Looking for some advice…I’ve been following the Jeff Galloway plan. Have been doing 30 seconds run/ 30 seconds walk for a few months. I’m thinking I might want to adjust this but things are going so well! Any suggestions? I’m up to 4 miles on the long run. Will doing one minute run/ one minute walk actually be any faster than 30/30? Thanks as always!
So Jeff (Galloway, not AZ) says your walk intervals should generally not be longer than 30 seconds. It has to do with the fast twitch muscle fibers turning off and the slow twitch muscle fibers turning on and it taking too long to switch back and forth to help your speed at all. (Gosh I hope I got that at least mostly right).
So ideally you’d stretch out your run interval but keep your walk the same. I would maybe try to add on 10 or 15 seconds, and look at a 45/30 ratio. Or if you feel like you really want the 1 minute, try 60/30.
It’s unlikely that 60/60 will be any faster, and in fact it might be slower because of the muscle fiber thing. At best you’d break even I think.
Side note: I was 60/30 for a long time and switched up to 90/30 when I started marathon training so as to match my sister. When she didn’t join me on that fateful Sunday morning, I actually revised back to 60/30 since it was just me I had to be accountable for. In the great herd of people there were many times that interval wasn’t possible at all. I either ran longer or walked longer - I had to adapt to whatever everyone in the pack I was in at the time was doing. But overall I think 60/30 was a good ratio for me for marathon, but I do most of my running at home at a 90/30.
Thank you so much! This is exactly what I was looking for! I thought I had read everything but knew it felt wrong when I tried to change it up today. I missed the “keep the walk to 30” b/c of the muscle thing. Was also pretty sure my speed would not increase, so since it’s working I will leave well enough alone. I’m still so impressed that you did the marathon!!! Thanks again:grinning:
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