Walk Breaks?
(From Jeff Galloway's old website)
Most runners will record significantly faster times when they take walk breaks because they don't slow down at the end of a long run. Thousands of time-goal-oriented veterans have improved by 10, 20, 30 minutes and more in marathons by taking walk breaks early and often in their goal races. You can easily spot these folks. They're the ones who are picking up speed during the last two to six miles when everyone else is slowing down.
The mental benefit: breaking 26 miles into segments, which you know you can do Even sub-three hour marathoners continue to take their walk breaks to the end. One of them explained it this way: "Instead of thinking at 20 miles I had six more gut-wretching miles to go, I was saying to myself one more mile until my break. Even when it was tough, I always felt I could go one more mile."
Walk breaks in the marathon: how long and how often?
The following is recommended until 18 miles in the marathon. After that point, walk breaks can be reduced or eliminated as desired.
First time marathoners should follow the ratios used in training as long as they haven't slowed down significantly at the end of the long ones. If you struggled during the last few miles take walk breaks more often from the beginning. A minimum suggestion for first time marathoners would be one minute of walking for every 3-4 minutes of running.
Here are my recommended ratios of running and walking, based upon your pace per mile. Remember that long runs should be run at least 2 min/mi slower than your projected finish pace in the marathon. An additional slowdown should be made for increased temperature: 30 sec per mile slower for each 5 degrees of temperature increase above 60F. It is always safer to walk more often.
Run-walk-run ratio should correspond to the training pace used:
(Compared to earlier versions of the run-walk-run ratio, you will note that there are no longer any walk breaks longer than 30 seconds. This is because it was discovered with longer walk breaks of 45 sec. or 1 minute, majority of the benefit was derived during the first 30 seconds of the walk break... and that as runs became longer, it was harder and harder to re-start the legs for the run portion with the longer walk breaks. Remember, these ratios are for long run training, NOT for races. You cannot run too slowly on the long run.)
8 min./mi.—run 4 min/walk 30 seconds (or 2/15)
8:30 min./mi—run 3 min/walk 30 seconds (or 2/23)
9 min./mi.—2 min run/walk 30 seconds (or 80/20)
9:30-10:45—90/30 or 60/20 or 45/15 (or 60/30 or 40/20)
10:45-12:15—60/30 or 40/20 or 30/15 (or 30/30 or 20/20)
12:15-14:15—30/30/ or 20/20 or 15/15
14:15-15:45—15/30
15:45-17:00—10/30
17-18:30—8/30 or 5/25 or 10/30
18:30-20:00—5/30 or 5/25 or 4/30
Note: The Galloway NYC Training Group has modified these intervals as follows:
9:30-11:00 training pace (MM under 7:45) = 90/30 (or 60/20 or 45/15) - Team Zero-Walk-Thirty
11:01-12:30 training pace (MM 7:45-8:45) = 75/30 (or 25/15) - Team 75 is the New 30
12:31-14:00 training pace (MM 8:46-9:45) = 60/30 (or 40/20 or 30/15) - Team Gone in 60 Seconds
14:01-15:30 training pace (MM 9:46-10:45) = 45/30 (or 30/20 or 15/10) - Team Narrow Escape
15:31-17:00 training pace (MM 10:46-11:45) = 30/30 (or 20/20 or 15/15) - Team 30 Below
17:01-18:30 training pace (MM 11:46-13:45) = 20/20 (or 15/15 or 10/10) - Team Lazer Vizion
18:30+ training pace (MM 13:45+) = 20/30 (or 10/15) - Team Bumblebees
Why do walk breaks work?
By using muscles in different ways from the beginning, your legs keep their bounce as they conserve resources. When a muscle group, such as your calf, is used continuously step by step, it fatigues relatively soon. The weak areas get overused and force you to slow down later or scream at you in pain afterward. By shifting back and forth between walking and running muscles, you distribute the workload among a variety of muscles, increasing your overall performance capacity. For veteran marathoners, this is often the difference between achieving a time goal or not.
Walk breaks will significantly speed up recovery because there is less damage to repair. The early walk breaks erase fatigue, and the later walk breaks will reduce or eliminate overuse muscle breakdown.
The earlier you take the walk breaks, the more they help you!
To receive maximum benefit, you must start the walk breaks before you feel any fatigue, in the first mile. If you wait until you feel the need for a walk break, you've already reduced your potential performance.
How fast should the walk break be?
When you walk fast for a minute, most runners will lose about 15 seconds over running at their regular pace. But if you walk slowly, you'll have lost only about 20 seconds.
Once we find the ideal ratio for a given distance, walk breaks allow us to feel strong to the end and recover fast, while bestowing the same stamina and conditioning we would have received if we had run continuously.
Don't get too rigidly locked into a specific ratio of walk breaks, adjust as needed.
Even if you run the same distance every day, you'll find that you'll need to vary the walk break frequency to adjust for speed, hills, heat, humidity, time off from training, etc. If you anticipate that your run will be more difficult or will produce a longer recovery, take more frequent walk breaks (or longer walks) and you may be surprised at how quickly you recover.
Do I need to take the walk breaks on the short runs during the week?
If you can run continuously now on shorter runs, you don't have to take the walk breaks. If you want to take them, do so. Walk breaks on midweek runs will insure that you recover from the long ones at the fastest pace.
Training Tips:
Most runners will record significantly faster times when they take walk breaks because they don't slow down at the end of a long run. Thousands of time-goal-oriented veterans have improved by 10, 20, 30 minutes and more in marathons by taking walk breaks early and often in their goal races. You can easily spot these folks. They're the ones who are picking up speed during the last two to six miles when everyone else is slowing down.
The mental benefit: breaking 26 miles into segments, which you know you can do Even sub-three hour marathoners continue to take their walk breaks to the end. One of them explained it this way: "Instead of thinking at 20 miles I had six more gut-wretching miles to go, I was saying to myself one more mile until my break. Even when it was tough, I always felt I could go one more mile."
Walk breaks in the marathon: how long and how often?
The following is recommended until 18 miles in the marathon. After that point, walk breaks can be reduced or eliminated as desired.
First time marathoners should follow the ratios used in training as long as they haven't slowed down significantly at the end of the long ones. If you struggled during the last few miles take walk breaks more often from the beginning. A minimum suggestion for first time marathoners would be one minute of walking for every 3-4 minutes of running.
Here are my recommended ratios of running and walking, based upon your pace per mile. Remember that long runs should be run at least 2 min/mi slower than your projected finish pace in the marathon. An additional slowdown should be made for increased temperature: 30 sec per mile slower for each 5 degrees of temperature increase above 60F. It is always safer to walk more often.
Run-walk-run ratio should correspond to the training pace used:
(Compared to earlier versions of the run-walk-run ratio, you will note that there are no longer any walk breaks longer than 30 seconds. This is because it was discovered with longer walk breaks of 45 sec. or 1 minute, majority of the benefit was derived during the first 30 seconds of the walk break... and that as runs became longer, it was harder and harder to re-start the legs for the run portion with the longer walk breaks. Remember, these ratios are for long run training, NOT for races. You cannot run too slowly on the long run.)
8 min./mi.—run 4 min/walk 30 seconds (or 2/15)
8:30 min./mi—run 3 min/walk 30 seconds (or 2/23)
9 min./mi.—2 min run/walk 30 seconds (or 80/20)
9:30-10:45—90/30 or 60/20 or 45/15 (or 60/30 or 40/20)
10:45-12:15—60/30 or 40/20 or 30/15 (or 30/30 or 20/20)
12:15-14:15—30/30/ or 20/20 or 15/15
14:15-15:45—15/30
15:45-17:00—10/30
17-18:30—8/30 or 5/25 or 10/30
18:30-20:00—5/30 or 5/25 or 4/30
Note: The Galloway NYC Training Group has modified these intervals as follows:
9:30-11:00 training pace (MM under 7:45) = 90/30 (or 60/20 or 45/15) - Team Zero-Walk-Thirty
11:01-12:30 training pace (MM 7:45-8:45) = 75/30 (or 25/15) - Team 75 is the New 30
12:31-14:00 training pace (MM 8:46-9:45) = 60/30 (or 40/20 or 30/15) - Team Gone in 60 Seconds
14:01-15:30 training pace (MM 9:46-10:45) = 45/30 (or 30/20 or 15/10) - Team Narrow Escape
15:31-17:00 training pace (MM 10:46-11:45) = 30/30 (or 20/20 or 15/15) - Team 30 Below
17:01-18:30 training pace (MM 11:46-13:45) = 20/20 (or 15/15 or 10/10) - Team Lazer Vizion
18:30+ training pace (MM 13:45+) = 20/30 (or 10/15) - Team Bumblebees
Why do walk breaks work?
By using muscles in different ways from the beginning, your legs keep their bounce as they conserve resources. When a muscle group, such as your calf, is used continuously step by step, it fatigues relatively soon. The weak areas get overused and force you to slow down later or scream at you in pain afterward. By shifting back and forth between walking and running muscles, you distribute the workload among a variety of muscles, increasing your overall performance capacity. For veteran marathoners, this is often the difference between achieving a time goal or not.
Walk breaks will significantly speed up recovery because there is less damage to repair. The early walk breaks erase fatigue, and the later walk breaks will reduce or eliminate overuse muscle breakdown.
The earlier you take the walk breaks, the more they help you!
To receive maximum benefit, you must start the walk breaks before you feel any fatigue, in the first mile. If you wait until you feel the need for a walk break, you've already reduced your potential performance.
How fast should the walk break be?
When you walk fast for a minute, most runners will lose about 15 seconds over running at their regular pace. But if you walk slowly, you'll have lost only about 20 seconds.
Once we find the ideal ratio for a given distance, walk breaks allow us to feel strong to the end and recover fast, while bestowing the same stamina and conditioning we would have received if we had run continuously.
Don't get too rigidly locked into a specific ratio of walk breaks, adjust as needed.
Even if you run the same distance every day, you'll find that you'll need to vary the walk break frequency to adjust for speed, hills, heat, humidity, time off from training, etc. If you anticipate that your run will be more difficult or will produce a longer recovery, take more frequent walk breaks (or longer walks) and you may be surprised at how quickly you recover.
Do I need to take the walk breaks on the short runs during the week?
If you can run continuously now on shorter runs, you don't have to take the walk breaks. If you want to take them, do so. Walk breaks on midweek runs will insure that you recover from the long ones at the fastest pace.
Training Tips:
- Don't wait to take walk breaks. By alternating walking and running from the beginning, you speed recovery without losing any of the endurance effect of the long one. Start with jogging one to two minutes and walking two to three minutes. As your training level increases you can adjust your run/walk ratio to running 5 minutes/walking one minute on your long runs.
- Be sure to do the running portion slow enough at the beginning of every run (especially the long run) so that you'll feel tired but strong at the end. The conservatism will allow you to recover faster.
- Every other day you can cross-train instead of walking. Cross country ski machines, water running, cycling, and any other other mode which you find fun and interesting (but non-pounding) will improve overall fitness.
- Stay conversational on all of your exercise sessions. This means that you should be exerting yourself at a low enough level that you could talk. It's okay to take deep breaths between sentences, but you don't want to "huff and puff" between every word.
- As the runs get longer, be sure to keep your blood sugar boosted by eating an energy bar (or equivalent) about an hour before exercise. Drink water continuously before and during exercise and with all food.
The long run is your training program for the marathon or the half-marathon.
What is a long run?
The long run starts with the longest distance you've covered within the last two weeks and increases by one mile on a weekly long one up to 8-10 miles. At that point, you'll shift to running long every other weekend, increasing by two miles each time. For the marathon, once you reach 18 miles, increase by three miles every third week. For the half marathon, once you reach 8 miles, increase by two miles every third week.
The mental benefits
While there are significant and continuing physical benefits from running long regularly, the mental ones are greater. Each week, I hear from beginning marathoners after they have just run the longest run of their lives. This produces mental momentum, self-confidence, and a positive attitude. By slowing the pace and talking walk breaks, you can also experience a series of victories over fatigue with almost no risk of injury.
The most direct training way to prepare for the half marathon or marathon
As you extend the long one to 26 miles, you build the exact endurance necessary to complete the marathon (14 to 15 for the half marathon, 8 to 10 for the 10K).
Pacing of long Runs
Run all of the long ones at least 2 minutes slower than you could run that distance that day. The walk breaks will help you to slow the pace, but you must run slower as well. You get the same endurance from the long one if you run slowly as you would if you run fast. However, you'll recover much faster from a slow long run.
Adjust for heat, humidity, hills, etc.
The warmer and more humid it is, the slower you must go (two and a half to three minutes/mile slower than you could run that distance that day). The slower you go, from the beginning of the run, the less damage you'll incur from the heat, humidity, and distance covered. More frequent (or longer) walk breaks will also lower the damage without detracting from the endurance of that long run.
Signs you went too fast on a long one:
- you must hit the couch or bed and rest for an hour or more
- muscle soreness or leg fatigue which lasts more than two days, making it uncomfortable to run
- aches and/or pains that last for more than four days after a long one
- huffing and puffing so much during the last two to three miles that you can't carry on a conversation
- struggling during the last two to three miles to maintain pace or slowing down
- an increase in nausea and irritation at the end of the run
- Thirteen miles with walk breaks equals 13 miles continuously at any speed. Twenty miles with walk breaks equals 20 miles run continuously at any speed... but you recover faster with walk breaks.
- Forget about speed on long runs. Focus only on the component of endurance.
- You can't run too slowly on the long runs. Run at least two minutes per mile slower than you could run that distance that day, accounting for heat, humidity, etc.
- You usually won't feel bad when you're running too fast at the beginning of the run; you must force yourself to slow down.
- The day before the long run should be a no-exercise day.