This depends upon a lot of individual factors,
especially the pace of the walk. In numerous surveys, we've found that most
runners lose 10-20 seconds when they take a one minute walk break. Let's say
that a runner has a goal pace of 10 minutes per mile. The standard run-walk-run
strategy at this pace is (run 3 minutes/walk 1 minute).
Most of the runners I've monitored at 10 min/mi
pace tend to lose about 15 seconds when they walk for one minute. This means that
for every minute run, the runner only has to run 5 seconds faster. This has been
very easy to do for the runners that I've worked with, when the pace is right,
for the person, on that day.
Jeff,
One thing that I would like to know is the following. How fast are you walking during your walking breaks? Obviously it is not at a slow pace but once you are past a certain speed, it becomes easier to run as walking becomes quite inefficient. I just don’t know what the happy medium is.
To only lose 10-20 seconds a mile, what pace should we walk? It seems a very fast walk.
Mario: It depends on the person, as each person walks a different pace. You’ll want to experiment to see what works for you.
Remember that when you are walking you are still moving forward.