“those with the right Run-Walk-Run adjustments are strong to the finish. They are the “passers” not the passees” during the last few miles—which is very empowering.” – Jeff Galloway
Worked out in the pool four consecutive days – in a row – and now I can’t walk. Ice bag on left knee, used the downtime to clean my computer and came across a couple-year-old conversation. I have been having similar conversations for decades now. Everybody telling me to ‘give it a rest.’
You might not know this but I am the knucklehead who invented jogging in place while waiting for the “Do Not Walk” sign to offer permission to proceed. As the slowest guy in town, I had to log the most miles, just to keep up. My heroes were Gerry Lindgren, Dave Bedford, Tom Fleming and Ron Clarke – if you know, you know.
Can you teach an old dog a new trick?
Galloway Is Right by Jeff Johnson
I became sold on the run-walk plan about forty years ago. One day, I went out for a twelve-mile run. I wasn’t excited for it. I didn’t want to do it. But rather than bail out of it altogether, I thought I’d try Galloway’s run-walk. So I ran twenty-five minutes and walked five minutes all the way around. which meant there were only two five-minute walking periods. I was finished before the opportunity for the third walking break came up.
Odd thing. Afterwards, my body felt like I had run four miles, not twelve. I was not beat up. Also, I discovered that I was walking about half as fast as I ran, so instead of arriving at the finish ten minutes slower, (2×5 minute walks), I arrived five minutes slower. And not even that. It was more like two minutes slower than usual because I had been fresher on the second and third running bouts and was able to run faster than I normally would have run, with no awareness of having gone faster. In other words, my faster pace over the bulk of the run meant I was running more intensely for the bulk of the run, getting a better workout and feeling better than I would have had I run the entire distance non-stop.
During my second high school coaching bout (of three), I insisted that on our thirty-minute easy recovery day jogs, that the girls jog ten minutes, walk three to five minutes (depending on how they felt) until we had completed our roughly four-mile recovery run loop. I had zero problem selling this idea to high school girls. “I get to walk? My kind of workout”, one said. We would take walking breaks on training days (esp. long runs) if we needed them. Our kids performed consistently well and with few injuries.
I had a harder time selling this to my Farm Team athletes, all formerly successful collegiate athletes. Again, the girls were more reasonable. I would say, “the point of a recovery day is to recover, not to train; why wouldn’t we walk if it helps us recover?” Most of the guys never bought into it, but then most of the guys weren’t buying into anything that didn’t smack of the over-training they were accustomed to. Most of my workouts were much less intense than they were used to.
It took over a year with no one improving very much, because they continued to exceed the prescribed intensity. I lacked the credentials or authority to slow them down; Bowerman would have said “Get off my track until you’re willing to train appropriately” but the Stanford track wasn’t my track – it was Vin Lananna’s track – so I couldn’t say that.
Then, the second or third year I was there, on one day’s easy run, a couple of the men’s team leaders suggested “Why don’t we try to do what he is asking us to? Especially since the girls are running better than we are.” It was about six months before I heard that story, and they only told me after they started racing much better.
Anyway, Galloway is right. Run-walk is certainly a valuable training and recovery tool, right along with training within yourself all the time.
Improving Galloway’s Run-Walk-Run
My goal when I first began running was to go as fast as I could at all distances up to, and including, the marathon. I was never a jogger. When I heard Jeff was preaching a novel technique of training – not running all the time – must admit I gave the theory my instant dismissal.
Yeah, and now look at me.
I should have listened.