With proper guidance, any person in reasonable health can run a marathon. Jeff Galloway, a well-known running trainer, is that sane and wise guidance. Galloway introduces an amazing discovery: both novices and veterans can better their overall time and enjoyment during a marathon by walking at prescribed times. This counterintuitive technique is laid out nicely here with lots of expert encouragement, backed by Galloway's experience in helping hundreds of marathoners at sundry levels try the unthinkable: race faster by resting your legs.

-- KK

Marathon: You Can Do It!
Jeff Galloway
2001, 209 pages
$12
Shelter Publications, Inc.
415-868-0280
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Excerpt:

Almost anyone can complete a marathon in six months!. Even if you only have 60 minutes to exercise during the workweek, you can train for the marathon. The minimum is actually better for insuring against injuries. During the week, you need to accumulate only an hour of running/walking. The long run starts at 3 miles and gradually increases by 1 mile each week until it reaches 10 miles. Then, you'll do the long run every other week, with a run/walk of half the distance on alternate 'off' weekends. Once you've completed the 18-miler, you'll receive two weekends off for good behavior, shifting to a long run every third week.

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Walk break: Periods of walking taken on long runs. This is your secret weapon. Walk breaks allow your running muscles to recover before they are injured and conserve your energy so you can exercise for longer periods, which builds the endurance you need. In the beginning, your runs will actually be walks interspersed with short periods of running; over time, the running portions will become longer and the walk breaks shorter.

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The Huff and Puff Rule may help: If you're huffing and puffing so much during the last 2 to 3 miles of a long run that you can't carry on a conversation, you went too fast from the beginning of that run. On the next run, slow down significantly, take walk breaks more frequently, or both. Remember to write a note to yourself, to be read just before starting your next long run.

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The race was ten loops around Chastain Park. When I got to about 15 miles, I was pooped. the race director was on the course watching the runners, and I told him I was going to drop out. He said, "You can't, you're in first place!�"

"What about Ken�" I asked.

"He dropped out two laps ago."

Well all right, so on I went. I ran a few more laps, and felt awful. I came by the race director again and told him I wasn't feeling too good. this time he said "Are you sure you want to give up this trophy?" I'd never won a trophy before, so I went another lap. Now I was up to 20 miles and felt really bad.

Here was the director again. "Nothing you can say will keep me going here," I told him. he looked at his watch and said: "You're a half-hour ahead of second place."

OK, OK, that was enough incentive, so on I went. I ran and walked, struggling to the finish, and I won in 2:56:35.

It took me about two years before I felt like running another marathon. That experience kept playing over and over in my mind. Surely there's a better way of doing this, I thought, and it set me on the road to figuring out what I did wrong. How could this be done better, so it'd be easier and you'd feel stronger without having to struggle so much? Throughout the years, it led me into developing the walk break strategy that's the central theme of this book.

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Elite African runners and other worldclass runners seldom run more than 200 yards using the same form mode. They're constantly alternating between race form, gliding, shuffling, and ERAs, as they race through the course.