on. 

tcovert - 2010-03-09 2:32 PM

Guys, if run/walk yielded optimum speed at any distance, the elites would be run/walking.

They aren't...because it doesn't.  (Other than, perhaps, in the exceptional cases covered by the link from Adventure Bear that KathyG provided.)

I used run/walking for months when I got off the couch to regain fitness.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with it.  And it does provide advantages in certain contexts (which have been covered in this thread).  I still walk for active recovery the day after long races or training sessions.

But the meme that there's some sort of inherent physiological speed advantage to run/walking a distance vs. running it is bogus.  Run/walking provides optimum speed at a distance for those who are adapted to run/walking that distance.  For those who have adapted to running that same distance, the point of diminishing returns from extended walk breaks is hit pretty quickly.

Despite what someone implied earlier in the thread, pace doesn't automatically fall off significantly over distance if you are running at a pace you are adapted to for that duration:  My slowest mile in my last marathon was only 5% slower than my fastest (not counting the start and the finish) and was within 4% of my average for the race.  From others I've talked to, that's not unusual...some people negative split their marathons.  Pretty much the same story for the 20+ mile training run I did on Sunday:  Pace was almost constant (sub-4 mary) for 17 miles, falling off less than a minute/mile for two miles, then recovering to my original pace for the remainder.

There's nothing particularly exceptional about me...I was a fat guy on the couch a bit over five years ago...other than that I didn't set out to train to run distance X for race Y by date Z...I just set out to lose weight and gain fitness and that turned from 45-60 min. walks with run breaks into just one mile, then three mile, then five mile, etc., runs...and that eventually led to a marathon.

Some of what keeps people in an endless run/walk routine is that they start out by setting a timeline to cover a certain distance by a certain date that doesn't allow for building adequate run fitness, but does allow for adequate run/walk fitness.  At some point, to transition from run/walk to running only implies stepping down duration and building anew...it seems like there's a reluctance in some cases to "pulling back" in that way.

CRunner10 - a 30 second walk isn't going to give them some kind of re-charge, IMO. the tiimes that i have walked my legs were still tired when i started back up, they never felt better

and i still can't wrap my head around being faster by stopping. if train A and train B leave the station at 90 MPH and train B makes three stops while Train A continues at 90 mph there is no way Train B will beat train A to the next station.

in my training i will never plan to walk, it just goes against my nature.

KathyG - 2010-03-09 6:02 PM I can't believe some of you are saying fast folks don't run/walk. How do you know? Just because you think they don't doesn't make it so. 

I see the same type of thinking as bike gearing in this argument..I'm a stud so I ride a standard 11-23 even when maybe a different cassette might help keep your watts more level climbing a hill..here it is I run/walk so I'm a failure as I didn't run the run. Isn't the goal to cross the finish line within the rules as fast as possible?

Did you listen to podcast or read the link?  Lots of fast folks run/walk IM run.

I'm not fast I know that but run/walk allows me to be faster than just straight out running.

My coach from last year had 5-6 KQ guys/gals he coached and all ran/walk to their KQ last  year.

AtlantaBill - 2010-03-09 1:10 PM

I think there's a similar effect in cycling.  I can go farther and faster riding with my group than solo.  Ok, ok, I know, I'm drafting and it's 20% to 30% easier when I'm "on a wheel", yes, we all get that. 

I don't have a powermeter to prove this, but when I do time trial practice, riding solo, on a flat, loop (half headwind, half tailwind), I can generate X watts over Y minutes.  Or in my imprecise RPE measure, I can pedal hard for an hour, to hour and a half, while using my standard nutrition plan, before I'm "very tired".  Yet, week after week I can go with my group ride for 3 hours (yes, drafting 50% to 70% of the time) riding at a higher average pace, and at the end I'm equally "very tired".  Yes, there are several possible factors why this is not apples to apples -- nutrition, morale (riding with friends is fun), less concern about traffic, etc. 

But the point is, on the group ride I work just a little harder when the group surges, then I "sit in" and recover for a few minutes, then the paceline rotates and I take my turn on the front and work harder for a minute or so, then I rotate to the back and recover for a few minutes.  In these "surge and recover" cycles I believe I'm able to generate more total watts than if I tried to maintain an exact steady pace for the same total time.

I think this is due to the same muscle work/recovery phenomena which the run/walk taps into.

Or maybe it's part muscle and part mental.  We're not good at remembering pain.  And a small pain is forgotten quickly once it's relieved.  We are good at remembering our ambitions and our optimism seems to be self re-newing.  Yet, we loose these thoughts after some period of being in pain.  The mental part may be something like:  as we get tired we begin to notice the pain, which causes us to forget the ambition and clouds our motivation, then we have a walk break, the small pain is relieved, just enough to let the clouds part, and the sunshine of optimism, motivation, enthusiasm to return, then we run again. 

Sorry if this is starting to sound like a zen riddle, I'm thinking it through as I write.  There are many cycles like this in nature, and the older I get the more I "get it".  With respect, CRunner10, I'm guessing you are a strong young man.  I used to be full of ambition too.  I don't claim to have the answers, but with age I'm learning to "go with the flow" anytime it's in my direction.  Surf the waves, ride in the draft, long strides downhills, short strides uphill.

Good Luck!

bryancd - 2010-03-09 12:30 PM Well said. I agree that a training protocol that allows someone to build mileage without injury is a real benefit, and if run/walk is the way someone chooses to do it, that's great. I also agree that the idea that it's in general faster isn't true. I also think that many who build mileage using this protocol often could very well adapt to be able to run their full race distance but might not give it a try, which in and of itself is limiting. And a lot of people run an entire marathon and/or IM run.

AtlantaBill - 2010-03-09 6:10 PM

I think there's a similar effect in cycling.  I can go farther and faster riding with my group than solo.  Ok, ok, I know, I'm drafting and it's 20% to 30% easier when I'm "on a wheel", yes, we all get that. 

I don't have a powermeter to prove this, but when I do time trial practice, riding solo, on a flat, loop (half headwind, half tailwind), I can generate X watts over Y minutes.  Or in my imprecise RPE measure, I can pedal hard for an hour, to hour and a half, while using my standard nutrition plan, before I'm "very tired".  Yet, week after week I can go with my group ride for 3 hours (yes, drafting 50% to 70% of the time) riding at a higher average pace, and at the end I'm equally "very tired".  Yes, there are several possible factors why this is not apples to apples -- nutrition, morale (riding with friends is fun), less concern about traffic, etc. 

But the point is, on the group ride I work just a little harder when the group surges, then I "sit in" and recover for a few minutes, then the paceline rotates and I take my turn on the front and work harder for a minute or so, then I rotate to the back and recover for a few minutes.  In these "surge and recover" cycles I believe I'm able to generate more total watts than if I tried to maintain an exact steady pace for the same total time.

I think this is due to the same muscle work/recovery phenomena which the run/walk taps into.

Or maybe it's part muscle and part mental.  We're not good at remembering pain.  And a small pain is forgotten quickly once it's relieved.  We are good at remembering our ambitions and our optimism seems to be self re-newing.  Yet, we loose these thoughts after some period of being in pain.  The mental part may be something like:  as we get tired we begin to notice the pain, which causes us to forget the ambition and clouds our motivation, then we have a walk break, the small pain is relieved, just enough to let the clouds part, and the sunshine of optimism, motivation, enthusiasm to return, then we run again. 

Sorry if this is starting to sound like a zen riddle, I'm thinking it through as I write.  There are many cycles like this in nature, and the older I get the more I "get it".  With respect, CRunner10, I'm guessing you are a strong young man.  I used to be full of ambition too.  I don't claim to have the answers, but with age I'm learning to "go with the flow" anytime it's in my direction.  Surf the waves, ride in the draft, long strides downhills, short strides uphill.

Good Luck!

FeltonR.Nubbinsworth - 2010-03-09 8:53 PM
What is interesting is that power and harder efforts goes counter to the run/walk method as an analogy. If you take average power which is just the straight average of power for the entire ride, and then there is normalized power which is an algorithm that quantifies the physiological impact of the training/racing session. As it turns out the function to quantify blood lactate levels to power levels is power to the 4th power. anyway .. to put this into real numbers if you ride 60 minutes at 200 watts the entire time or average power and normalized power will both be 200 watts. Now if you do that same ride at 100watts for 10 minutes then 300watts for 10 minutes then 100, 300 .. for the 60 minutes your average power is 200 watts but your normalized power is 253 watts.  So in this case the effort is much harder on the body, not easier.  

gerald12 - 2010-03-09 9:07 PM

This all depends on what you think is fast.

FeltonR.Nubbinsworth - my post above leads to the question why do coaches/running professionals such as galloway propose/encourage run/walk, but on the bike for endurance events they state that you want to keep your effort as even as possible with a VI of 1 being ideal (This means your normalized power and average power are equal) aka no surging, even effort. You will never hear a coach tell you "for your bike leg i want you to go harder for 9 minutes easy for 1 minute"

What is interesting is that power and harder efforts goes counter to the run/walk method as an analogy. If you take average power which is just the straight average of power for the entire ride, and then there is normalized power which is an algorithm that quantifies the physiological impact of the training/racing session. As it turns out the function to quantify blood lactate levels to power levels is power to the 4th power. anyway .. to put this into real numbers if you ride 60 minutes at 200 watts the entire time or average power and normalized power will both be 200 watts. Now if you do that same ride at 100watts for 10 minutes then 300watts for 10 minutes then 100, 300 .. for the 60 minutes your average power is 200 watts but your normalized power is 253 watts.  So in this case the effort is much harder on the body, not easier.  

KathyG - 2010-03-09 9:39 PM

I think the folks my coach helped KQ are fast and they run walked...most are under 10 hour guys or little slower for women. I think most of us here would agree if you KQ in normal AG you are fast.