Denver Post staff writer John Meyer interviewed marathon running guru Jeff Galloway, whose books and training groups have touched thousands of lives, when Galloway visited Denver recently.
How do you explain the explosive growth of marathon running in recent years?
The marathon has always been a lifetime achievement award for anyone who chooses to take it up. It has always been a very elite group. Even with the expansion, you’re still one-tenth of 1 percent of the population. I’ve seen one survey that said for every 20 people who start to train for a marathon, only one makes it to the finish line. You have to jump through all these training hoops, you have to pull everything out of yourself, there are so many interruptions that can interfere …
The achievement factor is immense. Practically every person who finishes a marathon has this tremendous sense of exhilaration. I’ve done it 128 times, and it doesn’t matter how slow I go, it is a wonderful sense of achievement.
How does it make you feel to know you’ve touched thousands of lives?
Wonderful. We’re all in this together. I have been teaching people since 1973, passionately wanting the average person to experience the joy I have had since 1958 when I started (running). To see them experience this is my reward.
Your advocacy of taking walk breaks for training and running a marathon is controversial. You believe most people can finish marathons faster taking breaks than they can if they run continuously. What do you say to the critics?
It does work. Over 100 people who have reported back to me have broken three hours who couldn’t running continuously. People can say, “There’s no way it can work.” Well, it does work.
Do the math for me. For example, how can someone run a 3:30 marathon (eight-minute mile pace) using walk breaks?
Run four minutes and walk 25-30 seconds (repeating this cycle). On a 30-second walk, most people lose between seven and nine seconds. During the next four minutes of running, you’re going to lose 2-point-something seconds per minute. That is very easy to make up, and that’s what happens. You get behind these people who are running the constant pace, but you catch right back up with them, you’re feeling so good that you blow right by them at the halfway point. You never see them again. Running is a free-form activity. If you want to walk, you walk. The reality is, most people who try to run continuously walk at the end, but they lose a lot more by doing it.
