I've been reading books by Jeff Galloway and Lisa Jackson in the last few days. They both advocate run-walk so I decided to experiment with it this afternoon.
Jeff Galloway recommends 90 seconds running/30 seconds walking for my age and pace so I set that up in an interval timer app on my phone. I also used Nike Run Club (NRC) for the first time.
I set both apps going after my 5-minute warm up and waited for the 90-second bleep. And waited and waited. I had got about 3/4 round my circuit (which is about 900 metres) when I thought I'd better stop to check my phone.
The interval timer appears to only work if it's open on the screen, not in background, and doesn't seem to give an audible warning at 90-seconds. I fiddled around a bit in my walk break but abandoned the interval timer app and just counted to 90 as I ran, then walked to the count of 30. Quite challenging as I was also working on my posture and going for light foot strikes.
I'd set NRC for a 30-minute session but I'd done only 4.6k after 30, so I kept the 90/30 run/walk going. Luckily, the app continued recording and gave me a 5k split of 32 minutes, which is probably my best time yet.
So a few lessons learned – another app to be deleted – but the Jeffing method definitely worked for me, in that I covered 5k faster than previously whilst taking regular walk breaks. I'll probably follow the Ju-Ju 10k plan now, going for longer distances but using the walk-run method. Such fun!