I’m back! I can’t say I am happy to be back because I just had an amazing #runDisney weekend! I knew it would be a great weekend because I was spending it with my best friend and in Disney no less, but it exceeded my expectations. I made two new friends that I know I will be sharing many more races in the future with, I learned I can push limits I didn’t think I was ready to push and I fell in love with running all over again.
I ran with Nicole and two of her friends who use the Jeff Galloway run/walk method. This weekend I got to see this method in full effect because I too joined the girls in run/walking. I was very nervous to run these Disney races because I had not truly had the opportunity to run during these past winter months; I have been using other forms of exercise to keep my endurance strong. I ran the 5k with much ease and to my surprise the 10K was a breeze because I used Jeff’s run/ walk intervals. I felt I could go on for at least another 6 miles! It was at this time that I knew I had made a horrible decision in not registering for the half marathon; I would have to longingly watch Nicole and Julia from the sidelines. While I was more than happy to cheer on my fellow princesses, I would be in silent sadness to not run alongside them.
Here is some food for thought and a few training tips that I received from Jeff to pass along to you. I encourage you to look into these tips and apply them to your style of running. You can achieve amazing heights without stress or injury and enjoy your amazing run journey!
- The training journey for a marathon or half marathon raises your body’s physical performance capability and your sense of what you can do in life.
- Running helps to bring body, mind and spirit together in a unique and wonderful way
- In researching my book MENTAL TRAINING I discovered that running turns on brain circuits for a better attitude more vitality and empowerment better than other activities studied.
- In researching my book RUNNING UNTIL YOU’RE 100 I found numerous studies showing that runners have healthier orthopedic units than non runners even after decades of running.
Training:
- When a runner takes walk breaks early and often enough for the individual the muscles are strong to the end. See RUN WALK RUN at www.jeffgalloway.com for recommendations by pace per mile.
- The “exhaustion wall” can be avoided by running longer long runs up to or beyond race distance-using the appropriate run-walk-run strategy.
- Marathoners tend to improve time by an average of more than 15 minutes when they increase their longest run from 20 miles to 26 miles.
- To recover fast, run the long runs at least 2 min/mi slower than you could currently run in a marathon
- The right run-walk-run strategy from the beginning of each run, gives any runner control over fatigue, injury-elimination, and recovery.
- In numerous surveys, runners improved over 13 minutes when they shifted from running continuously to use of the right run-walk-run strategy.