I am not injured. I've been a strong runner for 40 years, and can still run sub-6 minute pace. Anyway, I thought I would try something different and learn about race walking. I like sports history so I learned about different champion race walkers for inspiration. When I learned that top race walkers hold a cadence of 200-220 steps per minute for 20 kilometers, and race as far as 30 kilometers, I was suitably impressed. The best I could do initially was 120 cadence and 14:00 miles. I'll admit I was excited, lol! Now I can do 180 and 10:00 miles with legal race walking form. At the lower cadence I couldn't get my heart rate over 130, I was mixing in running with walking to get 140-150 and 160. Now I can carry a cadence that keeps my heart rate around 150, which of course feels like a low heart rate for me as a runner. And my cardio workouts are of course longer than running.
I think the higher cadence may help the race walking translate and help my running, definitely more so than the lower cadence. I'm purposefully doing very little running just to see how I come out the other side. The technique and timing is so critical and race walking to do it smoothly, and it must be you very smooth to go down to 9, 8, 7 minute miles. At those speeds a 200 + cadence is needed.
Anyway, it's just an experiment I'm doing this winter for fun. By the way, it definitely kicks up my metabolism more than running. And every time I improve I get a PR!