After reading much discussion on this board about walking breaks I thought it would be worth mentioning the coaching techniques of Dr. Van Aakena very well respected German distance coach from the 50's 60's and 70's. Van Aaken coached Harold norpoth of Germany to a 13.20 5k in the 60's when a 13.20 5k was phenomenal (god knows what its worth today). Anyway, having just read Van aakens book "the Van AAken Method' I was very interested to read about the techniques adopted by Norpoth and his fellow Germans. Van aken did not believe in any form of interval training. He believed that 70% of training should be run at a hear rate below 130 beats per minute. He believed in covering large distances per day, up to 50 kilometres and after say 6 months of training some of the runs could be picked up to maybe 150 beats per minute HR, in other words talking pace, the other ten percent would involve a very light fartlek towards the end of runs, maybe run at 70% effort over say the last mile to 2 miles of a run. He belived that interval training had adetremental effect on performance and actually limited an athleets performance. His own athleets seem to prove his theory when looking at their progression. But and probably most interesting of all, Van Aaken belieevd that an athleet should implement walking breaks into his running. He says that it is far more beneficial to maintain a regular pace whils using walking breaks tha to have your pace slowly decelaret as fatigue attacks during a run. Norpoth is quoted in the book as regularly taking walking breaks on his training runs, not as an interval but to allow the body to travel further and use the bodies reserevs f fat, a technique which is important in distance running. So its possible to run a 13.20 5k off relatively light but high volume training, bring on the walking breaks.