Ep #199: How to Set Up Run/Walk Intervals for Your Best Performance

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives, and now I want to help you.

Hey Rebels. So, before we jump into this week’s topic, I just got to tell you, this is the 199th episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast, which means next week is 200.

And if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode or you forgot, I’m just going to remind you that I want you to help me celebrate. So here’s what you need to do. The 200th episode comes out next week on June 10th and I want you to run or walk a mile that day, or around that day. And you can go more than a mile if you want to.

But I want you to run or walk around that date, take a picture of yourself with a sign that says you are celebrating the 200th episode of the podcast. And then post that picture on Instagram, use the hashtag NYAR200. And then here’s the fun part, I am going to take all of the pictures and make them into a video. And I’m going to put that video on Instagram to celebrate you and all the other women that have become runners since we started the show.

So again, on June 10th or thereabouts, I want you to go for a run or a walk, take a picture of yourself with a sign that says you are celebrating the 200th episode of the show, post it on Instagram with the hashtag NYAR200. You got to use the hashtag on Instagram so that I can find your picture. And then I’m going to take all of them and put them in a video and post it on Instagram so that we can celebrate you and your awesomeness.

Are you in? It’s going to be so freaking fun. Alright, now this week, we’re going to talk about run-walk intervals. And I’ve done it a few times on the show but it’s been a long time since I’ve kind of broken down the instructions on how to do it.

If you want to learn why it’s so awesome and helpful, you can check out episode 150 because I go into a deep dive there about why you should consider it. But in this episode, I’m just going to go over sort of the nuts and bolts.

Now, the awesome thing about the run-walk approach is that it works well for beginning runners and experienced runners alike. It can help you go farther, reduce your chance of injury, and even go faster. And I know that sounds counterintuitive but it is absolutely true. I mean, I literally have hundreds of examples of women who got faster when they started walking during their runs.

Now, when I first started running, I did intervals because I couldn’t do anything else. It wasn’t by choice. This was over 20 years ago and in my mind, doing the run-walk approach was a temporary means to an end, and eventually I would be able to run straight through. That was my plan.

I’ll start out by running and walking and then eventually I’ll just get better and better at it and I’ll be running the whole thing, because I believed that real runners don’t walk. So I just kept trying to push myself farther and farther without walking and I actually did get there.

I did a 5K without taking any walk breaks. I was like, 28 years old. In my 30s, my early to mid-30s, I actually got up to about seven miles of running without stopping. And I still can’t believe I could do that. But here’s the thing; it didn’t feel great.

Emotionally I felt really proud of myself, but it didn’t feel great on my body. And I found that the farther I went, the slower I would get. But again, I didn’t think that taking a run-walk approach for an entire run or even a race was an option. It was not something I saw modeled anywhere else. Nobody was doing it.

I guess maybe they were. I just didn’t know. I’d only been in a few local races, they were all pretty small, it was the late 90s, early 2000s, so it’s likely that people were doing the run-walk approach similar to how I teach it, and I either just didn’t notice them or I just wasn’t in those right races.

But regardless, it was not something I saw other people doing, so I didn’t have that example of this is a way you can be a runner. So I did what most of you probably do, and I was like, I have to train myself to run without stopping because that’s what runners do.

But anyway, fast forward to 2009 and I got this idea that I should do a half marathon. And I didn’t actually do one until 2013. But in 2009, I kind of started getting this little inkling of it. And that’s when I found Jeff Galloway’s book called – I think the book that I found was Half-Marathon – You Can Do It. He’s written a million books on running and all kinds of distances.

But his training plans are all run-walk. And you train that way and you do the race that way. So it’s not like you train that way and then magically on race day you’re running without stopping. No, you show up for the race and you do it the same way you train.

It changed my whole perspective, and I started using that method on purpose instead of what I was doing, which was I would run until I couldn’t do it anymore, and then I would walk to catch my breath and then I would start all over again. So I started doing this deliberate run-walk approach. It changed everything because now I was able to train for long distances without getting injured and without worrying about whether I could finish.

Run-walk intervals made running feel almost effortless to me, which made it much easier to stick to a training schedule. And it really boosted my confidence. Now, I know there are plenty of you that don’t want to do intervals. I totally get that. It’s a personal choice, and some of you might believe that taking walk breaks means you’re not a real runner and everyone is entitled to their opinion.

If you’ve learned anything from this show, it’s that people are going to have opinions and their opinions are none of my business. But my opinion is that if you run, you’re a runner. However you get yourself across that finish line, it’s all good. And I have never seen a set of race rules anywhere that said you’re disqualified if you walk part of the race. That’s just not a thing.

So if you want to try this approach, your first question will very likely be, well, how much should I walk and how much should I run? So that’s what I’m going to answer first. So for new runners, I always suggest starting out with between 15 and 30 seconds of running and then 60 seconds of walking and do 10 rounds of that.

And don’t worry, if you’ve already been running for a long time without stopping, we are going to cover that scenario later on in the show. But right now, I’m just talking to my brand-new beginners and I want you to just start out, and depending on your fitness level, if you’ve been a power walker for a while, maybe you can start out with 30 seconds of running.

If you’re kind of brand new to it and you don’t already have a walking practice, maybe you start out with 15 seconds of running. And then intersperse that with a minute of walking. And you’re going to do 10 rounds of that. I want you to warmup with a five-minute walk. Please do not skip this.

If you skip the warmup, you’re more likely to get things like shin splints or side stitches. So please don’t skip the warmup. Five minutes at minimum, 10 minutes is even better. And then you’re going to roll into 10 rounds of that 15 to 30 seconds of running and 60 seconds of walking.

Now, here’s the other thing. Do not guesstimate how much time you’ve been running and how much time you’ve been walking. I want you to get – set up an app on your phone as a timer, you can download Runkeeper, which is a free app for both Apple and Android that you can program that to actually do your intervals.

I think episode nine of the podcast, I even have a downloadable tutorial for you in that episode. So you got to time the intervals. Do not guesstimate it because what happens is we always overestimate how much we’ve been running and we underestimate how much we’ve been walking. And I want you to know exactly so that as you progress through this practice, you can make adaptations knowing that you have all the right information.

So get yourself a timer. Again, your timer could be an app like Runkeeper that’ll actually track your distance and cue your intervals. You can just download a free app that does nothing but beeps when it’s time for you to change from running to walking. You can get a clip-on timer, like a Gymboss timer, you can get those on Amazon.

And they just clip onto your shirt and they just beep, or they buzz when it’s time for you to switch. If you have a Garmin GPS, like a Garmin Forerunner, almost all the Garmin Forerunners will actually time your intervals right there on your wrist. So there’s a lot of different options.

But whatever you choose, make sure you’re using a timer and let the timer be the boss of you. So you’re going to do your first interval run, you’re going to warm up for that five minutes, 10 minutes is even better, but at least five minutes of walking. Time it out. Don’t guesstimate that. Time it out.

And then you’re going to do either 15, 20, 25, or 30 seconds of running. Decide ahead of time, set the timer up and go. You’re going to do 15 to 30 seconds of running, and then a minute of walking. Do 10 rounds of that, and then cool down for maybe five minutes after that. And then stretch. Please don’t forget to stretch.

So after you’ve done that first interval run, I want you to reflect back on how it felt. And actually, reflect during the run as well. So before you do the run, you’re already listening to this podcast hopefully, so while you’re doing that interval run, take note of what the individual run intervals feel like.

Do you feel – say you said 30 seconds is going to be your amount of running. At the end of 30 seconds, do you feel completely exhausted? Are you like, come on timer, I’m ready to walk? Or are you like, oh, you know what, I could have kept going for another 30 seconds or maybe more?

Notice how you feel at the end of the run interval and then also notice how you feel at the end of the walk intervals. So when you get to the end of a walk interval, are you ready to run again? Are you recovered and ready to go? Or are you not quite yet recovered and you’re thinking, I could walk for another 30 seconds before I could start running again?

So really pay attention to how it feels in your body. And the pacing on the run portion should feel comfortable. You are not sprinting. You are not running for your life. You are at a comfortable easy running pace. And when I say easy, I know that you’re like, “Yeah, running isn’t easy, bitch.” If it was, everybody would be doing it.

I don’t mean that it feels like you’re floating. But it should feel comfortable I guess is the best word. Your respiration is increased, it’s got effort behind it, but it doesn’t feel completely exhausting. So you’re not sprinting, you’re putting in a little bit of effort.

Way back in episode four, I talked about something called the rate of perceived exertion scale. I also call it the RPE scale. And that scale goes from one to 10, where one is complete rest, you’re just laying down breathing, and then 10 is running at your top speed, like you are being chased by a bear, you’re running for your life.

On your run intervals, I want you in the middle, between maybe a four and a six. Or a five and a six on that scale. Again, it’s not a sprint. It’s maybe a jog or a little faster than that, depending on your energy level that day. It should feel relaxed.

You’re putting in effort but you’re not struggling to keep going. You’re not pushing yourself. So that’s what the run interval should feel like for the entire interval. If you’re getting to the end of that interval and it’s starting to feel like a struggle, your run interval is too long. You need to shorten it up.

If you get to the end of that interval and you’re like, I could keep going, I could probably keep going for five minutes, maybe you need to lengthen it. And we’re not going to do that during the run. You’re just thinking it through, you’re paying attention to the data, you’re going to evaluate it after the run. Stick with your intervals for the entire run if you can.

If you can’t, that’s fine. That’s also great information to have. But if you can, stick with those intervals all the way through, don’t change anything. You’ll change it on the next run.

Now, your walk interval, walk is a brisk walk. This is not a leisurely stroll, we’re not at the mall. This is a brisk walk and if you are so tired from the run interval that you can barely keep up a walking pace, you’re pushing too hard on the run or the run interval is too long for you. So either slow your interval down, again you’re going to do that on your next run, slow it down a bit so you’re not tally out of breath, and so you can pick up your walk pace.

So the running part is not a sprint. It’s a jog. A jog. And the walk part is not a saunter. It’s a brisk walk. So the difference between your running pace and your walking pace shouldn’t be that huge. Shouldn’t be that big. It should flow pretty easily.

So after you’ve completed that whole first run and evaluated how you felt, it is time to decide whether you need to modify your ratio or not. And if you’re not sure, that’s okay. That’s perfectly normal. So you’re going to try that run again with that same ratio in a couple days on the same route.

And then really pay attention again. Do I like this? Because maybe you nailed it the first time out the gate and that’s awesome. But maybe you didn’t, and that’s okay too. It’s all about experimentation. So once you’re certain about how that run felt, you can modify accordingly if you need to and try it again.

So if the run intervals felt too short, you’re going to try increasing them maybe by 15 seconds on the next run. If the walk intervals felt too long, you might decrease them by 15 seconds. And then decrease one or the other by the way. The one thing I want you to do is make sure you’re only changing one variable at a time.

So if you’re changing up your interval ratio, either change the run or the walk but not both, and make sure that you stick to the same route for all of your experiments. Because you want to be comparing apples to apples. So that might mean that you run the same exact route for three weeks in a row until you get it sorted out. That’s okay. It’s worth it. It’s worth it because you’re gathering data, you’re basically a scientist of your own body here.

So things that I want you to pay attention to as far as the data from your run, I want you to take note of the distance and how long it took you to cover that distance. Now, if you’re using Runkeeper or a Garmin, the app will figure that out for you.

If you’re using an interval timer, a clip-on interval timer, you might have to do a little bit more manual work to keep track of that, which is why I really recommend using Runkeeper because it’s super easy to use. But regardless, I want you to be keeping track of the distance that you ran, the time it took you to cover that distance, which is going to give you your overall pace.

How you felt during and after the run, how you felt the next day, maybe even what your heart rate was, it’s all good data to look at. And there’s no right way or wrong way to run. There’s just the way that feels good to you.

So for my clients, when I first start working with them, I often find that they put a lot of emphasis on making their run intervals as long as possible. Because they’re like, no, I need to be running more so that I can consider myself a real runner.

But what happens is that by trying to put as much running in there as possible, they end up slowing down their overall pace because their cardiovascular fitness level is not quite there yet. And they might be running say, three minutes for every minute of walking and getting maybe a 17-minute per mile pace because their running speed is slower since they have to maintain it for a longer time.

And then when we drop down to one-minute run and a one-minute walk, they’re like, oh, look at that, now I can do a 16-minute per mile because they’re able to run faster on the run interval because they’re not doing it as long. And then their overall speed actually – overall pace actually decreases because they’re recovering faster on the walk too and they’re improving their speed there.

It’s usually a big surprise to them when this happens. It’s very fun to see it happen. So when you find that kind of perfect ratio of running to walking for you, everything sort of falls into place and you’re like, oh, this is it, this is the thing that I can do, I can train for a half marathon with this, or I can train for a marathon with this because this is a routine that I can keep up for several hours.

Okay, this next section, we’re going to talk about those of you that have been running without walk breaks up until now and you’re thinking, maybe, maybe I want to give interval running a try. So first of all, I highly encourage it for everybody, even if running without walk breaks isn’t your ultimate goal, or is your ultimate goal, I still think trying the interval method just to see what it can do for you is very powerful.

So I’ve worked with a lot of clients who started with me and they were running without taking walk breaks. I convinced them to start doing intervals, and what happens is they find that they enjoy running a lot more because they’re able to farther and faster and get injured a lot less.

And I mean, I can’t emphasize this enough, how many clients I’ve worked with that have found out that they can go faster with less effort by doing intervals. And they’re like, okay, done. Because most people’s goal is not necessarily – I guess people come to me, it’s probably 80/20. 80% of my clients are like, I want to get faster, 20% are like, I just want to run without stopping and I can’t care about my speed. And then there’s maybe some overlap in the middle.

But most people, their primary goal is hey, I don’t want to be out there all day. If I’m going to do a half marathon, it seems logical to me that if I take walk breaks, it’s going to slow me down. And I don’t want to be out there for four hours. I want to get my half marathon time to under three hours or maybe under two and a half.

And they’re like, and I have to be running the whole time, and then I can show them that hey, you can actually hit that goal with running less and walking more and then they’re all in. They’re like, who fucking cares how much I have to walk if it means I can do my half marathon in two and a half hours or less, right?

So if that’s you, if you’ve been running without walk breaks up until now, you’re curious, here’s what we’re going to do. And actually, the other thing is if you’re listening to this and you’re not curious but you’re listening because you’re out there running and you’re bored and you got nothing else to listen to, I get it.

But the other type of person that interval running works really, really well for is my clients who are over 40, or especially over 50, over 60, over 70. And by the way, I’ve got clients over 70 that started running after they were 70, used the interval approach, and are doing half marathons. This is a thing.

So I always laugh when I have clients that come to me and they’re like, “I don’t know, I’m 60, I’m probably too old for this.” I’m like, no, promise you’re not, you’re just not. Because I’ve worked with clients literally – my oldest client I think was 76 years old. And half marathons, using the interval method. So you’re not too old.

But if you think I’m 60 years old and I need to start running without stopping and I’m worried about my joints, let’s do interval running. Let’s do that because it’s a bit easier on the body and it really – it sets you up to be a runner for the rest of your life.

So here’s what you’re going to do. If you can run a mile or more without stopping and you want to try intervals, I want you to start out by doing a three-minute run and a one-minute walk. And you may be like, “Three-minute run? That’s it?” Just trust me on this.

This is a sweet spot for a lot of people, so I’m going to start you out here. Three-minute run, one-minute walk. See how that changes your experience of your run, and more importantly, your data. Your experience of your run, you might be like, it felt a lot easier, but I don’t care because I got slower.

Well, guess what? You’re probably not going to get slower. So look at your data. Pick a run that you’ve recently done. Maybe a three-mile run, maybe a four-mile run that you did without stopping, and redo that exact route with a three-minute run and a one-minute walk.

And then on that three-minute run, I want you to make sure that you’re keeping your pace up. You’re not sprinting, but when you are running without stopping for several miles, you very naturally slow down your running pace. So if you’re going to do intervals, you can pick up the pace a little bit.

So play around with that. And again, if one-minute walking seems like way too much, you could try it at 30 seconds or 45 seconds. But I want you to do an interval run to compare it to a non-interval run that you’ve done recently. Do the exact same route and then look at the data.

Now, if three and one felt way too easy on that run, on your next run, try four and one, or maybe five and one. Play around with it. Try several different combinations over a few weeks, and again, always stick to one specific ratio for the entire run.

You’re not going to split the run in two. I’m going to try three and one in the beginning and four and one at the backend, because that’s not going to be helpful data. You’re sort of mixing things up and you’re not going to get a pure look at what that interval does for you.

So stick to that one specific ratio for the entire run. But compare them. Compare them to running without stopping, and then compare to what it feels like at three and one, four and one, five and one, whatever, maybe seven and one, depending on where your fitness level lies.

And take note, again, of how you felt. Your overall feeling of the run, how you felt on each interval, your overall pace, your splits. Are you able to – very often when people are running without stopping, they start slowing down. And I know this happened to me all the time. That last mile would be like, two minutes slower than the first mile.

So notice if your splits are a lot more even or it’s easier for you to keep your mile splits even when you’re doing intervals. So compare all the data and then pick the one that gives you the best combination of effort and ease and pace and efficiency.

That one run that you’re like, oh my god, if every run could be like this one, this is the one. And if that is running without stopping, fine, but I think there’s a good chance that it’s actually going to be an interval run. So I urge you to give this a try, and especially now because we don’t have a lot of races coming up.

There’s a lot of us that still aren’t officially training for anything, or we’re right in the beginning, so now is the time to play around with it. And you might just find that you rejuvenate your love of running in a whole different way.

Alright, so that is it for this week, my friends. Do not forget to celebrate the 200th episode with me by taking a picture of yourself on your run or before your run or after your run the week of June 10th, taking a picture of yourself with a sign that says I’m celebrating the 200th episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. Make sure you post it on Instagram with that hashtag NYAR200.

That’s what I’m going to be searching, that’s what I’m going to be looking for. And I will put your picture into our video so we can celebrate everybody who has started running because of this show. That’s it for episode 199. Next time we talk it’s going to be in the 200s. I cannot believe it.

So I love you, stay safe, get your ass out there and run, and I will talk to you next week.

Oh, and one last thing. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have to check out the Rebel Runner Roadmap. It’s a 30-day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you’ve always wanted to be. Head on over to rebelrunnerroadmap.com to join. I’d love to be a part of your journey.