Run:Walk Marathoners: How to Use the Scientific Method to Get Faster

Run:walk athletes love the method for marathons. Are you a run:walk marathoner who feels stuck in a rut? The scientific method can help you to become faster.

First, I’ll review what the run:walk method means to different marathoners. Second, I’ll show why it may be time to change, if you’re a run:walk marathoner. Third, I’ll discuss the scientific method. Fourth, I’ll show how you can use the scientific method to become faster. Fifth, I’ll tell you what to do next to put what you learn here into practice.

What is the run:walk method?

The run:walk method has you cycle between a running phase and a walking phase in a race or training run.

A popular cycle is the 5:1 method, in which people run for 5 units of time and walk for 1 unit of time. Many, if not most, run:walk athletes think “minutes” when they talk about their run:walk ratios. For example, “5:1” to many run:walk athletes means 5 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking.

My friend Juli has a funny story about the run:walk method. She told an acquaintance that she was a “5:1” runner. She explained that she takes a break from running after every five minutes. The acquaintance thought that Juli meant that she ran for five minutes and then sat still for one minute. At this extreme – if it were a “thing” – the higher the ratio, the faster a marathoner likely would be!

But, with the actual run:walk definition, higher ratios may not lead to faster chip-times. So, a 10-minutes:1-minute cycle may not make you faster than what you can get with a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle.

But, a 50-seconds:10-seconds cycle could be faster for you than a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle. Both cycles follow a 5:1 ratio. But, you get six times as many walking breaks, albeit shorter, with the first cycle. (6 x (50+10 seconds) = 6 minutes = 5 minutes + 1 minute.)

Because ratios and units of time can vary so much, “run:walk” has many possible meanings to run:walk athletes. For example, a “50:50” athlete may use this ratio to mean that he or she runs and walks for 50 seconds each. Another 50-seconds:50-seconds marathoner may say that he or she is a “1:1” athlete, which is correct, too.

In contrast, a “10:1” athlete most likely means that he or she runs for ten minutes and walks for one minute. Suppose that this marathoner’s average pace is 11 minutes/mile. Then this gives the marathoner a one-minute walking break while finishing each mile.

In summary, hearing a marathoner’s “x:y” numbers tells you only the run:walk ratio, not the unit of time.

Why not keep doing what I’m doing?

If you’re a run:walk marathoner who is happy with your average pace, then keep doing what you’re doing.

But, if you’re unhappy with your average pace, then it may be time for change. Here are four approaches.

1. Change your ratio while keeping your units of time and walking duration the same. For example, change from a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle to a 10-minutes:1-minute cycle. Or, change from a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle to a 4-minutes:1-minute cycle.
2. Change your ratio and your walking duration while keeping your units of time the same. For example, change from a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle to a 5-minutes:2-minutes cycle. Or, change from a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle to an 8-minutes:2-minutes cycle.
3. Change your units of time and walking duration while keeping your ratio the same. For example, change from a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle to a 50-seconds:10-seconds cycle. Or, change from a 20-seconds:10-seconds cycle to a 2-minutes:1-minute cycle.
4. Change your ratio, units of time, and walking duration. For example, change from a 5-minutes:1-minute cycle to a 30-seconds:10-seconds cycle. Or, change from a 20-seconds:10-seconds cycle to a 7-minutes:1-minute cycle.

How do these approaches compare?

• Approach #1 has you run more or less while getting the same “break” for walking.
• Approach #2 has you walk for a different duration and may have you run for a different duration.
• Approach #3 has you walk more or less but adjust your running duration to keep the ratio constant.
• Approach #4 has you change everything.

How do you decide what to change? For that, you can use the scientific method.

What is the scientific method?

Some people who hear “scientific method” think of Bill Nye the Science Guy. No, Bill is a Disney creation and has become “Bill Nye the Science Lie” instead.

Other people who hear “scientific method” recall nightmares from college chemistry or physics. No, the method is straightforward, and you don’t need a science degree to use it.

As ScienceBuddies.org describes well, the scientific method entails these steps:

1. Ask a question.
2. Do background research.
3. Construct a hypothesis.
4. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment.
5. Analyze your data and draw a conclusion.
6. Communicate your results.

These steps are perfect for deciding what to change in your run:walk approach.

Okay, how can the scientific method make me faster?

Let’s look at each step of the scientific method.

1. Ask a question.

The question should have two characteristics.

1. It should ask Who, What, When, Where, Why, or How.
2. It should be something measurable about something that you can observe.

Here’s a good question:
[Tweet “How can I as a run:walk athlete get a faster average pace in a marathon?”]
This question has both characteristics:

1. It asks “How”.
2. It refers to something measurable – “faster average pace”.

Also, it specifies:

• Who – “I as a run:walk athlete”;
• What – “in a marathon”.

And, it could specify:

• Where – “in Houston”;
• When – “next January”;
• Why – “so that I break five hours”.

2. Do background research.

Let’s assume that you are not starting from scratch. That is, let’s assume that you have finished one or more marathons already as a run:walk athlete. Then you can answer these questions for each marathon:

1. What was your chip-time?
2. How did you use the run:walk method in the marathon?
3. How did you use the run:walk method to prepare for the marathon?

Your answers to these questions for each run:walk marathon form your basic research.

Taking one of my marathons as an example, here are my answers to the three questions:

1. I ran a 5:02 in the 2010 Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
2. I used a 2-minutes-of-running:1-minute-of-walking cycle for most of it. But, I walked a lot in the final several miles.
3. I trained for six months before the race with a 1-minute:1-minute cycle.

Of course, one marathon alone does not provide much background research. So, I’d answer the same three questions for all other marathons that I completed as a run:walk athlete.

For example, here are my answers to the three questions for a run:walk marathon six years later:

1. I ran a 5:30 in the 2016 Houston Marathon.
2. I used a 3-minutes-of-running:1-minute-of-walking cycle for most of it. But, I walked a lot in the final several miles.
3. I trained for six months before the race with a 3-minutes:1-minute cycle.

Let’s use these two data-points to illustrate how to construct a hypothesis.

3. Construct a hypothesis.

To construct a hypothesis, you make an educated guess for the answer to your question.

• The educated guess comes from your background research.
• “If X, then Y.” is the simplest way to describe how a hypothesis looks.
• The prediction “Y” must be easy to measure.

Here is my first pass at writing a hypothesis for my two-data-points example:

• “With all units in minutes, training 1:1 and racing 2:1 beats training 3:1 and racing 3:1.”

Putting this in “If X, then Y” form:

• X = “I train at 1:1 and race at 2:1 instead of training and racing at 3:1”;
• Y = “I will be faster in a marathon”.

Timing chips make marathon durations easy to measure. So, the prediction in the hypothesis is easy to measure.

4. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment.

An experiment requires two measurements:

• Baseline value – the measurement at the baseline described in your hypothesis;
• Post-change value – the measurement after you made the change described in your hypothesis.

In our example:

• Baseline value = a 3:1 marathon chip-time after a season of 3:1 training;
• Post-change value = a 2:1 marathon chip-time after a season of 1:1 training.

You could argue that we already have these two values from our background research. This is correct, but six years elapsed between the 2:1 marathon and the 3:1 marathon. We want to see whether we can reproduce these results without that six-year gap. In other words, we want to control for aging as best as we can.

It would be best to repeat this experiment, too. For example, we could complete six marathons as follows, where “a season” is only three to six months:

1. Don’t marathon-train for a season.
2. Train 3:1. Race 3:1.
3. Don’t marathon-train for a season.
4. Train 2:1. Race 1:1.
5. Don’t marathon-train for a season.
6. Train 2:1. Race 1:1.
7. Don’t marathon-train for a season.
8. Train 3:1. Race 3:1.
9. Don’t marathon-train for a season.
10. Train 3:1. Race 3:1.
11. Don’t marathon-train for a season.
12. Train 2:1. Race 1:1.

There are only three experiments in these twelve steps. Steps 1-4 give us the first experiment. Steps 5-8 give us the second experiment. Steps 9-12 give us the third experiment. Of course, we can complete even more experiments, if we have patience and can persist.

A training effect is one issue about which to be aware in experiments on oneself. A training effect refers to how training can make one perform better over time. Because of repeated training and racing, a training effect could skew the results. Here are two ways to address this:

1. The marathon-training pauses in steps 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 reduce the impact of a training effect.
2. Order-switching also reduces the impact of a training effect. That is, the second experiment (steps 5-8) switches the order in the first experiment (steps 1-4). And, the third experiment (steps 9-12) switches the order in the second experiment (steps 5-8).

Finally, “a sample of size one” is how I like to describe every marathon. But, you should try to keep these factors as constant as possible across experiments:

• the weather during each training season;
• the workouts and training runs in each training season;
• the weather during each marathon;
• the hilliness of each marathon.
• the number of participants in each marathon;
• anything else that might affect performance.

5. Analyze your data and draw a conclusion.

Our example entails six marathons and three experiments. These give us six chip-time measurements in three pairs:

• 3:1/3:1 chip-time vs. 2:1/1:1 chip-time;
• 2:1/1:1 chip-time vs. 3:1/3:1 chip-time;
• 3:1/3:1 chip-time vs. 2:1/1:1 chip-time.

Let’s look at the four possible scenarios for these three experiments:

• If each 2:1/1:1 chip-time is shorter than its paired 3:1/3:1 chip-time, then we have some solid proof for our hypothesis. We may want to form a new hypothesis about some other aspect of run:walk training and racing.
• If each 2:1/1:1 chip-time is longer than its paired 3:1/3:1 chip-time, then we have not proved our hypothesis. We may want to start over with a new hypothesis that 3:1/3:1 beats 2:1/1:1.
• If 2:1/1:1 beats 3:1/3:1 in two of three experiments, then we can repeat the experiment to build more proof for our hypothesis.
• If 3:1/3:1 beats 2:1/1:1 in two of three experiments, then we can repeat the experiment. This would let us see whether we can get more hypothesis-negating proof.

Finally, …
[Tweet “Even if your run:walk experiments support your hypothesis, you may want to test a new hypothesis.”]
For example, suppose that we keep our original question:

• “How can I as a run:walk athlete get a faster average pace in a marathon?”

And, suppose that we keep the “then” part of our original hypothesis:

• “…, then I will be faster in a marathon.”

Then, here, for example, are the “If” parts of two more hypotheses that we could test:

• “If I change my walking cadence from 126 bpm to 144 bpm”;
• “If I change my running cadence from 162 bpm to 170 bpm”.

6. Communicate your results.

You may be the only one interested in your analysis and conclusion. But, this doesn’t matter. You still must put your conclusion into practice. So, you must communicate your results … to yourself!

To do this, you need some tools.

• You could set up an interval timer or GPS watch for your new run:walk cycle.
• You also could set up one or two portable metronomes to cue your running and/or walking cadences.

I like interval timers for how loud they are and how much they vibrate. This helps you to know when to switch between running and walking on even the noisiest streets.

But, an interval timer may have a cycles limit, which you can reach before you finish a marathon. For example, suppose that your interval timer supports up to 99 cycles. But, suppose that you run for 50 seconds and walk for 10 seconds in each cycle. Then your timer would stop after 99 minutes – well before the end of your marathon.

I like GPS watches with a run:walk feature for three reasons:

1. They kill the need to carry an interval timer, too.
2. Many of these watches now are rainproof, whereas an interval timer may not be.
3. The run:walk feature on a GPS watch likely does not have a cycles limit.

But, a challenge with many of these GPS watches is that their beeps and buzzes can be hard to notice on a noisy street. And, there’s nothing for a run:walk athlete like realizing too late that you missed the previous beep or buzz. (Argh!)

I like portable metronomes – which I also call “step beepers” – for four reasons:

1. They’re small and light.
2. You can adjust their tempo as your running or walking cadence changes.
3. They’re loud enough to hear in traffic.
4. They let you choose a sound, such as tick-tock or tick-tick.

But, there are five challenges with portable metronomes:

1. They’re not rainproof, given that they’re intended for musicians playing in practice rooms.
2. The ability to adjust their tempo on a run or in a race somewhat negates their ability to keep you to a cadence.
3. You need two for guiding your running and your walking, given that you don’t run and walk at the same cadence.
4. Turning one on at the start of a phase (such as running) and off at the end of that phase is tedious.
5. Using two for guiding both running and walking is even more tedious and feels like juggling.

There is an option to using portable metronomes plus a GPS watch or interval timer. It delivers most advantages and almost no disadvantages of using these other devices.

Here’s the option:
[Tweet “Use a rainproof player to play running and walking beeps on a loop in a run:walk MP3 file.”]
The rainproof MP3 player could be a water-resistant cellphone or standalone player.

To create your run:walk MP3 file, follow these steps:

1. Find an online metronome by searching for “metronome” at Google or Bing. Look, for example, at the metronome that appears at the top of the Bing search-results page. It lets you set beats per minute, which should match your running or walking cadence. And, it lets you set “measure length”; setting this to 2 gives you a tick-tock sound.
2. Get a program such as Audacity for recording your favorite online metronome.
3. Record the metronome for the duration and tempo desired for your running phase.
4. Save this as your running MP3 file.
5. Record the metronome for the duration and tempo desired for your walking phase.
6. Save this as your walking MP3 file.
7. Butt the walking recording after the running recording in your audio editor.
8. Save the combination as your run:walk MP3 file.

For recording help, search for “how record sound from computer” on the Web. These can help you to complete steps 3 and 5.

If you want to get a little fancier, find a different sound for step 5 than you found for step 3. This, along with the different tempos, will help you to recognize the run/walk switches.

To use this run:walk MP3 file, follow these steps:

1. Copy the file to your standalone or cellphone MP3 player.
2. Set your player on auto-looping.
3. Start playing the file through your device’s speaker(s).
4. Put the device in a pocket in your hydration belt or on your arm.

You now have a run:walk virtual coach produced with the scientific method!

Next steps

Once you have your run:walk virtual coach, what’s next? First, think “Rinse and repeat.”; that is, expect to keep experimenting. Second, be courteous to those around you – as in keeping your MP3 player’s volume low. Yes, the ticking will be less obnoxious than music would be to fellow marathoners. But, keep the volume to a level over which you can talk in a comfortable manner. This will keep you from becoming “that guy” in your next marathon or group training session.

Speaking of which, group training can empower your marathon training in many ways. A group training program may even support run:walk athletes with a few different ratios, such as 3:1, 5:1, and 10:1. But, a group training program may not help you to become a faster run:walk athlete, for two reasons:

1. The training program uses a run:walk ratio that does not work for you.
2. The training program uses running and walking durations that don’t work for you.

Forcing your run:walk workouts to match a program’s ratio and durations could slow you. So, what should you do? I recommend that you stay with your group training program. But, also strengthen your belief in the validity of many approaches to the run:walk method. This will help you to become comfortable playing your run:walk MP3 file on group runs. To do this, check out Run:Walk Method Mastery. It will free you from the “only one way” approach that too many run:walk athletes embrace.

Interested? Click here:

Image Credit: Pixabay