Chapter 1 — Getting Started

The Basics of Your Marathon Program

The marathon is primarily an endurance event. It is only secondarily a race and should not be an ordeal. This isn’t to say it’s a walk in the park, but you should be able to finish a marathon, enjoy the sense of achievement it gives you, and look forward to running your next one. The Galloway program will enable you to do just that, all in about six months. The purpose of the program is to build endurance at a steady incremental rate without subjecting your body to stress and injury. Key components are persistence and moderation. The unique factor introduced in this program is the walk break. As you will see, short walks interspersed with your training runs will prevent you from pushing yourself to exhaustion and injury.

At the beginning, the program is very simple (you run just three days a week), as shown below:

In summary, you:

• Walk for 30–60 minutes three days a week
• Run for 30 minutes (with walk breaks) twice a week
• Take one day off to rest
• Take a long run (with walk breaks) once a week (or once every other week)

Almost anyone can complete a marathon in six months!

Even if you only have 60 minutes to exercise during the work week, 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.

Some running terminology

First let’s define some running terms:

Cross training: Exercise other than running. Cycling, swimming, or weight training are typical cross training activities for runners; these sports develop different muscles. Cross training may not improve your marathon time, nor is it necessary for you to finish a marathon, but it will provide attitude-boosting endorphins, stress release, and burn fat on non-running days.

Form work: When you concentrate on form while training. There are a lot of components here, but three of the most important to focus on are: chest up (good posture), hips forward, and pushing off strongly with your feet. (Think C-H-P.)

Hill training: Running hills prepares your muscles for running faster; there is less pounding and therefore less muscle strain than running on the flat.

Long run: The most important component of your marathon training. The beginner starts with a 3-mile run, gradually building to a 26-mile run three weeks before the marathon. You use walk breaks on all the long runs.

Maintenance runs: The short runs, taken twice a week and lasting no longer than an hour, that consolidate the endurance gains acquired during the previous week’s long run.

Rest: Rest is as important a factor in your training as is running. Without adequate rest you will injure your muscles, possibly beyond repair in time for the race. During the week, you rest while training by taking walk breaks and you also rest by not training for longer than 60 minutes at a time. Resting allows your muscles to rebuild stronger than they were before.

Run: A run is a run. It is not a sprint; it is a steady run, but not a continuous run, since you will be using walk breaks to rest and rejuvenate your muscles.

Speed work: Here you run measured one-milers at a specified time (as designated in the programs on pp. 36–57). Speed training is time-consuming, and recommended for competitive runners, not first-time marathoners.

Two-Minute Rule: You run all your long runs at least 2 minutes slower per mile than you could otherwise run that distance on that day. You will get the same endurance benefits running slowly as you would running faster. However you’ll recover much faster from running slowly.

Walk: A walk is a walk. In this program you walk before you run and you walk during runs. Start by walking 30 minutes a day. If you can’t walk comfortably that long, take short breaks. Look at the scenery for a while, then continue. Gradually increase the distance of your walks until you’re walking a maximum of 60 minutes, three days a week. Then stay at that level.

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.

Wall: “Hitting the wall” is a runner’s phrase meaning that you get so tired you can barely go on, your reserves are depleted. These training programs will allow you to improve your endurance so you can cross the finish line without running up against “the wall.”

ENDURANCE (Long runs) + MAINTENANCE (60-minute runs) + REST

Your body is designed to improve its endurance continuously if you gently stress it in a pattern of increases, rest enough for rebuilding, and do regular maintenance so that it won’t forget the process. Think of your training program as a sound system. Each exercise session serves as a component designed to produce a specific effect. The long run gradually gets longer, and this develops the endurance necessary for finishing the marathon. The slow and minimal 60 minutes of maintenance run/walks during the week simply maintain the conditioning gained on the weekend. On other days it’s crucial to allow the running muscles to rest — they need time to rebuild and they then make marvelous adaptations for easier and longer running.

The long run builds endurance

As you extend a mile or three farther on each long one, you push back your endurance limit. It’s important to go slowly on each of these (at least two minutes per mile slower than you could run that distance on that day) to make it easy for your muscles to extend their current endurance limit and recover afterward. As you lengthen the long one to 26 miles, you build the exact endurance necessary to complete the marathon. Walk breaks, taken from the beginning (see section below) will also speed your recovery and make the extra distance on each run a gentle challenge.

Non-long-run weekends

On the alternate (“off”) weekends, there are several options. Most runners will do a slow run of about half the distance of the current long run (up to 10 miles). On two to four of these “easy” weekends, it is wise to do a 5K road race to predict what you might be able to do in the marathon. (See Predicting Race Performance on p. 188.) Veterans will do speed sessions on some of the non-long-run weekends. If you’re feeling good during these shorter runs, you can run them continuously, but there’s no advantage in doing this. In other words, walk breaks are at your discretion on the shorter runs, including the ones during the week.

Walk breaks on long runs:

• Must be taken early and often to reduce pounding and fatigue
• Must be taken often to allow the primary running muscles to recover fast — even when increasing long run length
• Will also help most marathoners run faster in the marathon itself

Note: You must still slow down the overall pace to at least 2 minutes per mile slower than you could run that distance on that day.

The most important walk breaks are the ones taken during the first mile and the second most important, those taken in the second mile, and so on. When taken from the beginning of all long runs, walk breaks erase fatigue, speed recovery, reduce injury, and yet bestow all of the endurance benefits of the distance covered. In other words, when both cover the same distance, a slow long run with walk breaks gives you the same distance conditioning as a fast run without them.

Doing “the minimum” will decrease your chance of injury and fatigue

The programs in this book might look minimal: only an hour a day, and walking (not even running) three days a week! But doing the minimum will decrease injury and fatigue. When you extend your endurance limits on each long run, you’ll stress and break down the muscle and energy systems. The good news comes after rest days. When you give the running muscles a chance to recover, they make dozens of adaptations, gearing you up for an even greater challenge between one and three weeks later. If you’re not getting enough rest, your muscles will accumulate pockets of microtears, which will continue to accumulate until you experience extreme fatigue or injury.

Tens of thousands of average people have gone through our program, with almost no injuries among those who follow the minimum. There are always some, however, who just have to push the envelope. The few who get injured in our training groups are almost always those who add distance, speed, or exercise days to our recommended schedule.

Because this is a bare-bones program, it’s very important to do every one of the 60 minutes of exercise during the week to maintain long-run endurance and to speed recovery by increasing the blood flow to the muscles. You can run or walk in segments as short as 10 minutes, accumulating the magic 1 hour of exercise over a four– to five-day period. As is true with “cramming” before exams, it’s not effective to get in all 60 minutes during the two days before the next long run. The day before the long run, avoid exercise, or at least avoid exercise for the calf muscles in the lower leg.

Rest and cross training

Significant rest is as important as the stress components of the program are. It’s actually during the rest days that your muscles rebuild themselves, become stronger, and make adaptations for greater efficiency. Only if you refrain from stressing them will the muscles recover enough to prevent injury or lingering tiredness.

To maximize the chance of having resilient legs, you need to rest the muscles on the day before the long run. Cross training can be done on non-running days. Make sure that the lower leg muscles can recover and you don’t seem to be accumulating overall fatigue. Avoid stair machines, leg-strengthening exercises, cycling that involves standing up, and step aerobics classes. The most useful cross-training exercises are water running, cross-country ski machines, walking, swimming, cycling, and upper body weight training.

Speed

Only those who have run a marathon before should even consider a time goal. The primary benefit in this program comes from gradually increasing the distance of the long run. Having run more than sixty marathons for time and more than fifty just to finish, I believe that time improvement is for the ego, although there’s nothing wrong with that. The speed game can be interesting, but most of the satisfaction in running in a marathon comes from crossing the finish line. Your first marathon should be done at a pace slow enough so that you reach the finish line knowing that you could run faster and that you want to run another.

Veterans who have run a marathon or few and want to improve their times can add a speed component on some of the alternate (“off”) weekends. (See pp. 118–119 for my recommended schedule of hill play.) Please be careful: The addition of speed will increase your chances of injury. As long as your goal is realistic, you’re taking sufficient rest, and you adapt the pace to weather conditions, you’ll give your body the creative stress it needs to help you improve gradually.

Veterans will increase their chance of fulfilling their time goals by increasing the length of the long run to 28 or 29 miles. This builds extra endurance, which gives your legs the capacity to keep pushing during the latter stages of the marathon itself. On these extra-long runs, reduce the pace from the beginning by running at least 2 minutes per mile slower than you could run that distance on that day.

Don’t mix and match

Beware of mixing components, that is, don’t add speed-training elements to your long runs or try to extend or speed up the speed-training sessions. Running too fast on the long run will leave you much more tired, and with more damaged muscle cells, than you would experience by following the Two-Minute Rule. Not only are you increasing the chance of injury, but veterans who try to put speed into the endurance run will sacrifice the quantity or quality of their speed play later in the week. Often this fatigue is subtle, because of the release of stress hormones which mask the sensations of tiredness, and you won’t feel it for two or three long runs.

Maintenance runs that are too fast will slow down recovery and increase the buildup of fatigue. It is important that your 60 minutes of maintenance exercise during the week is done slowly enough so the muscles will recover from the previous weekend. When in doubt, go slower.

Running too long or too fast during speed-play sessions will reduce the prospective benefit. In endurance events, speed, like endurance, is developed in a series of many speed sessions, each pushing only a little further than the one before. Going further or faster than you have been in the recent past will increase the time you need to recover and complicate the rebuilding process. When too many of the muscle cells are damaged, the muscle takes longer to rebuild itself.

It helps to have a group

One of the most delightful things I do is help set up training groups around North America. Each group member finds a significant motivation boost to do the long runs and to get in the 60 minutes during the week. You’ll be inspired by your “teammates” some days, and you’ll inspire them on others. Choose a team that has the same fitness condition as you. The goal is to go slowly enough on long runs that even the least-conditioned members of the group can keep up. In each of the cities where we have groups, we have several sub-groups, based upon fitness level.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the wall?

Most marathoners who push themselves by starting their long runs too fast, or exceeding the distance of their current long run by more than 3 miles, or both, will experience a “wall” of fatigue at the end of the run. The wall hits you quickly as you reach your limits. Within a few meters, you go from feeling tired but capable of going on to feeling as if you can’t go more than a few steps. The muscles have gone too far beyond their limit. Because of the physical stress, your left brain is sending you streams of messages that tell you to quit, question your sanity, and ask you philosophical questions such as, “Why am I doing this?”

Your wall is normally the length of your longest run within the past two or three weeks, provided you are running at the pace you could run that distance on that day. Going even a little too fast in the beginning will make you hit the wall sooner. On a hot, humid day — if you don’t slow your pace down, way down — you’ll bump into that wall before you know it. Even those who have missed a long run in their training schedule have been able to do the next long run by slowing down and running at least 3 minutes per mile slower than they could run and by taking walk breaks much more frequently. The more conservative you are, in pace and in the number of walk breaks, from the beginning of the run, the more you can push your wall back farther and farther with little risk of fatigue or injury.

Why do I need to run a 26-mile training run before the marathon?

To prove to yourself that you can do it. On each long run, including the 26-miler, most people who are training for their first marathon are running farther than they have ever gone in their lives. After running the 26-mile training run, your training is complete. You won’t have to push your wall back during the marathon itself. You have arrived.

The confidence bestowed by that 26-mile achievement will take away much of the nervousness leading up to the marathon itself. You’re going to have some discouraging messages from that left side of the brain whenever you attempt a challenge like this, but you’ll reduce them to a manageable level after completing this, the ultimate, long training run.

I’ve heard that going beyond 20 miles breaks you down. Is this true?

Only if you run too fast. Impatient runners and Type-A running personalities are the source of such rumors. They are so tired after an 18- to 20-mile run that they can’t imagine how anyone could run longer than that without dire consequences. When long training runs themselves become races, the body accumulates fatigue, which may not be erased by marathon day.

It’s an entirely different story when you follow the Two-Minute Rule and take the walk breaks you need. On each long run you gently push your endurance barrier back another 2 to 3 miles. Gentle fatigue, yes; breakdown, no.

How do I know if I’m running 2 minutes per mile slower than I could run on that day?

You don’t. Even veteran athletes have to guess when invoking the Two-Minute Rule. When you guess on the conservative side, you win. You’ll recover faster, feel good that evening, and reduce the chance of aches, pains, and injuries while receiving all of the endurance bestowed by the distance of that run.

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.

But I have a time goal, even if it’s my first run . . .

A time goal puts stress on you before and during the first marathon, which will reduce your enjoyment of the big moment. By backing off by two minutes per mile slower than you could run that distance on that day, you’ll be able to enjoy the course, talk to other runners and share the experience. You’ll cross that finish line knowing that you could run faster, and this will motivate you to do just that . . . if you want to.

I ran my first 60 marathons hard. Now I’ve run more than 50 running within myself. I’ve received the same satisfaction, sense of achievement, and internal glow from all of the slow ones as I did from the fast ones. The main difference is that I could appreciate the satisfaction and celebrate the achievement on the slow ones. I wasn’t very social for very long after the fast ones.

Doesn’t slow running produce a slow runner?

Actually, running a fast, long training run will make you run slower — your legs will be so dead they won’t recover between the long runs. The long run has only one purpose: to build endurance. The most effective way to do this is progressively, by slowly covering 2 to 3 miles further than you covered on your previous long run. The slower you run, the more quickly you’ll recover so that if you want to go for a fast time, you can do the speed training necessary to get faster.

What type of medical clearance do I need?

Before you start a strenuous training program, be sure to get clearance from a doctor who knows the benefits of exercise. Chances are slim that you’ll have a problem that will prevent you from continuing, but let’s make sure.

What Led Me to Thinking About Walk Breaks When I was 18 years old, in 1963, I entered the Atlanta Marathon. There were ten other starters. (Obviously marathons have gained a bit in popularity since those days!) I felt I could do pretty well, but there was one other runner I was worried about: Ken Wynn. Ken was 30 years old (ancient!) and a good road racer. I knew I could beat him on the track, but I didn’t know about over such a long distance. Ken was pretty casual: he pulled up in his car just before the start, and jumped out just as the gun went off. He left me in the dust, running about a 6-minute pace. I was doing about 7 minutes. I never saw him again. 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? Through the years, it led me into developing the walk break strategy that’s the central theme of this book.

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