May 10, 2000

Walk breaks, run/walks, Gallowalks, intervals for long distances. Whatever name they go by, they're common enough now that I thought everyone knew the routine.

But readers never cease to surprise me. Jon Ashworth, apparently unaware of current practices, devised a scheme of his own.

He wrote, "I have thought of a new way to do a marathon, and I was wondering what you think of it. My plan is to alternate running three miles and walking one mile."

Ashworth asked if this mix would be "detrimental to someone who is recovering from iliotibial band syndrome [a knee injury]." He also hoped to "run another marathon four weeks later."

Being a confirmed run-walker, I like the way he thinks -- even while questioning the details of his plan. Marathoning would be impossible for me now (because of old injuries) without the breaks. Yet I'm fairly comfortable at two-marathons-a-year pace.

Tens of thousands of marathoners are now experimenting with walk breaks. The most common system uses much shorter runs and walks than Ashworth proposes.

Walking a mile in 15 minutes or so would seem endless to me. And the three-mile run segments would grow a little long.

My first adviser on the subject, Tom Osler, preferred to break for about five minutes at a time, at 10- to 25-minute intervals. But even that much walk time drags for me.

My preference -- as well as Jeff Galloway's -- is to walk for one minute at a time. You can walk this minute at each drink station, usually spaced a mile or two apart in marathons, or you can stop at each milepost.

I prefer to go by the watch. This once meant running nine minutes and walking one in marathons.

That's still my practice in halves. But as the birthdays have added up and the training miles have shrunk, I've downsized to as little as four-one in marathons.

Many of today's watches come with built-in timers that beep at pre-set points. They give no-look timing of these intervals.

Jon Ashworth mentioned his knee injury. Run-walk is kind to knees, especially when the runs are short and the walks frequent. Employing these intervals in the race also speeds recovery afterward -- another plus for him as he intends to try another marathon within a month.

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