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For some marathoners, walking feels like the enemy—a pace to avoid at all costs while trekking to the finish line. But for others, walking isn’t a weakness. Instead, it’s a strength, a part of the plan, and the ticket to a new, Boston-qualifying PR.
In fact, that’s the beauty of the run/walk method, popularized by Coach Jeff Galloway, in which you run for a certain number of minutes, walk for a shorter interval, and repeat.
“Walk breaks prevent fatigue from building up at the same rate it does when running continuously—so you feel better during a run, recover faster afterward, and can run faster at virtually every distance,” explains Chris Twiggs, 51, chief training officer at Galloway Training Programs.
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Twiggs has worked full-time at Galloway since 2010 and has been a run/walk advocate since the mid ’90s, using the method to nab six Boston-qualifying race finishes. This past April, he ran Boston in a finish time of 3:25:27. “Run/walkers have achieved great successes at every distance from one mile to well over 100-mile races. We even have some runners who have won marathons and ultramarathons using planned walk breaks,” he says.
Sound too good to be true? It’s not, though it also isn’t quite as simple as stopping to walk whenever you need a breather. Here’s everything you need to know about the run/walk method’s benefits and how to give it a go—and even use it to score that BQ.
What a Run/Walk Marathon Training Plan Looks Like
A typical Galloway plan calls for only two or three short runs during the training week, based on time rather than distance, and either speedwork or a long run on the weekends. Most plans stretch for 29 weeks, and like most marathon training plans, you’ll build up your long-run mileage throughout the plan (hitting 26 miles for your longest long run), with recovery weeks mixed throughout and a taper before race day.
You don’t have to run/walk for all of your mid-week runs. If you’d rather stick to running and mix in your walk intervals only for longer training sessions, that’s totally doable. That’s how Twiggs approaches his schedule, saving the alternating intervals for his weekend sessions and running all of the mid-week miles.
On the other hand, Aaron Hake, 38, a runner in Norco, California, sticks closely to Galloway’s plan and uses intervals for every single run. He used run/walk while training for his first marathon, the 2003 Marine Corps Marathon, and loved the confidence that it gave him to complete the race, which he did in under 5 hours when he was 19 years old.
When Hake decided to attempt a BQ more than a decade later, he returned to the strategy that proved successful for him in that first marathon. “I bought Galloway’s Boston Marathon: How to Qualify, read it cover-to-cover, dog-eared the page for my time goal [which was 3:05], and came up with an 18-month plan to build up to Boston speed, using Galloway’s parameters to what is a realistic improvement goal for successive training cycles,” he says. Hake ended up qualifying with a 3:03:37 finish time at the St. George Marathon in 2017 and has BQ’d 10 more times since—all while following the run/walk method.
During that 2017 race, Hake ran 4-minute and 50-second intervals, with 35-second walks, averaging a 6:42 mile pace for the run intervals.
When beginning his BQ quest using run/walk, Hake approached his long training runs aggressively, trying to maintain the interval ratios he’d use in a race (the same 4 minutes and 50 seconds of running, 35 seconds of walking), only slowing his average pace down a bit, averaging 8- and 9-minute miles. But he’s learned that “long runs are not for running fast—the goal is simply to cover the distance without incurring unnecessary fatigue.”
Over the past three years Hake has dialed it way back on those long training runs, running only 30 seconds, before walking for 30 seconds, and aiming for an average 10:30 pace overall as he covers up to 20+ miles. “Going slower on long runs has allowed me to push harder during speed workouts,” he says. “It saves the pressure for races and the really tough workouts.”
During his midweek runs, he experiments: “I ask myself, What interval allows me to get into a groove? What interval allows me to recover and save up energy for the end of the workout?” he says. “It’s a matter of figuring out the balance my mind and body need to both get into a rhythm at BQ pace and make it sustainable with enough recovery.”
Why You Should Consider the Run/Walk Method
Taking frequent walk breaks rather than forcing yourself to hold a steady, faster pace for an entire run is simply easier on your body. In other words: You’re less likely to wind up hurt. “Run/walk allows the body to recover on the run, literally,” says Twiggs. In fact, he says, many faster runners initially turn to the run/walk method while they’re coming off a previous injury—and are pleasantly surprised to see the method isn’t just easier on their joints but it also helps them go even faster than they were before.
Sidestepping aches and pains is one of the big benefits of run/walking for Liz Badley, 40, a runner in Reston, Virginia. She turned to the method because her mother successfully trained for a marathon with it—injury-free—years earlier.
Badley has a condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which makes her joints hypermobile and more prone to injury, and was recovering from both stress injuries and a car accident in 2017. Run/walking, she says, helped her come back stronger and with more endurance, and she achieved a 13-minute marathon PR on her comeback.
A year and a half after that, in 2019, Badley shaved off another 10 minutes and nailed her BQ at the Mountain 2 Beach Marathon in California. Alternating between 3-minute runs and 30-second walks, she finished in 3:34:58. Later that year, she scored another BQ at the California International Marathon in December, clocking 3:32:43.
How Long Walk Intervals Should Be—and How Often
There’s no one way to work walk intervals into your training runs and races. Some people will do a 30-second walk after every 2 minutes of running, others will slow down only after running for five. Your walk breaks may only last 15 seconds every 3 minutes.
Generally speaking, the run-to-walk ratio will be greater the faster your overall running pace. For example, someone looking to average an 8-minute mile might run for 4 minutes and walk for 30 seconds, while someone chasing a 9-minute average might run for 2 minutes and walk for 30 seconds. Galloway has a chart with suggested run/walk ratios based on your goal pace—it’s a great place to start and see what works best for you, says Twiggs. You can also try our run/walk pace calculator.
Badley experimented and found that sometimes, run intervals as short as 15 or 30 seconds are a sweet spot for her easy runs, but she usually keeps her walk intervals standard. “The best thing about run/walk for me is that by shortening your intervals, it keeps you able to do volume and run slow—which is so necessary to get faster,” she says. For race days, she sticks with 3 minutes of running and 30 seconds of walking, which allows her to average about an 8-minute pace to score her BQ.
When figuring out how fast to walk during your run/walk workouts, just make sure it gives you time to recover. “The walk should be fast enough that you aren’t counting the stones on the path but slow enough that you can catch your breath,” Twiggs says. “It’s definitely more about feel than numbers. The important thing to watch is overall average pace.”
Why Speedwork Should Be Extra Speedy
Of course, slowing down at regular intervals during your training and racing does not mean that nabbing a BQ will be a walk in the park. “Building walking into a race plan means I must run even faster than straight-running pace on my run intervals—and that’s forced me to do speedwork at a faster pace,” says Hake.
Keeping those tough workouts on your schedule is crucial, maybe even more so than if you weren’t run/walking. But remember that pushing yourself for those sessions will pay off: “I believe the faster speedwork has made me more resilient during a race,” says Hake.
To help you figure out your interval pace, Twiggs explains that under the Galloway Method you would typically run your intervals 30 seconds per mile faster than your predicted race pace. “We find ‘predicted race pace’ by running a hard mile (The Magic Mile) and multiplying the result by 1.3.,” he says. For example, if your mile pace is 7:00, your predicted race pace would be 9:05, and you’d run your one-mile intervals for your speed work at an 8:35 pace.
Twiggs adds that for those really chasing a BQ, you’d benefit from doing a speed workout Galloway designed that includes repeat two-milers at slightly faster paces then the mile repeats.
What Else to Keep in Mind When Run/Walking to a BQ
Just as you’d adjust your pace and intensity for various types of runs on your training plan, you should do the same when training in a run/walk ratio. Twiggs explains that that means you should adjust the time you spend running versus walking so you can stick to the goal intensity of your workout, without changing your biomechanics, as some run-only runners might do when trying to run at an easy pace through their long miles.
For long runs, specifically, run intervals should be about at your goal race pace, but for a shorter duration compared to race day. Run intervals during the race will be longer to maintain the overall faster pace you need to achieve your BQ goal.
To put that into context: For long runs during training, you might alternate running for 30 seconds and walking for 30 seconds, but on race day you’d alternate 4-minute runs and 30-second walks. But all of those run intervals would be at the same pace. For someone looking to break four hours in the marathon, your race-day run pace would need to hit about 8:30 per mile for those 4 minutes, as long as you’re walking no slower than about a 20-minute mile for your 30-second interval.
“One of the biggest mistakes runners make is going too fast on their long, slow days. Just about any coach will tell you that,” Twiggs says. “The reason so many runners go too fast on those days is that it’s uncomfortable for them to run slower, it’s not natural. Walk breaks allow you to run naturally at all times, and to go slow when needed through planned walks.”
Finally, just as you’d likely do if running only, you should aim for at least one run per week as a “race rehearsal” to practice pace and your run/walk ratio, Twiggs says. That way, if it doesn’t feel right, you can tweak the ratio the next week. “Some folks find the strangest ratios work best,” he says. Some trial and error will help you find the intervals and speeds that work best for you—and get you to that Boston qualifying time.
