Hi guys,
You may remember me from my question as to whether to use a hydration belt for the half, which made the front page.
My new question/theory is whether it makes sense to walk 10s in a 5K, say as you begin the 3rd Mile, to clear the waste products from your legs and mentally re-set. Could the time gained from refreshing be more than the time lost in those 10 seconds?
This is for a 19 minute or so 5K (obviously would not make sense for a 15 minute 5K guy, both because they would lose more time in the walk and they are better able to deal with acid waste). The walk phase would be about half the speed of my run, so I’d lose only 5 seconds in the walk itself. I would think that flushing the waste from the legs and the mental boost from a break could be worth more than those 5 seconds.
I got the idea when coming back from injury and was on a run walk program, and did a 5K in 2430 with like 4 minutes of walking. In the early months of being back to running the whole thing, I was only around 22, so there wasn’t as large of a difference than I expected.
Also, running in a 5K this fall, a Japanese runner walked for maybe 30 seconds at a water station. I felt bad for him as I thought he must be done, but then he came back and beat me.
I guess I’m a little surprised this proposed approach has not garnered more talk/analaysis. It would seem to have some validity for people in the 17-22 minute range.
I may try it out tomorrow and report back.