Running with Jeff Galloway

Jeff Galloway visited Orlando on Saturday, May 21 to kick-off our training program. We met at the track at 6 am. He mingled with runners for a bit, then talked to us about the program. I've met him and heard him speak before, but it's still very inspiring every time.

After his talk, we went for a short fun run with Jeff using 30/30 intervals. That's alternating 30 seconds of running with 30 seconds of walking. This is his usual intervals, and he can run sub-5 marathons every month using this interval, and as fast as 4:15! He even managed to average 9:30 min/mi for a half marathon with only 30s of running at a time. Amazing!

The shortest intervals I've ever done is 1/1, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought they would be too short and thus too jarring, but it's amazing how much faster you can run when you only have to do it for 30 seconds at a time. We averaged a pace under 12 min/mi, and I got to chat with him as we ran. So cool! I ran another 4 miles with my group, then quickly grabbed a bite to eat and changed before his running school.

The 3 hour running school was great. Most of the information I had already heard or read before, but there were a few nuggets of specifics I got out of it. But the best thing was just listening to him talk. He has a very conversational tone and it is very clear that everything he says is tried and true and backed by research. His answers to all of our questions flowed so naturally and I felt like I was talking to an old friend instead of an olympian athlete. I left there feeling inspired and eager to start training for my next marathon. We practiced some drills at the end of the session that I hope to incorporate at least weekly into my warm up runs.

Our Orlando Galloway training program official starts on June 4 with the magic mile. I'm sad that I'll miss it as I'll be flying back from Europe, but I'll be ready to hit the ground running with my group the following week. I'm so excited to start training for my next marathon and help others do the same!