Turn Your Walk Into a Run

by Maggie Vink (Subscribe to Maggie Vink's posts)
Jun 19th 2009 4:00PM

Categories: Fitness

Photo: mikebaird/Flickr

Walking is such a great activity; it's easy to do, convenient, costs nothing (except for a good pair of shoes), and it can do wonders for your overall health. What's more, a walk around your neighborhood or on a trail gives you time to sort through your thoughts and release stress. But sometimes, a walk just seems a little too slow.

If you walk for exercise, why not try picking up the pace a bit? You don't have to do away with your walking routine altogether, but you can slowly create a running habit as well. After all, variety is the spice of life, and you could also say it's the spice in your workout.

Fitness Magazine has some great tips for turning your walk into a run. To start out, time your walking pace. See if you can walk a 15-minute mile. Yes? Now try for two 15-minute miles. Once you're walking fitness is at that level, you can start adding intervals of running into your two-mile route. Start out with a five-minute walk for a warm up and then:

Week one. Alternate between running for two or three minutes, then walking for one minute.
Week two. Extend your running to three to four minutes at a time, with one minute of walking in between.
Week three. Stretch your running intervals to five or six minutes, with one minute of walking in between.
Week four. Run one mile, then walk for a minute before starting to run again.

Remember to cool down with a five-minute walk at the end of each workout.

And hey, you never know -- use the Walk-Run method and you just might work your way up to a marathon. Go for it!

Source

Comments (7)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

craigB 6-20-2009 @ 9:43AM

This is a great article. Many people don't realize this, but we actually NEED to incorporate some form of higher intensity exercise into our fitness regimen. Even if you just absolutely prefer to walk, simply increasing the pace to 100 steps per minute will give you the intensity level you need. There's a blurb about this at http://fatblastzone.com/outsidethezone/increase-the-intensity-of-your-walks-by-aiming-for-100-steps-per-minute/ . Think the higher the intensity, the more fat you burn.

gstallkamp 6-20-2009 @ 10:39AM

There are great workouts, listed for free, to turn your walk into a run on Holosfitness.com

stop dreaming start action 6-21-2009 @ 3:19AM

Thats a great idea, so lets stop dreaming start action! :D

Tanya Mossman 6-21-2009 @ 10:10AM

Also turning your run into a fast walk is a great alternative for runners who are injured . So the opposite is true too.

Jeanine 6-21-2009 @ 10:16AM

Thanks for the info. I walk approximately 3-5 miles per week and this has helped me to lose weight (55 lbs) and decrease my stress level. I am always searching for new information to share with my readers on my blog http://healthynotskinny@yahoo.com

I welcome comments and feedback

Thanks again! Jeanine

Andrea 6-21-2009 @ 11:25AM

Hi, brilliant idea, thanks :-)

Guadagnare online

www.thebeginners.net 7-28-2009 @ 5:53AM

Knee support
Foot.

Athletes foot
You’ll need two.

Jogger’s nipple
Oil here in the case of chafing.

Calves
Run round these.

Cartilage
Ancient city of joggers, eventually overrun by Rome.

more at http://www.thebeginners.net