Why is even a slow, short jog much more taxing than a long walk?

Question

I’m trying to do Couch to 5K at the moment to improve my personal fitness.

I can do long walks of an hour or more (10k+ in one go) with relative ease.

Yet a one minute run (which is Week 1 Workout 1 in C25K!) at an INCREDIBLY slow jogging pace is pushing my heart rate nearly to dangerous levels and I am finding it immensely challenging.

So what is it about a light jog that makes it so much more difficult than walking?

In: 38

Answer 1

The answers here are correct, but I’ll add that from what I understand walking and jogging burn the same amount of calories by distance. So basically, a 2 mile walk will burn the same amount of calories as a 2 mile jog. Even though the jog is more intense of an activity, it also takes like half the time as an equivalent distance of walking.

So jogging is better for burning calories only insomuch as you burn calories in less time, but if you have time on your hands and think in terms of distance traveled, you can totally just walk instead to achieve the same result.