I made it! On Saturday, I ran 7 miles in 1 hour and 13 minutes. At this pace, I’m running a little over 10 minute miles. My goal is to reach 9-minute miles, but for my 3rd week of training I’ll take it.
Thanks to my friend Star of Star Runners, I’m following a new running strategy that I’d highly recommend. It’s called the 8:30 run / 1:30 walk. Not sure if there’s a more formal name to this amazing running strategy, but it works! It’s as easy as it sounds – run for 8 minutes and 30 seconds, then walk 1 minute and 30 seconds, and repeat. For those that may be a little more advanced, you’re probably more familiar with the 10:1 concept, which is a 10-minute run and 1-minute walk. I’m not quite there yet…
There are a lot of benefits of this method such as increasing endurance, keeping your legs strong to the end of the race, and reducing injury or chance of overtraining. This is because you are shifting the workload between the walking and the running muscles.
According to The Running Room, walk breaks force you to slow down early in the run so that you don’t start too fast. This reduction of the intensity of muscle use from the beginning conserves your energy, fluids, and muscle capacity. On each walk break, the running muscles make internal adaptations, which give you the option to finish under control, increase the pace or go even further.
With this method in my back pocket, I feel like I can run any distance, even 26.2 miles. I plan to keep following this method throughout the rest of my training. This weekend I’ll be running 8 miles, so wish me luck!
3 comments
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