Sunday, September 20, 2009

Week 7, Day 2: To walk or not to walk?

Week 7, Day 2 completed today, 2 miles in 28:12, a 14:06 pace (and NO bathroom emergencies today. Yay!). I'm almost under a 14:00/mile pace! I took quite a bit of walk breaks on today's run, at no planned intervals or for a planned amount of time. I just walked when I felt like walking, and made sure to start running as quickly as I felt it possible. The end result? A faster time than the W7D1 run. I definitely felt myself running faster on the second half of the run (which is when I started taking the walk breaks).

I remember from my former life as a runner the age-old debate of walk breaks. Proponents of the walk break, namely Jeff Galloway, say that it's a good thing because it allows your body enough of a rest to be able to run faster & longer. Opponents say that if you need a walk break, you're probably running too fast, and slowing your pace down a bit will yield the same results. Then there are those elitists who are anti-walk break for the sole purpose that they are RUNNERS not WALKERS but for the intents & purposes of the walk break discussion in this blog, their opinion is too far out there to even be considered. So what do people think about walk breaks? And has it ever been suggested in the C25K program that we will be running a 5K without walk breaks? I'm interested to hear your opinions.

3 comments:

  1. I personally need walk breaks, as I'm only on w2d2...however, I have noticed that the frequency of needing them has lessened. Everyone starts out as a beginner at running...I mean, you can't just run a 5k just because you want to, so walk breaks are needed, and not to even take into account if you are getting over an illness, if you're in a "blah" mood...There could be a number of factors..

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  2. I like to take run breaks on my walks.

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  3. If a short walk break helps you finish then I say walk. For me not walking if I needed to would hurt my motivation to finish the whole program. But I'd keep repeating the week until you can run the whole 25 minutes without walking or taking a bathroom break before moving on to the week 8.

    Lisa

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