Scout Trot

[Leo L.]

Out of curiosity, and in lack of anybody or anyplace else to ask, here it goes:

In an old book about Boy Scout skills a special kind of walk or jog is described, I'll call in lack of any name known to me, "scout trot".
It works simply by walking 20 paces, jogging 20 paces and over again.
The book claims that a person could cover more km in one run this way than by jogging continuosely, and do so in a shorter time than by pure walking.

Has anybody heard about this?
Any thoughts or experience?

[Hikes in Rain]

Dates back to Roman times and probably older than that. I learned 50 paces, but either way, it's a great way to cover the leagues without wearing yourself out. Come to think of it, you could probably keep up a 20/20 pace longer than a 50/50. Best way to find out is to get out there and give it a try. It's a healthy experiment, if nothing else.

[Leo L.]

Thanks for pointing out the relation to the Romans!
Will try this soon. It obviousely needs to be a walk with light luggage.

[Sarcasm the elf]

Out of curiosity, and in lack of anybody or anyplace else to ask, here it goes:

In an old book about Boy Scout skills a special kind of walk or jog is described, I'll call in lack of any name known to me, "scout trot".
It works simply by walking 20 paces, jogging 20 paces and over again.
The book claims that a person could cover more km in one run this way than by jogging continuosely, and do so in a shorter time than by pure walking.

Has anybody heard about this?
Any thoughts or experience?

My grandfather taught me this technique a while back although he used 30 paces instead of 20. He grew up at a time when walking was still the normal way of getting across town and when walking trails were much more prevalent. He said that this technique was a relatively common back then.

[Leo L.]

Nobody does this any more?
Anybody knows the correct English name for this?

[Kerosene]

When it is cold, I'm in a hurry, or I just want to get in my daily "workout", I'll do a variation of this with a 15-30 pound pack. Basically, I look for sections with a smoother trailbed and little elevation change (not always that available on the AT!). Then, I'll do a little shuffle step until I either get to a rough/steep section or I start to get winded; that could be anything from 10-50 steps I'd guess, but I'm not counting steps. At that point I will revert to my regular pace until the trail surface smooths out and my heartrate has dropped a bit. On the slight downhills I will keep my legs bent to try to take the weight off my knees and take advantage of the momentum to get to the bottom without building up too much speed.

As for my daily workout, during my section hikes I would try to spend about an hour a day at a faster-than-normal pace. By the end of my typical week-long hikes I would definitely notice an improvement in my endurance, although with my soccer-level fitness I was always in pretty good shape to start.

[Traillium]

I've heard the term 'dog-trot' used for something like that. Our old-time voyageurs and courier de bois often covered long portages heavily laden doing a sort of dog-trot continuously. I've tried it on the portage trail using something very similar to the odd hip-rolling of racewalking and it worked just fine. Exhausting, but fine for up to about a kilometer with a canoe.