In partnership with

I’ve been texting back and forth with Sophie for the past few weeks. Sophie is relatively new to running. She’s signed up for a 10k race in July (bravo Sophie!) but is struggling in her training runs.

She’s finding it difficult to run the entire distance. The temptation to stop and walk is just too great. We’ve all been there. Stopping feels like failing. Sophie puts it like this: “I guess mentally I have opinions in my head like ‘well, you walked so you didn’t actually run 10k’, so I think that’s the hard part for me.”

I was chatting about this with some of my Trailiens mates and Amber Wood said the worst running advice she ever got was that she had to keep running, no matter what. (If that name sounds familiar, I interviewed Amber after she’d run UTMB, a 170k race in the European Alps.)

In good news for Sophie, there is an alternative - the Run-Walk-Run method, also known as the “Galloway Method”. It’s named after coach Jeff Galloway, who developed it. But I prefer the more informal label: “Jeffing”.

The concept behind Jeffing is simple. You run for a bit, then you walk for a bit. And you repeat that pattern from the start of the race until you cross the finish line. Jeff developed it as a way to introduce absolute beginners to the sport back in the 1970s.

Despite not excelling as a junior, Jeff represented the US in the 10,000m at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Shortly afterwards, he owned a running store and as the 1970s running boom took off in the US, he had more and more beginners coming into the store looking for coaching.

Many of these beginners had no real aerobic base, so they were starting from zero. Jeff started them off running in a group, but they were never able to run very far. So he introduced the “huffing and puffing” rule.

Its application is simple: when someone in the group started huffing and puffing, the whole group stopped running and started walking. Jeff and his team of absolute beginners saw immediate success with this method.

So much so that they were soon entering races. Then something unexpected happened - Jeff’s beginners, who were still Jeffing, started beating intermediate runners in races. They were literally run-walk-running their way to success.

This really got Jeff’s attention, so he started taking a more scientific approach, collecting data on his Jeffers. Over time, this led to the development of the “Magic Mile” formula, a plan for runners to follow depending on the distance they intend to run and the pace they are aiming for.

It’s tried and tested - Jeff and his team have used the data from more than 300,000 runners over 50 years. Over that time it’s helped thousands of people get into running, and for some it’s remained their go-to strategy.

That’s because Jeffing has many benefits aside from helping beginners take up the sport.

The man himself summed up it up in an interview in 2020 with the Charge Running YouTube channel. “[It’s] a way that an individual can gain control over their training, avoid injuries, be strong all the way to the end of long runs and also races and recover very fast from long runs so you don’t have to be out of commission.”

Walking breaks mean the body’s under less stress which speeds up recovery time and results in fewer injuries. It’s an excellent way of increasing volume.

There are some basics to adhere to though. Firstly, you need to introduce the walking breaks from the start of the run. If you wait until you are fatigued, the damage is done. And a walk break shouldn’t be a zombie-like stagger or a Bridgerton style promenade. It’s a brisk walk. Like you’re not sure, but you think you may be running late for the bus.

Of course, Jeffing isn’t for everyone. Although it can result in very fast times - Galloway himself achieved a 2 hour 16 minute PB in the marathon using it - for some experienced runners it will still feel like cheating.

But if it helps you through those first, difficult months as a runner, then it’s a strategy that’s well worth a go. One I hope will help Sophie achieve her goals in July.

Jeff Galloway died last month, aged 79. He leaves a wonderful legacy - a proven method of welcoming people into the sport of running in a fun, sustainable way.

Upcoming Events

There are way too many events for me to list everything that’s happening around the country, but here is a selection of upcoming races (with a bias towards South East Queensland).

The Running Calendar website is a great source if you want a comprehensive understanding of what’s available around the country.