Ultramarathon Walking Strategy: Run-Walk Ratios and Hills

Our default for 24-hour and multiday races is to walk from the first hour: 25 minutes running and 5 minutes walking, with a brisk walk of about 6 km/h (10:00 per km). In a backyard ultra, walk about a quarter of each yard; on trail courses, hike the climbs. This guide shows what those choices are worth in distance, how to walk faster, and how to rehearse the pattern so it holds when you are tired.

Walking Is Strategy

In a 24-hour race, a backyard ultra or a mountain 100, walking belongs in the plan from the start. A timed race rewards total distance over the whole clock; a trail race also requires enough progress to reach each cutoff.

Planned walking keeps early effort down and gives you a predictable window to eat and drink. Walking speed matters as much as the ratio: a study of 51 runners at a 24-hour track race in Rio de Janeiro sorted lap speeds into bands, and the better runners spent less of the race in breaks and in the 3.5–5.9 km/h band. A brisk 6 km/h walk sits above that band, which is why our default sets a walking speed as well as a ratio.

When to Walk

• From the first hour, on a schedule. Use 25:5 in 24-hour and multiday races, before you feel you need it.
• On climbs. Hike any climb you cannot run at conversational effort; the hill section below gives the gradient research.
• While you eat. Walk out of the aid station with food in hand rather than standing still to finish it.
• In a backyard ultra. Walk about a quarter of each yard and run the rest, which brings a 6.7 km yard in at 50–55 minutes in our backyard training plan.
• Where running is unsafe. Congestion, poor footing, or darkness beyond the reach of your light.

For confusion, collapse, chest pain or loss of coordination, stop and get race-medical help. Use the medical warning-sign checklist to tell a pacing adjustment from a reason to stop.

Run-Walk Ratios and Cues

No study has found one best ratio, so pick a default and test it. Ours is 25:5. Shorter patterns such as 4 minutes running and 1 minute walking suit runners who prefer frequent short breaks; at the same speeds the two give almost the same distance, as the worked numbers below show. A cue only works if you can follow it while tired, so choose one of these and keep it simple.

How to Walk Fast

Holding 6 km/h for hours takes practice. These cues help most runners:

• Stand tall and lean slightly forward from the ankles, not the waist.
• Take quicker, shorter steps instead of longer ones; reaching forward with the heel acts as a brake.
• Bend your elbows to about 90 degrees and swing your arms from the shoulder, driving them back as well as forward.
• Roll through the foot and push off from the toes.
• On steep climbs, shorten the step further and push on your thighs with your hands, or use poles if the race allows them and you have practised with them.

One kilometre per hour is a large amount of ground over a day. In the table, minutes per kilometre is 60 divided by the speed in km/h, and minutes per mile is that figure multiplied by 1.609344. The last column assumes the speed is held for a full 24 hours with no stops, so it is a ceiling for comparing speeds, not a forecast.

Cadence

In a treadmill study of 76 adults aged 21–40, Tudor-Locke et al. (2019) proposed 100 and 130 steps per minute as approximate thresholds for moderate and vigorous intensity. Those are population intensity estimates, not target cadences for a tired ultrarunner.

Cadence and speed together set your step length. At our 6 km/h default you cover 100 metres a minute, so 100 steps a minute is a 1.00 m step and 120 steps a minute is a 0.83 m step. At 7 km/h you cover 116.7 metres a minute, so 120 steps a minute is a 0.97 m step. If you want to walk faster, add steps before you add length, and use these numbers to read your watch data rather than forcing a stride that feels awkward.

When to Hike a Climb

On a steep climb, hiking is often nearly as fast as running and costs less energy. Three lab studies put numbers on it:

• Giovanelli et al. (2016) had 15 trained runners climb at a fixed 1,260 m an hour on slopes from 17% to 82%. Walking used less energy than running on every slope except the gentlest, and the authors put the crossover at about 28% (15.8°).
• Ortiz et al. (2017) tested 11 experienced runners on a 58% (30°) slope. Walking was cheaper at speeds up to 0.7 m/s (2.5 km/h), the two were equal at 0.8 m/s, and running was likely cheaper above that.
• Minetti et al. (2002) measured 10 runners on treadmill slopes from −45% to +45%. At +45%, running cost about 9% more energy per metre than walking: (18.93 ÷ 17.33 − 1) × 100 ≈ 9.2%.

The level walking value is the lowest cost Minetti measured, at about 3.6 km/h, not the cost of a 6 km/h walk. All three studies used fresh runners in short bouts, and the crossover depends on speed: the slower you are climbing, the more walking wins. Our default is to hike any climb you cannot run at conversational effort and any climb steeper than about 25%, and to run gentler climbs only when running is clearly faster at the same effort.

What Each Pattern Is Worth

These calculations compare our 25:5 default with the shorter 4:1 pattern from the 24-hour pacing strategy. Both assume 10 km/h running, 6 km/h walking and 2 hours of stops across the 24, leaving 22 hours moving.

The first row works out as 25 minutes at 10 km/h = 4.167 km plus 5 minutes at 6 km/h = 0.500 km, giving 4.667 km every 30 minutes, or 9.33 km/h. The 22-hour totals use the unrounded speeds. The two patterns differ by 2.9 km over 22 moving hours, while an extra 30-minute stop costs 4.6 km at 9.2 km/h. Stops matter more than the choice between these ratios, so budget them explicitly.

Allow for Slowing Later

Holding an early speed for 22 hours is a strong assumption. A second scenario allows six moving hours at 9.33 km/h, eight at 7 km/h and eight at 5 km/h, plus two stopped hours. That totals 56 + 56 + 40 = 152 km, compared with 205.3 km at a constant 9.33 km/h. The speeds are illustrative; plan with your own measured paces.

Enter your measured paces in the run-walk calculator, then use the pace calculator to compare stopped-time scenarios. For a course with cutoffs, check each remaining section rather than relying only on the whole-race average.

What Walking Alone Gets You

The walking-only row is the one most runners underestimate. A runner who walks at 6 km/h and is stopped for 2 hours covers 132 km, or 82 miles. Dropping to 5 km/h gives 22 x 5 = 110 km (68.4 mi); lifting it to 7 km/h gives 154 km (95.7 mi). For scale, the median of all 52 published results at the September 2025 Self-Transcendence London 24-hour was 164.4 km, and the middle 50% of that field fell between 136.7 km and 183.2 km, as calculated in this site’s statistics report. Those results do not record who walked, so treat the comparison as scale, not as proof that a given walking speed will carry you there.

Train the Walk

Use your race pattern in every long run from the first hour and hold the walk at about 6 km/h, within the training load you already tolerate. Then refine it in five steps:

1. Choose one repeatable section. Use a familiar loop or climb within an existing easy session, with the shoes and pack you will race in.
2. Test one cue. Walk at a landmark or on a timer, then return to easy running without accelerating to recover the “lost” time.
3. Record elapsed time as well as moving time. Note run pace, walk pace, stops, effort and any discomfort. GPS moving averages hide aid-station time.
4. Judge the second half of the session. A good average in the first few cycles means little if effort or soreness rises sharply later, or recovery the next day is poor.
5. Change one thing at a time. Compare another cue on a similar session, then rehearse eating or kit changes during a walk once the pattern is comfortable.

Save a short note for race day: “Cue: ___; tested run/walk paces: ___; next cutoff and margin: ___; review at: ___.” Decide in advance when you will review the plan, such as at an aid station or after a change in conditions, rather than continually chasing the original average.

Common Mistakes

• Copying another runner's ratio without testing it.
• Waiting to walk until you are already tired.
• Accelerating abruptly after each walk to "make up time."
• Letting the walk drift into a stroll; check walking pace as well as running pace.
• Treating walking as a way to continue through an emergency warning sign.
• Using a race-day gait, footwear, or poles that were not practised.

For timed events, combine this with the 24-hour pacing strategy.