I've always heard that taking regular walking breaks during your long runs & marathon will allow you to finish the run stronger -- and in some cases even faster -- but I've been hesitant to incorporate them into my runs because I felt like that takes away from the challenge/essence of marathon. Recently though, I learned that even the top ultra-runners in the world utilize walking breaks as part of their racing strategies -- so I decided to give it a try during this morning's 8-miler.
To get a sense of how much/often I should walk, I went to the website of Jeff Galloway -- a man famous for preaching walking breaks -- and saw that he recommends 1 min break every 4 min. I felt like that was little too frequent though, so instead I opted for a 2-min walk after every mile.
The walking breaks definitely kept the legs more fresh at the end of the run, and I noticed myself maintaining faster pace when I was actually running. But overall my pace was about 30 seconds slower than usual...and each break just felt too long to the point where it was hard to maintain good running rhythm. I'm also worried that if I take such a long break every mile during the actual race, I would have to constantly fight though traffic to get back to my pace group. So for next time I think I'll try 1 min walking breaks every mile, and see how much impact they'll have on my performance.
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