I’m still working on my walking though I’ve started to taper down ahead of Olde 96er. Over the last month, I’ve done 19 walks that have covered 83 miles in addition to 35 miles per week running. The good thing is I’ve noticed my pace improve over the last week as my walking load has decreased. My last post was in the middle of ramping up my walking training load and right after that my pace dropped off about a minute per mile to the high 13s.
I started dialing back my effort and added in some rest days and a week later, I’m back to averaging a sub-13 minute pace while walking. Tonight I was able get four of my five miles under this target. I was pushing the pace a bit, but wasn’t at max effort. If there even is such a thing for walking.
I have no idea how much this will help me during my upcoming race, but I have to believe there should be some carryover benefit. Even though it’s a flattish course, I know I have to walk a decent amount of it. I’m planning on doing a run/walk and while I won’t be walking as quickly as I have been, I’m used to walking at at 15-17+ minute paces during races. If I drop this to 14-15 minutes, then I could easily save an hour just during the periods where I’m walking. And if this leads me to walk more, then I may be able to save enough energy to run later providing additional opportunity to save time.
Or at least, that’s the theory. I’m always amazed how far off theory my practice ends up being.