Running Experiment

This was a great training week. For the first time in my life I decided to try the tested wisdom of Jeff Galloway, by incorporating walking as part of my running program. The decision was made to run for 4 minutes, then to walk for 1 minute and repeat the cycle for the duration of the run. Distance wasn’t important for me in this strategy but time was.

I compared the past weeks performance using the Run-Walk-Run strategy to the previous weeks run only strategy. The distances remained the same, the routes were not changed and the overall environmental conditions (temperature, humidity etc.) were similar. I changed nothing in my diet, didn’t add anything that could enhance my performance in anyway.

The results were amazing to say the least.

The accompanying graph tells it all. Not only was my Run-Walk-Run pace faster across all distances for the week but my performance were much more consistent. I was really impressed by the difference this made to my long run distance. On my 19km long run I averaged a 9.1km/h compared to a 7.4km/h the previous Friday. I felt less fatigued although I reduced my running time by 20%. The only difference is that my calves are feeling a little ‘tender’. This I ascribe predominantly to the increase in speed.

The strategy means that I focused predominantly on my time and not on the terrain. It took some discipline to walk on down-hills though. I also focused on effort based running maintaining a constant effort opposed to a constant time. Although my focus was on effort and not intensity my time on each of the run-walk-run sessions remained virtually constant.

As can be seen from the accompanying graph the Run-Walk-Run strategy produced, for me, a more constant run with my time per kilometre ranging between 05:49 and 06:35, averaging around the 06:15 mark. Again my run only performance showed no consistency and seemed to have been influenced by distance.

I will use this method of training and race running over the next few months and report back on how it improved my running. With a 250km MdS distance this strategy might be the most appropriate strategy for me. The added benefit this held for me during the past week came down to the following: (1)    I reduced the physical impact on my body by 20% through the incorporation of walking for 20% of the time, (2)    I freed up valuable training time, an additional 20%. This means that I could easily increase my training distance with another 10km/week at present taking it up to 65km/week and do so within the same available time. (I won’t at present as such an increase would be to severe but a 5 to 10% increase two weeks from now is part of my planned schedule).

I would encourage anyone to try this as part of their training and race running. I would also like to hear how this improved your performance.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Genis