ChrisM wrote:
I plan on walking aid stations but as it is in a country with the metric system, they are every kilometer - so 42 of them! every aid station might be too soon of a walk (but might be ideal), better than every other I guess I am going to take this t run practice advice as well
Yeah, that's a lot of aid stations, and a lot of breaks but like you said not necessarily a bad idea as compared to going 2K between. If things are going well, depending on the weather etc. maybe work a scheme where at the even ones you do something like a quick sip of water and a sponge, and the odd ones you walk a bit longer and take in a more significant amount of sports drink or coke etc, and a gel every now and then. Either way though, once you are working the plan of resuming running regularly, just stay in rhythm.
16 miles @ 8:00 plus 10 miles @15:00 is a 4:38
25 miles @ 9:00 plus another mile made up of 26 ~30 second walk breaks is sub 4 hours
40 K @ 5:30 per K, plus another 2K as 42(!) 30 second walk breaks is also right around 4 hours.
Regardless of your personal pace, for the first however many miles/Ks you will probably be saying to yourself "self, I don't really need to walk, I could totally keep running. HTFU. I'm an Ironman". And then you should say "Self, STFU. That's a recipe for a meltdown" and you should walk/chug/breath, then start running again. Later on, when you've settled in and proven to yourself that you can and will resume running repeatedly, you can think about some adjustments to pace, break duration, etc. and if you wanna get crazy and haul ass for the last 5K or 10K, knock yourself out. By then you will have been in "pure run" mode for a couple of hours and have a much better feel for what is happening to your body and what is sustainable. You will also probably realize how great the plan is working and that you might be best served by sticking with it...