RRC Archives

The furthest I've ever run is 13 miles. But it always seemed much harder to run after taking a walking break. I'd recommend slowing to a jog instead of walking.

The only good thing about walking is that it seems to help stretch out some muscles a little bit which could tighten up if you were doing a slow jog instead. But walking cools you down a little bit, and that combined with a little dehydration usually caused me to pull a muscle or something....but I'm a gimp, so normal people probably don't have this problem.

read the "whys" of the walk breaks and it makes complete sense. it is true you can do your long runs with very little soreness. we worked up to three 30 mile long runs before the marathon (3 weeks apart). I think the mile repeats were the key to having a solid performance in the race. 20 one- mile repeats was the highlight of the training. 3 hours at the track....whew.

during the actual race, we walked only thru the water stops, for a total of 20 seconds each. it is very easy to make up that time.

like you, I was too "macho" to walk before. In fact, if I walked even a step in a prior marathon, I didn't consider that I "ran" it. my reasoning was given enough time, anyone could finish by walking.

good luck. hal higdon also puts together a pretty good program without all the walking.