Is there any point to these runs? I can not think of any way-physiologically, psychologically- they can help a runner. The kids at my school have done these regularly the past few seasons, but I don't see how jogging then striding for 3 seconds does anything.
I opened this with high hopes of the topic referencing when you get the runs after eating Indian food.
Indian runs are not really done for training effect, They simply force team or certain part of team to run together without it being a total slogfest. The short accelearations can't hurt anything either.
Instead of changing lead constantly you can do indian fartlek where lead runner controls pace for a minute or some designated time period. Done by quality runners in an open park with varied terrain these can be kind of fun and surprisingly challenging.
That said, I don't see any reason to do more than once or twice a month, as there are many workouts/ runs with "better" training effect.
Yea Indian runs are incredibly out of date and pointless.