So something interesting I found out that might be able to help a smarter person narrow down the issue: I changed the run speed in my character class default settings to something really low like 100 and now the character does the walk animation at the slow speed WHILE the shift is being held! And without shift being held the character runs fast! Really weird.
Also, I found the actual blueprint that is controlling the movement.
EDIT: OH!! I just figured out the issue. The max walk speed upon the shift being released was set way too high at 700. Thanks for all of your help !