Incidental Running

I stole this idea from Bernd Heinrich. I’m not sure if he calls it this or not, but I like to call it ‘incidental’ running. It simply means running, at whatever pace I feel like at the time, in the course of normal daily activities where I am moving outside. This works well at Teaching Drum because I’m often going from cabin to cabin throughout the day, and I’m sometimes visiting Luke or Paul who live ¼ mile away. It also works when I’m visiting one of our wilderness camps.
The mileage probably adds up to ½-3 miles/day, depending on what is going on that particular day, but I think that the main purpose of this running is more to train the neurological system to “think” in terms of running rather than walking as the preferred form of getting around. It is also an opportunity for me to work on running mechanics and form, and sometimes I’ll make it an impromptu drill of some sort; either high knees, kick-backs, or skipping. Sometimes I’ll make it a sprint, thereby getting a slight amount of speed work.
I asked folks around here to “flag” me, or call me out if I’m just walking around outside. I don’t think I’ll apply it to town visits, but maybe sometimes, just for fun, I’ll sprint across crowded parking lots into the grocery store, or down the sidewalk to the coffee shop.
What do you all think? Would this sort of incidental running really make any slight difference in race performance or not?