How Walking Helped Save My Running
- craigbarden123
- Apr 3
- 10 min read
Hello everyone, I’m Craig and this is Running Café.
In 2024, I took 8 months out of running to focus on personal issues and this was the longest I’d had out of running in almost 8 years since I started with the sport. Whilst this was something I needed to do for myself and the decision was definitely the right one, my running fell by the wayside.
In December 2024, I was in the right frame of mind to start running again and I quickly found that it was to be a hard, humbling, rewarding and tough journey.
Fast forward to now, early April 2025, and things are different. I’m feeling fitter, able to do long runs of 20 miles, and I even recently did my first race (Thames Path 20 miler) since my last race in June 2024 (three castles 50km).
Reflections on the journey of getting back into running from zero so far and finding strength in walking
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on my journey from December 2024 to now (early April 2025), and it’s been an incredibly insightful and hard process.
I remember my first run in December, feeling like I’d collapse and pass out after the first mile. My lungs were on fire, my heart beat was through the roof, and my legs felt like they were about to fall off.
Knowing that I’m someone who has in the past completed a 100 mile ultramarathon, some tough ultra-marathons (like the Mozart 100km in Austria), and ran a sub 3-hour marathon, this first run demonstrated just how far my fitness had deteriorated. It wasn’t an amazing feeling, being at the bottom end of fitness, but I knew the first run had to come at some point if I was to start afresh.
It’s been a challenging four months for getting back into running, with many highs and lows. I haven’t run nearly as much as I would have liked to, but I’m feeling fitter and running more and (most importantly) I’m really enjoying the running.
One of the key ingredients to my progress made so far?
Walking.
Yes, walking. The classic act of putting one foot in front of the other consecutively to get from point A to point B.
My relationship with walking before and my walking during the rebuilding journey
Before I took a break from running in 2024 I walked what I’d consider a ‘standard’ amount for most people.
Probably, I’d clock up about 10,000 steps a day of walking and there’d be times when the walking would increase rapidly such as going for long hikes, travelling or out and about with friends.
On special occasions, I had done 'walking challenges' and uploaded them to my YouTube channel (below) but these were rare and one off events.
But, aside from that, I didn’t have a need to walk a lot because running was by far my dominant form of exercise for many years, so I never invested much time, effort or thought into walking.
At the start of my rebuild, the first few runs made one thing very clear to me. I wasn’t fit enough to rely solely on running to rebuild my fitness and I’d need to look elsewhere in the initial stages. So, I discovered walking.
Being a low-intensity, light cardio exercise, walking gave me the ability to achieve high training volumes whilst minimising the risk of injury and at a manageable pace. Starting running again from zero, this was exactly what I needed.
Over the next four months (December to March 2024), walking became my dominant form of exercise whilst running became my secondary one. I started out relatively low in terms of mileage, but as soon as the fitness started climbing and I gained confidence I walked large amounts.
A 100 mile week here, a 92 mile week there, all whilst gradually building my running up. These amounts may seem excessive, and to be honest they probably are, but this was something I enjoyed. I was very careful to listen to my body and change walks accordingly to prevent overtraining and injury.
It didn’t all go swimmingly, as I’ll detail in this post, but I truly believe that walking has had a massive positive impact on my journey of starting to run again from zero.
In this article, I’ll share a few ways for how walking helped save my running.
Walking helped to build my cardiovascular fitness
As mentioned above, when I started running again in December 2024 my cardiovascular fitness was terrible. I was overweight, undertrained, I wasn’t doing much exercise at all, and it didn’t take much for my heart rate to spike and shoot into zone 5 (the red zone) on my sports watch.
Knowing that such cardiovascular stress on my body wouldn’t be safe or sustainable, I opted to walk more and run less in the early stages.
This meant I was able to get my heart beating at a low-intensity, get my blood circulating, burn calories and improve my hearts efficiency in terms of operating under pressure.
Little by little, I found the walks becoming easier and my overall heart rate during walks and running coming down and I knew I’d made a sensible decision to focus on walking to start with. The running could come later and I was in no rush.
Walking helped build my leg strength
Like my cardiovascular fitness, my leg strength was next to nothing when I started running again.
Walking down the stairs the day after my first run back felt like my legs were being stabbed with each step. They were sore, painful and not happy about having been pushed so suddenly by a run out of nowhere. On top of that, I wasn't doing much walking either during my 8 months off so it probably felt like a double shock of activity for my legs.
As we know, leg strength is essential for running as we rely largely on the lower half of our body to move whilst taking part in the sport.
Given the pain and soreness after my first run, which lasted a few days, I knew running wouldn't be the most effective option starting out. So, I turned to walking and this was a good choice.
Walking is like running in many ways, albeit a lot less intense, and it works on the same major muscle groups including the calves, quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes. Its a form of very light resistance training (though mainly cardio) which helped someone like me, with minimal leg strength, build muscle endurance over time.
Also, walking engages the core muscles which are also essential for balance, stability and performance whilst running.
I kept the walking flat and on roads to start and, when my fitness and muscles had developed enough, I ventured up and down steep hills and occasionally onto the trails.
Eventually, my legs stopped being sore after easy runs and I attribute a lot of this to consistent walking.
Walking helped my mental health during the rebuild journey
I now fully appreciate that mental health is crucial for athletic performance and training.
In fact, I’d say it’s equally as important as both the training and performance elements. Simply put, if you’re not in a positive or healthy headspace then you’re unlikely to feel motivated or able to train and perform at the best of your ability.
At the start of the process, it felt like I had a massive mountain to climb and I was overwhelmed with the thought of the journey ahead.
Having done tonnes of races in the past, and having been running for 8 years consistently prior to my break, my starting position was one where running two miles was enough to send my heart rate through the roof.
I knew the journey ahead would be tough and whilst I finally had the burning motivation and will to put lots of quality running workouts in, my body simply wasn’t physically equipped for that.
By having the option of walking and making the most of it, I was able to do something positive for my fitness and rebuilding journey at volumes that I was happy with. This really helped with my mindset and the mental side of the process.
Whilst I knew I wasn’t physically fit and couldn’t run too much, walking gave me the sense that I was doing something proactive and putting in the work to get back on track.
Rather than giving up after stopping a run because it was too demanding, or not meeting my running mileage goals for a given week, I took pride in the fact that I instead channelled that determined energy into walking.
Yes, you’ll get more benefits from running for an hour compared to walking for an hour but in the early stages of running this may not be practical, and doing something is better than nothing. Even if that means more walking than running to start.
Walking helped me to prevent injuries
Something that I’ve been very careful about is injury prevention and walking helped with this.
Starting to run again with limited physical, muscular and cardiovascular endurance is a tricky undertaking and should be handled with care and caution. Otherwise, an injury can mean sitting on the sidelines and recovering for a week or more (depending on the severity of the injury).
Whilst I have had some minor injuries during this process (I’ll explain later…), I truly believe that walking helped prevent more serious injuries from occuring.
Walking differs from running in that when we walk, we always have one foot on the ground as we move. Compare that to running, where you use one foot to propel yourself up, you’re in mid-air for a moment, before landing on your other foot, and there’s a clear difference.
When we land during running, the body absorbs a lot of shock and impact of our body weight. I’ve read online that it’s typically three to four times our body weight with each landing depending on how intense the run is or on the incline (e.g., more weight if you’re running downhill).
Overtime, this high-intensity impact can compound and cause great stress to our joints, muscles and leg bones. If we don’t have good leg strength and conditioning then the risk of an injury is high, particularly in the early stages of starting to run for the first time or again after a break.
By walking a lot, I was able to apply small amounts of pressure and stress to my leg muscles and joints whilst working my core. These benefits increased as I started incorporating hill and trail walks into my walking regime.
Overtime, my legs have felt stronger on longer runs and I’ve even done two 20-mile runs in the last two weeks alone. That seemed like a crazy, impossible concept back in December at the start of the journey.
Essentially, whilst I have had two minor injuries during my rebuilding journey I truly feel that had I not done as much walking then these two would have been worse or I would have had more.
Walking has been a lifeline plan B during injury
As mentioned above, I had two minor injuries during my rebuilding journey.
The first happened after my first few runs in December. I was too enthusiastic to get back into the sport and did too many runs at too high an intensity. The result? A pulled leg and an unhappy Craig.
The second injury was unbelievably frustrating, but it was what it was. Whilst walking in my bedroom, I stubbed my left foot’s little toe incredibly hard on my bed frame and was in agonising pain. A few hours later, the toe was so swollen and bruised that I may aswell have dropped a boulder on it. This made running impossible for a week.
Rather than beat myself up about the early injury or the toe stub and give up, I focused on what I could do which was walking. During both of these injury periods, which each lasted a week, I kept walking as much as I could and felt positive that I was doing something to rebuild.
Whilst I could have ridden my road bike or gone for swims in my local pool, I gravitated towards walking as my confidence still wasn’t very high in terms of my fitness levels.
Having walking as a plan B in my back pocket was reassuring and, when I needed it, I used it to my advantage. Again, doing something is better than nothing as a new or returning runner.
Re-ignited my spark for running
At the start of the process, I wasn’t in the best place. I was unfit, slightly overweight, lacking motivation, and overwhelmed by the mountain ahead of me.
Unfortunately, I had lost my spark for running during the 8 months I’d had off and I had almost entirely forgotten how positive this sport makes me feel.
By focusing a lot on walking, I found myself naturally finding a love for being out and about and moving again and soon enough I couldn’t wait to start applying this to running.
Some of the great things about my walking, which I’ve been recently applying to running, have been:
- Exploring my local area.
- Setting and achieving goals in terms of distance and speed (a sense of achievement).
- Varied terrain including road and trail.
- The mental benefits that come from exercise like serotonin and dopamine release.
- Feeling my physical fitness improve and my weight come down to healthier levels.
I’m now feeling much more positive about my fitness, appearance, and my prospects of restarting my running again, and I owe a lot of this re-ignited spark to walking.
Conclusion and my next steps
There you have it. Just a few ways of how walking helped to save my running.
In terms of what’s next for me, I intend to keep walking and running but overtime gradually lower the amount of walking and increase the amount of running to levels I was comfortably doing each week before my break consistently.
My main goal is to get back to doing races and sharing my experiences on my channel. Racing is one of my favourite things when it comes to running so I’m looking forward to getting back onto some start lines.
I now have a newfound appreciation and, whilst I have always walked, I never realised just how beneficial it could be in my situation.
If you're in a similar situation where you're starting to run again from zero, or you're a brand new runner, or if you've experienced the benefits of walking for runner, please do let me know in the comments.
Thanks very much for reading.
I’ve been Craig, this is Running Cafe, and I wish you the very best in your running.
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