Walk Far,Walk Smooth,Walk Fast

Run vs. Walk: Everything no one ever wanted to know.

It's another day of laying on the couch, icing my knees down after training for my next race. We've been working on losing weight and I'd been collecting links about the calorie burn between running and walking. After the last knee surgery, running - even a little - is still a ways away. I may even not bother considering what the doctor said about how little meniscus I have left and the time before I start getting that bone on bone rubbing that causes long term arthritis.

But I digress.

I've gotten curious about the differences between running and walking, especially how to compare someone who walks full time with one who runs full time. I found a good site that actually 'scales' paces and finish times at various distances.  It also does the 'age-graded' finish times so that you can compare your time with what you might have in a few years. People slow down. Don't feel bad, even the world records start getting slower after your peak in your late 20's.

It even compares running times vs walking times. It assumes that the world records for each style for each age and gender group are pegged at the 100 percentile and then translates it.  For example, according to Answer.com, the average finish time for marathons is 4.5 hours for men and 5 hours for women.  Plug that into the calculator and it translates to a 6:20 or 7:20 marathon walking.  That's good information for first time walkers who feel uncomfortable about being at the back of the pack. Just remember that there are millions of people who can't even keep up the pace needed to finish most marathons.

Then I started digging up information to the two components that make up speed - stride length and cadence.   Since walking required that both feet stay in contact with the ground at all times, the stride length is limited and cadence begins to limit the overall speed.

Optimal running cadence is 90 - 95 (or 180 - 190 steps per minute). Optimal running stride is 1.14 times height. There isn't a lot of information on walking so I had to improvise. Professional race walkers maintain a cadence of up to 120 (240 steps per minute). I've been able to maintain about 80 (160) for extended periods based on walking to the Glee version of "Lean on Me". We did another exercise to measure stride length. I was able to get to 40" on average which was 57% of my height.

There was also a reference to what's referred to as PTS or Preferred Transition Speed. The PTS is the point where going faster is easier to run than to walk and was calculated to be between 13:00 and 13:30/mile.

What does it all mean?  I may decipher it some day and figure out where I stand relative to other walkers. time to rotate the ice bags.

Morning training report: 8 miles on the relatively flat Alameda Creek trail in 1:48 or 13:35/mile. That's down another 25 seconds from last week and I felt pretty decent. I really should consider not constraining calories the day before training and even if I don't, it shouldn't be Popeye's shrimp, fries and biscuits. I should know better.

I hit $730 on my fundraising site. With the personal donation and Clorox match, I'm only $100 away from my fundraising minimum for Nike. The season hasn't even started yet.

See you at Kick Off? :)