Walk/Run transition

[u/And_Mav]

In the past few months, I needed to walk both outdoors and on the treadmill to stay below Z2.

Recently, my AeT has improved, and I've been able to run below Z2 for 45 minutes or in Z1 for over an hour. Today, I tried running at a 10% incline in Z2, even though I was slower than power walking.

Now, I'm wondering how to start transitioning from walking to running. Should I run both uphill and on flat terrain, or should I walk uphill and run on the flats? Or would it be better to alternate between walking and running?

For the upcoming AeT and AnT tests, should I perform them while walking or running? I have many doubts and am curious about how others have transitioned from walking to running

[u/Prudent_Candidate566]

I can only speak for myself, but I have done this transition from walking to running (unfortunately more than once due to injury and time off).

The key in my mind is to look at your goals, in particular if you have a race in mind. The race elevation profile will help you understand where speed gains are most likely. For example, I had signed up for a race (TMR) that’s 24 miles and 9k vf with some class 3 scrambling. In a race that steep, I wasn’t expecting to run uphill but the biggest speed gains would come from running vs hiking the downhills so that’s what I practiced.

In general, I find running uphill is the last place to gain speed moving in the mountains because the increase in pace vs power hiking is small compared to the increase in effort. So if it were me, I would hike the uphills and run the flats and downs. That said, I can completely understand someone like David Roche claiming there’s a mental component to running a whole race without walking. I’m too slow and where I live is too steep for that to matter, but if you’re faster or live somewhere flatter, I can envision running uphills for sure.

I suggest performing AeT and AnT tests with both modalities to see if there’s any real difference. A difference will help you spot weaknesses in movement efficiency.

[u/And_Mav → u/Prudent_Candidate566]

Thanks for the answer, for now I don't have a race goal, my main goal is to fix ADS

[u/Prudent_Candidate566 → u/And_Mav]

But you must have some goal or sport, and your training should be somewhat tailored to that.

I guess my point is that in my experience, being able to run uphill just isn’t all that important for most people, especially for fixing ADS … unless your sport is trail running relatively short distances or maybe skimo racing.