How I Broke 20 Minutes in the 5K move Published: Apr 25, 2025 10:21 AM EDT long-distance races they think they need a Michele Stanten, In the afternoon or evening, walking can improve digestion particularly after dinner and promote.
“If you go out for a 30-minute or 60-minute run, what are you doing for the rest of the day?” she asks.
Adding a walk to your daily fitness routine is a low-impact way to improve physical and mental health, and actually boost your strength and fitness, Stanten tells Runner’s World.
“I think of walking as the base of a physical activity pyramid,” she says. “And there is a benefit to just moving more throughout the day.”
That extra movement doesn’t have to be—and in many cases shouldn’t be—a second workout, Danielle Hirt, a NASM-certified personal trainer and RRCA-certified run coach, tells Runner’s World.
“Walking as a second workout is not meant to feel like a workout,” she says. “It’s not meant to leave you on the floor like a lactate threshold workout. And it shouldn’t take away from a quality session.” (Just like runners who might run twice a day know the second run shouldn’t be a hard effort.)
Read on to learn about the There are perks to as a second activity, for whom it’s most useful, and Stanten and Hirt’s favorite ways to do it.
What are the There are perks to as a second workout?
When you walk, whether that’s power walking or taking a leisurely stroll around the block, your muscles start to loosen up, especially tight glutes and hip flexors caused by lots of running and sitting. And walking is a lower-impact exercise that uses a lot of the same muscles you use to run, which means you’re strengthening them without the same amount of stress on the body, Stanten says.
“Walking is also a great active recovery,” she says.
Although a walk won’t necessarily ramp up your heart rate the way a run might, it helps better your mobility and stability, Hirt explains. “It improves the biomechanics that aid us in running and wards off imbalance while also building volume.”
How to Run Twice a Day Without Injury half or marathon distance, can do that with just a 15- or 20-minute walk on top of their training run.
“You’ll get used to being on your feet for longer distances, which increases your endurance,” Stanten says.
Should I walk in the morning or later in the day?
When you’re planning your workout schedule, Hirt says the most important thing is to make your walk consistent—designating time to do it every day, just as you would your first workout.
“These aren’t full-on workouts,” Hirt says. “Just create the habit and carve out that time to build more intention.” Once you have that consistency, she says, you can build in workout elements (more on that in a minute).
There are perks to walking earlier in the day, and there are perks to walking later in the day. In the morning, Stanten says, gentle walking is a great way to wake up and ease yourself into the day and your later run.
“And you feel accomplished that you got moving,” she says, which might lead to making healthier choices throughout the day.
In the afternoon or evening, walking can improve digestion (particularly after dinner) and promote recovery for the day’s workout. “There’s no right or wrong way, morning or evening,” Hirt says. “It’s the general consistency and creating that habit” that’s key.
Can walking help me run twice a day?
In a word, yes. But Hirt emphasizes that runners should really look at why to your daily second run.
“Does your race require that much volume or are you doing it because ‘two-a-days’ sounds cool?’ What’s the purpose?” she asks.
Walking on top of a run workout is certainly better than doing nothing at all, but you really need to be moving for 15 to 20 minutes to start to see the benefits connected to fitness and biomechanics, Hirt says.
Once you’ve regularly been walking for that second workout and you’ve decided a second run will be beneficial to your training, Stanten says you can make tweaks to turn that walk into a run.
“This is a great gateway to add a second run,” she says. “As your body adjusts over a few weeks, you add intervals of faster walking and then make those running intervals. You’ll decrease the walking until your second workout is all running.”
Transitioning this way, she says, instead of jumping into another 30-minute run, will slowly build endurance and strength, and prepare the body for additional impact.
“You’ll be less likely to get injured as you increase mileage,” she says.
Try These Walking Workouts For Your Two-a-Days
Walk Briskly
Remember, a second workout—whether that’s walking or running—should be gentle. And while a leisurely stroll is better than doing nothing at all, you’ll reap more benefits if you walk at a brisk (but not power walk) pace, Stanten says. If you’re walking as an active recovery, you can slow things down.
Be sure to bend your arms and take shorter, quicker steps, landing on your heels and rolling through your foot to push off your toes. If you add intervals, try 30 seconds of faster walking and then recover for 60 seconds.
Fartlek Walk
You’ve probably heard of an unstructured speed workout called a fartlek, which is Swedish for speed play. Experiment with alternating between moderate and harder paces for varying amounts of time or distance.
You can do this with walking, too. Stanten recommends, while walking, pick an object ahead of you like a mailbox or street sign and push the pace How to Run Twice a Day Without Injury.
Add Strength
Two simple ways to add more bang for your buck when it comes to walking: hills and a weighted vest. Walking on a hilly route or even doing a series of walking hill repeats can increase strength while still being low impact, Hirt says.
Common Marathon Training Mistakes weighted vest or even doing a series of walking.
Heather is the former food and nutrition editor for Runner’s World, the author of The Runner’s World Vegetarian Cookbook, and a nine-time marathoner with a best of 3:23. She’s also proud of her 19:40 5K and 5:33 mile. Heather is an RRCA certified run coach.
