The short answer is no. The clue is in the name. The task you are attempting to complete is a run.
Ok, so lets deal with those Run Walk Run types who have, by now, certainly got their panties in a bunch. I’m sorry but I don’t live in a reality distortion field where running and walking are the same thing.
The argument that goes to all the benefits of walking during a run is completely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether you are more injury free, whether you can last longer or go further. It doesn’t even matter if you are faster.
You are failing at the task at hand, which is to run the distance. Obviously taking a rest by way of walking helps to preserve your body and enables you to finish the race, but how is that different from, say, hopping on a skateboard, or taking a bus ? Those methods would also preserve your body and help your endurance.
And that imbecilic clot, Jeff Galloway, made it downright popular. How did he ever manage to pull the wool over so many people’s eyes ? He should have been run-walk-ran out town by a crowd of real runners, never to show his face again, years ago.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that a real runner never walks, that’s obviously ridiculous. Real runners can and do walk. But they walk because they can’t run anymore. Not as a strategy, not as their core method.
Walking should be a last resort. Not something to be proud of. Not a subject where tips and techniques are shared. If you want to employ walking during a race maybe you should consider whether or not you truly understand what makes running hard.
Let’s break it down. You gain your sense of accomplishment from succeeding at a hard task. It stands to reason then, that the harder the task that you have succeeded at, the greater the sense of accomplishment.
So what makes running so hard ?
Its precisely the not walking part that is the hard part. It is a fact that during a tough run most of the time you wish you could just stop and walk. That’s how you would make it easier. But that is not the task at hand.
The fact that you don’t stop and walk is what gives you the right to say you ran a race.
Its fine to run and walk and say you finished a race, but you didn’t run it.
Now you may not like this viewpoint, but since we’ve all at some point pushed on through the desire to walk, you know I’m right.
So next time you have to enter a race. Set yourself the challenge.
The challenge is to run the race. And if you think you could never go the distance without walking you are free to run it slower, or train harder, or choose a shorter distance.
Just choose to run.
