Mury says:

It certainly helps with training. Not saying that you should always throw walks in, but there's plenty of speed or strength workouts that are based on you pushing your pace for a shorter amount of time and walking to recover.

Walking breaks also allow you to use different muscles, which can extend the period of time before they fatigue. On the flip side changing paces takes energy.

My whole last 7 weeks have been filled with walking breaks. It's mostly because I personally prefer to run at my comfortable pace than slow it down to extend my mileage. The Garmin has really helped me be able to run slower and avoid those walking breaks, but sometimes I just let my body rule the roost.

Lots of people really believe in the run/walk/run deal. Look up Jeff Galloway. But I'd say that if you currently are not having to walk, don't start... except for a speed workout once every week or every other week.

You are going to see quite a few people from the back of the pack up to even some pretty good runners taking a variety of walking breaks, but you are not going to see any elites doing it. However, those elite runners spend a lot of time on their speed and strength workouts.

If you are getting beat by run/walk/runners they are just in better shape than you. If improving your times is important to you I'd suggest making sure you are working all the different aspects and systems involved in running and not just logging long runs and mileage. Find workouts that:

* Push your anaerobic threshold
* Work on your stride. An efficient stride can really make a difference not just in your pace but in avoiding injuries.
* Challenge your oxygen delivery
* Make your energy systems more efficient and enduring
* Fine tune your ability to run at pace, vary pace, recover from a fast pace
* Improve muscle balance

I'm not saying that you don't already do this, maybe you do. If you don't though, I'd suggest adding some spice to your workouts. A mix of intervals, hill workouts, sprints, tempo runs, long-slow-easy, recovery runs and other types all contribute to an efficient, strong, fast, and smart distance runner.

All too often, runners end up logging what has been referred to as "junk miles." In my opinion, those junk miles aren't junk at all when someone is starting out. I've been doing a lot of those junk miles, but just logging miles at this point is where I'm at. What happens though as we get into better shape we just keep logging miles and their effectiveness diminishes. To gain the most out of workouts, time, and our bodies we need to migrate to more and more quality workouts.

The body eventually adapts to our 2-5 medium runs and one long run a week. We see huge improvements in our times and we may even enjoy our workouts more because they become easier. At this point we enter more or less a maintenance program. We don't even realize it most the time. We are still getting out and exercising, having a good time, enjoying the weather and perhaps even the company of our running partners.

However, the body needs to be pushed to be forced to adapt. Pushing does not just mean running a little faster each time. The act of running is an incredibly complex mesh of systems in our bodies working together. It's not just the ability to run farther or longer, which is what the long-slow-easy run does for us.

I could keep writing, but I'll cool it. I do not know the depth of your running knowledge or experience, so if I said nothing new, I'm sorry. If you have specific questions I'll try to answer them. I'm not an expert, but I have a decent background including coaching at the high school and college level. My times and workouts certainly do not scream, "That guy knows what he's talking about," but I do know more than my performances would indicate.

In the end though, running should be what you want it to be. For some people it really is just getting out and getting the blood flowing and enjoying the outdoors. For other people performance is an important factor. Both groups are right.

mohanty401 says:

Thanks Mury for the reply.
You nailed it right . Elite Runners - Now while I am no elite runner as of now.. but ofcourse thats the tag I am working on - a serious runner and so had this mental block - serious runners do not walk .. and every run with zero walking makes me feel I am on the right path..
and your comments on moving on from Junk Miles are helpful. My longest distance that I have ran so far is a 11.7 km but already my mind was working - I can keep running and increasing the mileage, what next and so what you mentioned - abt a mix of tempo, trail run etc makes sense... I had already replaced the tempo runs and interval runs etc in the training programs with a simple run but more mileage.. but I think you are right... I need to keep them there as is.
and most important not shy from walking because walking now when I am training will get me to that status of "didnt walk at all" and a smart long distance runner in time..
Thanks !