The None to Run Podcast

This is the Healthenomics Podcast episode 22 with guest and running legend, Jeff Galloway. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Mark Kennedy, your host. I'm a little bummed out today as I've decided to pull out of my half marathon race, I'm supposed to be running in, I guess, about ten days from now. I put in three good months of training and Achilles injury crept up on me.

Took a little bit of time off, got some treatments, some physiotherapy, massage therapy, acupuncture. Got some treatment, tried another run, was barely able to squeak through three, four kilometers out the pain creeping up again. So I'm a bit bumped out, but I gotta take some of my own advice and, you know, to play the long game. Running's, it's just hard because the nice weather has finally arrived in Toronto, and I can't run. And all these people, I see them, you know, putting in the miles, those last few miles before they race, in a few days.

So anyways, I'm a bit bummed, but running's for life, and I need to remind myself of that long term thinking is critical. Before we get to today's interview with Jeff Galloway, I wanna let you know about a free email course that I've created. If you're a beginner runner or coming back from running after some time off, the course offers some tips to help you get set up for long term success, injury prevention, running for weight loss, running form, how to deal with pain, and lots lots more. Go to freerunningcourse.com to sign up. On to today's interview with Jeff Galloway.

For those of you not familiar with Jeff and his work, here's a bit about him. He's a US Olympian from 1972. He ran the 10,000 meters and was also an alternate for the marathon team. He trained with Steve Prefontaine, Frank Shorter, Bill Rogers, Amby Burfoot, Jack Bashler. He's the author of North America's best selling book, Galloway's Book on Running.

He's a Runner's World monthly columnist. He's the founder of the Run Walk Run method, which has opened up running to millions of people. Over 350,000 runners and walkers have reported their achieving goals by using Galloway training programs. Whether you're a total beginner runner or training for your first marathon, Jeff drops a ton of running wisdom on us today. You'll also wanna listen all the way through to the end as I'm giving away a copy of one of Jeff's books to one lucky listener.

So keep listening. The show notes for this episode will be at healthenomics.com/20two. There you'll also be able to download a transcript to this episode. Enjoy the show everybody.

Welcome to the Healthenomics Podcast. Boosting your health and fitness IQ one episode at a time. And now your host, Mark Kennedy.

Hi there, Jeff. Welcome to the Healthenomics podcast. Thanks so much for coming on to the to the show today.

Well, Mark, it's good to be here.

Awesome. So for those listening, and many will know who you are, but for for those listening who are not familiar with, you, can you give everyone just a little background on you? Maybe sort of where you're from, how you got into running, and, what you're doing with regards to the sport now?

Well, the, the Cliff Notes version, goes like this. I was a fat kid at age 13 forced to go out for sports by my school, and I discovered, friendships and, fun in running with others. And I got hooked during the first ten weeks that I joined the team. Didn't really progress very quickly or very well during my high school years, but just got a little bit better each year and enjoyed the camaraderie and what it was doing for my mind and my spirit. And so I continued through college, again, not with much, improvement every year.

Went into the navy for three years, came out, and decided to really give it a go and do whatever I could do. And over the next two and a half years, I was able to qualify for the Olympic team in Munich in 1972.

So is it?

In the process, I had to do a lot of things, that most, of the athletes on an Olympic team don't have to do. Most of them are quite talented and succeed, without having to do a lot of research or whatever. I was self coached through high school and college, and I spent a good deal of time reading about, running training and the training methods of various athletes. I tried various things. I weeded things out the hard way, found what worked for me, and, compared notes with just a whole lot of athletes.

And I have continued doing that to this day. I, still spend a good amount of time, looking at the research, and I've been able to amass an a database of people that have had success with my program over the last forty years, and it numbers over 300,000 people. Wow. My I base my advice on what has worked, in any given area, best for that database of people.

That's great. So, and are you are you still running today?

I am. I, my wife and I run together on most of our runs, and we run a marathon every month and usually another race like a half marathon in between. It's a wonderful thing to be able to explain to people, and this is the force of my life, that running does not have to hurt. You can get all of those amazing benefits to mind, body, and spirit, which running uniquely gives, and not have to hurt if you have the right, walk breaks and you combine the right training elements.

Mhmm. Well, I wanna dive into a bit about your, your run walk method a little bit later, but can you I mean, you talked a little bit about already, but, can you talk a bit more about some specific ways that running's helped you, aside from maybe just the the physical benefits, but, just sort of benefited your life in general?

Well, it changed my life in in just about every way. When I started as a 13 year old kid, I was struggling academically, and I really thought that I was intellectually inferior to the other students at this prep school. And as soon as I got in with the other kids, I opened up, and we would have arguments over various topics. And I realized that in these arguments, my way of thinking and and my intelligence was not inferior to them, and most of them were on the honor roll. And I, also, got on the honor roll as a result of, just the perceptions and the reassessment based on my peers.

The other areas that running has helped are now being documented by research in terms of the mental benefits, and what they show. And I'm revising my mental training book right now. So I'm very familiar with a lot of the latest, waves of research. But what's really incredible about running in particular, but exercise in general, is that it turns on brain circuits for a better attitude, for personal empowerment, and for vitality better than any other activities that have been studied. In addition, running, and and some other strenuous, activities, strenuous, aerobic activities actually cause new growth of new brain cells and quicker decision making because of the hormones that are produced when we run.

So there are tremendous benefits, but by far long term, most folks really see that the mental side of running is even more powerful than the physical. Mhmm. Again, my role and the thing that has given me the most gratification in life is that I'm able to help people get off the couch and accomplish some amazing things. First, they do something like a half marathon or a marathon, and they are so empowered mentally by this whole experience that they do all types of other things in their lives that they tell me they would never have been able to do. So it's a wonderful life journey.

Yeah. That really resonates with me as well. I've been running for about just twenty years. And, yeah, just the running, just the consistency has just paid off in so many areas of my life. I can say, you know, career, family life.

I've got two little kids. I got a three year old and a seven month old. So, you know, I need the running. That's my stress reliever and my sort of me time. But Absolutely.

Yeah. So for me, my wife, likes to say like, you know, if I'm she can tell I'm a anxious, she's like, go for a run. So it's kinda like I'm a dog. You know? Just get out there, go for a run, and come back.

You'll feel better. And it's, usually the case that works. So, that's great. Let's dive into a little bit about the run walk method, which I've got your book on my bookshelf. I can see it right now.

And I recommend it to a lot of, beginners that that that I talk to. So I'd love to know sort of how how did the the method how did it start? What gave you sort of the idea? Give us a bit of a history, and then how has it transformed throughout the throughout the years?

Started in 1974. I was asked to teach a course in beginning running, and none of the people in the class had been doing any running at all for at least five years. So I knew that we were gonna have to have a a very bare bones running program with a lot of walking to to get people, into shape without overdoing it. Divided up into three groups based on ability level, which actually became the prototype for the way that we do our Galloway programs to this day now forty years later. But what I found is that by the placement of walk breaks from the beginning, we, at the end of the class, ten weeks, saw every participant finish either a five or 10 k.

But the remarkable thing was there were no injuries. And I realized even early that early in using it that it was the walk break strategically placed at the right point that allowed folks to stay injury free, and that's been the case to this day. That's that's what we use. I started using walk breaks for beginners, right after that class in '74, but, didn't really use it for competitive runners, until the late seventies when a number of the beginners who were taught to use the right run, walk, run were starting to run significantly faster than veterans. And so then the veterans said, you know, we want some of that.

And and so we have done all types of surveys over the years, and the, the research has been pretty consistent in showing that in a marathon, when a person's, goes from nonstop marathon running to the right run, walk, run, the average improvement is over thirteen minutes faster with run, walk, run, and over seven minutes faster in a half marathon.

Wow. And so what what are some of the reasons aside from, of course, injuries as you stated that, that you think it works so well. And and I'm sure there's, the mental aspect and, also perhaps just helping them, you know, building the habit. But what are some of the reasons aside from injury prevention that you think, it works so well?

Well, there are dozens of of reasons that have been pretty well documented, but the most significant ones are the, reduction of muscle fatigue. And that that's the number one reason why people slow down. If you have the right strategic placement of walk breaks, then the muscle stops from being exhausted. It keeps reviving itself. It's designed to revive itself.

However, on the other hand, if you run nonstop, you're going to reach a failure point where something is either gonna break or the muscle simply doesn't work anymore. And it's totally avoidable because the body is designed to adapt and resuscitate itself and erase fatigue as you go. Other benefits, it's very well known that if you use a muscle tendon, a weak link, the same way continuously, then it will fatigue and break sooner. And with walk breaks, you keep erasing that buildup of stress on a given area so that it, can keep going without breaking down. Another key element is the mental aspect because if you have a an amount of running that you are totally convinced you can do, then you're mentally confident.

You know that you can do that next segment. And mental confidence is a huge asset in running or anything else in life. The the beauty of run, walk, run is it not only gives you the mental confidence, it gives you the physical ability to keep on going over and over again. The and then, you know, the the overriding benefit of run walk run is that it gives each person control over their destiny. They never have to be exhausted.

They can avoid almost every ache and pain that could come, and this feeling of being able to control all that is really amazing. It it really allows people to have control over their running.

Yeah. That that really resonates with me as well. I think a lot of people that I talk to, they say them a runner, and the first thing they say is, I can't do that. You know, that sounds that sounds hard. That sounds painful.

But, I don't think it needs to be that way. And one of the things people always comment to me is they have problems getting around, I guess, the pain. They think it has to be painful in order for it to be beneficial. So and I'm sure you get that question all the time. So how do you how do you approach people?

Like, what do you tell them when, I mean, obviously, they may have some pains because if they haven't, you know, moved in that way for a while, they may have some aches and pains. But what's your approach to getting people started, you know, when they when pain is an issue for them?

Well, most people have had some bad experiences from running. I mean, PE coaches, regular coaches from sports teams often will use running as punishment and will also, use non, well, they won't use walk breaks. They they will push people until they break down. The the thing that I tell people who come to me with that, I can't run, is that what I've discovered after having now heard back from over 300,000 people that have had success with the method, many of them did not have success when they tried other methods. But what the resounding, statement is, that it's it's not not running per se as an activity that causes pain.

It's nonstop running. And running is from the very beginning of our sport, a free form activity. Each person decides how fast they're gonna run, in terms of workouts, how far they're going to run, whether they take walk breaks or not, and then what technique and form and everything else. There is no rule book. And so when a person has had problems before, in almost every case, when I've worked with them, I've been able to find a run, walk, run that will allow them to do what they really wanted to do.

But the best part about it is they get all those mental benefits too.

Mhmm. Yeah. That's great. That that would help a lot of people, I think. And another question I get sort of on the same sort of topic, Run Rock One is for beginners, what what should they aim to when they go out for a run, should they run for a certain time or or distance?

What's what's more important for, for a beginner?

Well, the most important, aspect for a beginner is to be conservative. Start out very, very gently.

Mhmm.

The human body is designed to walk, and, it is designed to adapt into the running motion. If you do it very gradually and gradually introduce running with the right amount of walking, the the body just keeps adapting, and it'll find the right balance. The way we work with beginners, and you'll see this in my book, Getting Started, and also in A Woman's Guide to Running, which has essentially the same beginner program. And the way we do it is we start beginners off with only five to ten seconds of running

Mhmm.

And the rest of the minute walking. So in short segments, the body can adapt to running without getting overwhelmed. At first, a beginner, we would not have a beginner go more than about ten, maximum fifteen minutes, even if they're doing five seconds of running, fifty five seconds of walking. We want to be conservative. We want to very gently introduce the body to that running motion.

And then each, workout, which, we recommend doing every other day, not every day, the new runner could increase those, minutes of five fifty five or ten seconds running and fifty seconds walking. They could increase the number of minutes by three to four minutes, each workout. And as, a beginner goes through the first month, he or she would gradually build up to thirty minutes. At that point, the beginner could decide to add to continue adding more minutes at five fifty five or ten fifty, or the beginner could, then decide that they want to run more and walk less. So Mhmm.

They could start a gradual transition with, five more seconds of running and five less seconds of walking, moving to something like fifteen seconds of running and forty five seconds of walking. And very gradually, if you, introduce a little more running with less walking, there the body will accommodate to that. And if there are any issues with it, you simply back up to what you were doing before. But the the ultimate goal, as we teach it, is not to run continuously because, again, running continuously causes aches, pains, injuries, exhaustion, and burnout. And there's no reason to ever go there with the right strategic walk break.

Most of our beginning runners the first year will get up to a one in one ratio, but the, configuration of that, of one in one is most commonly either thirty seconds running, thirty seconds walking, or twenty seconds and twenty seconds, or my wife and I actually use fifteen seconds fifteen seconds when we run our marathons. Mhmm. Because we found that we recover so much faster with the shorter increments.

Is it hard to hold people back, beginners that they're doing say the five and fifty five or ten fifty and you know, all of a sudden they feel a little bit better. Is it is it hard to hold them back from increasing their their running time too fast?

Yeah. So I'd say probably, thirty to fifty percent of new runners will reach a threshold about two to four weeks into one of these beginning running programs, and they they feel so darn good, that they get overly confident and think, well, I can run a whole lot more now. And Mhmm. Unfortunately, they try that, and, unfortunately, they have something that, breaks down on them. And and, again, it never has to happen, but, human nature is human nature.

And if you can, on the other hand, have a cognitive plan, A cognitive plan, you'll find in all of my books. There are schedules that tell you what to do three days a week. Three days a week is all that's needed to sustain and to improve your running. And if you follow a three day a week program and and follow a plan like you'll see in my books, these are proven programs, and they keep you away from the negative stuff that could go on.

Mhmm. Now should new runners worry about their running form? Because I know a lot of people, when they're just getting started, they're concerned they're gonna look funny or they haven't run-in a while. It feels a bit awkward. So what do do runners, should they worry about their form when they're just getting started, or is that something that comes later with more running experience?

My suggestion is to adhere to four, easy principles of efficient running. The the goal, especially for a beginner, but really any distance, oriented person is efficiency. And, the best way mechanically, best ways mechanically that I have found to accomplish efficiency are to keep your feet low to the ground Mhmm. To touch lightly with your feet, and to keep your stride length relatively short, and finally, to have an upright body posture. Now that the the research backs up all of those mechanical components.

And then once a person runs nice and gently according to whatever their, mechanics are, the next step would be to allow the body parts to just naturally adapt to whatever is their natural motion.

Mhmm.

The research says that those who run-in a natural fashion according to these mechanical principles, tend to run very efficiently. And those who decide that they're gonna try some other form that's not natural to their body break down and have all types of inefficiency problems.

Mhmm. And if you look at the professionals, I mean, I've watched some some live marathons elites go by and they don't all run the same.

No. They don't. As a matter of fact, there's more diversity in form among elites than there is among average runners. Wow. But the the bottom line on elites is that they succeed often times in spite of their form.

They really chose their parents extremely well.

Yeah. That's true. Now I wanna talk a little bit about weight loss. I'm sure you get a lot of people coming into your programs where they've got, you know, various different goals, but, probably, one you see a lot is they wanna lose a little bit of weight. What does the training for a beginner look like for someone who wants to lose weight, as opposed to someone who maybe wants to get fit and faster?

I mean, do they differ? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Well, of course, you've got a lot of variables in there. And, you have to really look at, prior priority of goals. Mhmm. Once you set up your priority, you can pursue goals, based on those priorities. So, a person who comes to me wanting to lose weight and train for some event, I first will tell them that they need to be very conscious of their nutrition, and there are a number of really good websites and apps that will allow them to gain a cognitive control over that.

And that's what I strongly recommend that they log in what they eat and then analyze it and look at it to make sure that they're not, deficient in some of the recommended daily allowances of key nutrients. That said, the weight loss thing is, a simple act of being conscious about everything you eat, because the way that I have seen people go astray, which is also backed up by research, is that they allow their subconscious brain to generate their eating behavior patterns. The subconscious brain is going to tend to go towards gratification or dopamine, responses to foods. And, so you naturally are going to if you allow your subconscious to make your food choices, you're gonna have things like potato chips and ice cream and Mhmm. Really good tasting things Yeah.

Will definitely compromise your goals weight loss, and they'll also compromise your goals in in being more fit because you're gonna not get the nutrients that you need. So, having a conscious plan and then having, these websites help you set up a calorie deficit towards your goal. Write everything down that you are eating and, log it in to see what your nutritional report card is gives you cognitive control over your eating. And if you go through this day after day, you intuitively will start avoiding things that compromise your goal and, also, increase your intake of good things, of of healthy foods.

Mhmm. Yeah. You often hear of people training for marathons, and I know actually I have a couple friends that actually gained weight training for and and successfully running a marathon. Think, know, a lot of people do all this running and, they think it's sort of a free pass because they reward themselves. They can eat whatever they want.

And, it's it's certainly not the case, especially if weight, you know, controlling your weight or weight loss is your priority.

Yes. And, there is a weight gain that occurs to most runners. Excuse me. This weight gain that occurs to most runners who get into a, half marathon or marathon program after being fairly sedentary or not doing much exercise, the weight gain is based on the fact that the body makes adaptations to help you run farther, run longer. Mhmm.

And the adaptations involve, producing over a six month period more blood plasma, more blood volume, which adds a little weight to your body.

Mhmm.

It also increases the storage of glycogen in and around your muscle areas and to some extent in some of the other storage areas. Glycogen is the stored form of carbohydrate that your muscles need throughout every single run. Mhmm. And it's exclusive fuel that you would need during the first, twenty, thirty minutes. But, the glycogen stores as they're added on during long distance training will also cause an adaptation to store four times the amount of water.

So, you know, what this means with the added glycogen, the added water around the glycogen, and then the blood extra blood plasma is somewhere between five and eight pounds for an average sedentary runner who gets out there and run Mhmm. Runs, these long events. Now that said, it's not, I don't think it's a good idea for beginning runners to try to lose a lot of weight during the training program. Most of the folks that, I have heard from who've tried to do that have either run out of gas on a series of long runs and don't end up finishing, so they're not really prepared for their long event, or they leave out certain nutrients that, compromise their performance and can compromise their health. And one of the health issues is, the immune system.

If you're if you don't get key nutrients, on a weekly basis, and week after week, then you can definitely lower your immune system and be susceptible to disease, especially when you're stressing yourself through these long runs. So, anyway, having a cognitive plan, and using these really good websites can give you control over that process too.

Mhmm. That's great. Sort of a last thing I wanna talk about is breathing. I know that comes up. I get the question once in a while.

And, you know, breathing is sort of the the one thing that we all need to do and, sort of the most natural automatic thing we do, but yet new runners, typically struggle with the breathing and is there a certain way they should be breathing, you know, counting, in, out steps. What what do you say to people about, breathing? What's your advice there?

Well, I, used to ask runners what they, were concerned about when they asked me what's the best way to breathe, because breathing is such a natural thing, and, most people, tend to do it right. And and what most people come back with is, well, I I'm really having trouble getting enough air at certain point in a run. And then I'll say, you mean you're huffing and puffing? They say, yeah. Well, that is a sign that you are exceeding your speed limit or you are exceeding your, running limit versus walking.

In other words, you're running too far, not walking enough from the beginning. And once you correct the pace from the beginning and the run, walk, run, in most cases, you're gonna see people get their breathing totally under control. So, you know, there is no technique if somebody's huffing and puffing a lot, that is going to stop the huffing and puffing.

Mhmm.

It it's a case of managing pace and and managing run, walk, run. In a lot of cases in our Galloway programs around the the country, we're seeing people, who weren't running weren't taking walk breaks, who end up running the same pace with run, walk, run that they were struggling for with before, but now they're not huffing and puffing at that pace. So run, walk, run can actually help you, achieve pace goals without the huffing, puffing. But, finally, there is a, technique of breathing that can help you absorb more oxygen from the air that you breathe, and what I call it is lower lung breathing. It's diverting the air that you inhale into the lower part of your lungs where you get greater absorption.

If on the other hand, we breathe the way we normally do when we're sitting at our desk, it's a shallow breathing, and, we don't really get the, really good absorption, in the upper part of our lungs. So the best way I found to facilitate lower lung breathing is during your warm up in the first mile or so of your run. Exhale just a little bit before you inhale, so that you, will have a tendency to breathe in air and and then you want to divert it down to your lower lungs. Put your hand on your stomach, and as you're inhaling and exhaling, you wanna hear your you wanna feel your stomach rising and falling and not your upper chest. So that technique has really helped a lot of people, and if you practice that regularly, warming walking for your warm up and then early stages of your run, most people within six months have shifted right over into lower lung breathing.

The other advantage of that is that you can avoid side pain.

Mhmm. Like stitches, you mean?

Yes.

Yeah. That, you get that a lot with beginners as well. They get, it's quite common. That's great. So thanks for that advice.

Before we wrap up too, I want to, give away one of your books, to to one of the listeners. So I was thinking, anyone who would like to win a copy of, anyone at Just Books, leave a comment at, on the blog healthenomics.com/21 for this episode. Let's say by May 8, this is 2015. Leave a comment there, anything you wish, or if you have a question, leave it there, and I'll pick one winner at random, and you can pick, which of Jeff's books you would like to have.

Well, that's great. And any questions that any of your listeners have, you can go to jeffgalloway.com where there's an email function and I'd be glad to answer them.

Oh, that's amazing. So yeah, just in wrapping up today, where can listeners go to find out more about you and your work? What's the best place?

Well, jeffgalloy.com has a a whole lot of free information, and it also has access to our autograph books from the website. Our timers are there too, our run, walk, run timers that really take all the guesswork out of taking walk breaks and, help make you into something like a Pavlov's dog when you go

out and do your

run and walking. And it has a lot of other resources there. So visit, and if you have any questions, just let me know.

That's fantastic, Jeff. Thanks so much for your time and expertise today. And, yeah, hopefully, we'll talk to you soon.

I look forward to that, Mark. You're doing a good job.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the Healthinomics podcast at www.healthinomics.com.