Hi Victoria,

Hope you're enjoying your parkruns!

That's the important thing, really - if you're uncomfortable, or perhaps feel you're cheating yourself, by run/walking, then keep running! On the other hand, if you're happy to walk a bit now and then, give it a go and see whether your times improve.

Either way, the more you do, the faster and more confident you'll get, but there's no 'right way'.

Have fun.

Hi Victoria,

As Dave says, the main thing is to enjoy your running.

However, now that you're spending a good bit of time on your feet, run/walk can be used as a technique to become faster. It'd work by you pushing yourself to run a bit faster than usual, but only for a set period (ie, 1k), when you'd take a short walk break. Then you'd run hard again, then walk, and repeat throughout your run.

In very general terms, this type of fast/slow technique helps you to become faster; while running at a constant slower speed helps you build stamina and run further. I found that by doing a bit of both, I made my best progress!