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Real Success Stories

Send your success story to jeffgalloway@mindspring.com and you may be published here!

Hello Jeff, I enjoyed meeting you and discussing strategies for the Breast Cancer Marathon. I joined the 4:30 group with Steve Vandergriff and Marshall Butler. They were great pace group leaders. I was able to achieve a new PB by more than 20 minutes and I felt good. Now, I'm thinking about my next marathon. Thank you!!!

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After very disappointing marathon results the several years (in which I have hit the wall hard and landed up in medical tents the past 5 marathons, including Boston 2006 and 2007), and after much cajoling from my wife (a big fan of yours), I finally agreed to try one last redemption marathon using the Galloway method. I always thought it was kind of funny to walk during a race, especially during the early miles where fatigue is not an issue.

Last weekend I ran the Breast Cancer Marathon. While my former PR was a 3:30, I was not looking to match it, but rather looking for a positive marathon experience. Thanks to the Galloway method, I achieved what I sought. I ran with two great pacers (both named Brad) in a 3:50 pace group. I was the good student, sticking with them like glue even early on when I was tempted to bypass the walk breaks. What happened is what I was told would happen-my last mile was stronger than my first, and I went ahead of the group at mile 24 (per their instructions), finishing with a very satisfying 3:48. I am not tired, not particularly sore, and I feel as satisfied with this outcome as I did when I originally qualified for Boston. This outcome is even more rewarding for me as this was the first marathon I completed since being diagnosed with leukemia last summer, and the walk breaks gave me the necessary recovery time to accommodate the effects of my treatments.

A sincere thanks to you Jeff. Both my wife and I are now your biggest fans.

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Good morning! I just wanted to thank you and your staff for sharing your 'run-walk' training program. I am 42 years old, a wife, a mother of three, a part-time employee, and a 'non-athlete', yet with the help of your program I completed the 33rd Marine Corp Marathon this past Sunday. I NEVER could have done it without your help! THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart!

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I just wanted to thank you for helping me complete the Austin marathon this past Sunday. I joined a running club in July, 2008, with the goal to complete the Houston half marathon in January, 2009. A friend of mine gave me a copy of your book Marathon! for my birthhday on Thanksgiving. I had never heard of you or the run/walk/run method, but I love to read and so I read it and began to practice it. My 6 mile training runs felt like 2 miles. My 9 milers felt like 3. I did the half last month but I was anxious to join the "marathon club" so I signed up for Austin. My longest training run was only 14 miles so I took your advice and set my intervals at 5:2. Well, I had a wonderful time running through my old college stomping grounds, finished easily and comfortably (5:04:17), and it is now Wednesday and I feel no effects from it at all. I am very proud of my accomplishment for something I would have thought impossible a year ago.

I now have my eye on San Diego in May.

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Jeff – just a short note to say thank you. I am 63 years old and have been running for almost 4 years. My longest race so far is a half marathon last January. In August of this year I developed some health problems, had major surgery and 5 weeks of follow-up treatment. One of the things I missed most during my recovery was running. As soon as I got the go-ahead from my doctor, I ordered an interval timer from your web site and hit the road. The run/walk method has really helped me get back to running. I ran a 7 mile race last Saturday! I am slow (of course, I was slow before) but it sure does feel good. I am working toward another half in Feb. Thank you

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Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've only been running for a year and I'm starting late (I'm 44). I'm training for the Eugene Marathon in May and was having motivation/energy issues with my long runs. I picked up your book, Marathon, at Portland Running Co. and was amazed to read this: 1) slow down, and 2) take walk breaks. Of course, that violates everything the "experts" have told me, but last week my wife and I did a 17 miler and I could have gone more. Even with the walk breaks my split times were just as fast as without them. Unbelievable!
I told my wife as we were cooling down from our run that this was the first time I really believed I could run a marathon. Another happy camper.

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Thanks for a great book and a great program!! I have to tell you that you are amazingly within 2 minutes from my last actual half marathon time if I use your predictors from my current Magic Mile ability. Also, right on time for my current actual 5K ability. I am amazed at how your training is getting me right back to where I left off!

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Jeff: Well--"WE" did it again--By using YOUR program I once again improved on my marathon time PR! I participated in the Pacific Shoreline Marathon in Huntington Beach California and cut over 4 minutes off of my prior PR! Thanks so much!!!!

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Dear Jeff, I just completed my second NYC Marathon this past Sunday. The difference this year was the fact I read your book..."Marathon..You can do it". I trained to it, especially the section regarding walking after a certain distance or time. In fact, I took 30 minutes off my time of last year!

Just wanted to thank you and can't wait to take another 30 minutes off my next marathon.

Mike M

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Dear Jeff: I read your marathon book and decided to try your run/walk program in the marathon. I have been training with 3 others and convinced two of them to do the run/walk. The one guy had run his best marathon 7 years ago and made a bet with me that we couldn't do a 3:50 if we walked every mile. Well, thanks to you, I won the bet!! We walked 1 minute every mile from the beginning and our finishing time was 3:48:14. It was 9 minutes better than his best marathon when he was 7 years younger. He couldn't believe it! I was so excited because it qualified me for Boston. I felt great and two days later don't have any soreness or problems. Two years ago I was struggling to run 6 miles so I could do a triathlon. I never dreamed I could ever run a marathon and qualify for Boston besides. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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Jeff: I am pleased that I was able to run a 6 miler this morning 4 days after the marathon.

Oh by the way, my 4:28 at 3-1 last Sunday is opening a lot of eyes! Some of the people who thought that walk breaks didn't work are having to think twice.

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Dear Mr. Galloway: My goal time for Boston qualification was 3:45. I crossed the finish line in 3:43:43. I consider this a major life achievement.

I'm writing to say I could never have achieved this without the program you prescribe in 'New Marathon.' Your book was invaluable and indespensible in allowing me to reach my goal. I simply couldn't have qualified, in a first marathon no less, without the information, strategy, and guidance in
your book.

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Jeff,
I just wanted to let you know that I PR'd at the Columbus Marathon by over 24 minutes! I followed the plan that you gave me at the Boston Running School, and I stayed with it during my training and throughout the race last Sunday. It was amazing how I improved my marathon time by so much in one year solely by including the walk breaks.

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Dear Jeff,

I just wanted to thank you for your advice on plantar fascitis that you gave me when I heard you speak at the Crim in August. My feet are much improved and your training method allowed me to complete the Detroit Half Marathon in 2:30:25 shaving 15 minutes off last year when I tried to run the whole thing and got tired at mile 7. I left so good that the experience was much more enjoyable and I was elated at my time. I was so rested that I ran the last three miles without a walk break! I have only been running a little over a year and your method has allowed me to run faster and longer than I ever dreamed possible. Thanks to you I am actually thinking of doing the Disney marathon in 2007 with one of my running partners. Last year I would have said never but now I think this is a goal that is within my reach. Not bad a a out of shape 50 year old. What a difference a year makes.

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Dear Jeff:

Yes, I still use the walk way. I know this is the only way I will finish the marathon this year! I will be doing the 6 and 1 or 8 and 1 this year. Up to mile 18 or 20. Then I will kick it in for the finish. I will also attack on all the hills. I did 1 10 mile race this year. Out of 125 or so people I came in 20 some place. In the past I would try to run all of it. Then I would burn out after, and not run at all. See I used to think that the people who walk during a marathon were wimps. Now I know those are the SMART ONES! When I used the walk way last year, I ran my 2nd best time. I also was less sore. So thank you. Feel free to put this in your success stories! 3:22:27 marathon runner!

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Dear Jeff:

I attended your Running School and learned your techniques for the first time. I ran the Boulder Backroads Marathon, 1 week after your class. I am pleased to tell you I ran the fastest marathon this year, and my second fastest ever, all this at least at 5000 feet and a very difficult course. I am sure now that I will be training usiong your methods, my next will be even better (faster and less painfull).

I just wanted to say THANK-YOU.

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Dear Jeff:

I traveled to Cleveland this past weekend to run in the Rite-Aid Cleveland marathon and it was very good to me. Broke 4 hours with 10 seconds to spare !!!

I was within about mile of the finish and my watch said 3:50 - surely I can do a 10 minute mile but I'm out of energy and out of breath. The last quarter mile and I dogged it in for a 3:59:50 finish ! ! !

I did my usual 6 - 1 run-walk pace, sometimes doing a 6.5 minute to 30 second pace. I knew it was a good day when I did the 10 mile mark at 1:23 and the half at 1:53 (8:38 pace). The second half of the marathon, I slowed to a 9:37 pace, but it was enough to get under the 4 hour mark.

A day later and I have 99% recovered from exhaustion, hunger and sleep. In true form I ran injury free - no sprains, aches or pains. Whatever stiffness I had in my quads and calfs is just about gone. Thanks to you and the Galloway program I can not say enough about how it has worked for me.

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Mr. Galloway,

What I'm about to say won't surprise you since you wrote a book about it but I wanted to give you one more testimonial about the run/walk method for marathons because it has changed my marathon life!

Before I started run/walk on my marathon training runs I was exhausted after all of my long training runs and in bed or on the couch the rest of the day. Once I started run/walk on the training runs I was able to increase my long runs from about 3 hours to over 3.5 hours and I was completely functional after the run. A huge change which makes training a lot more palatable.

And the results continued when I got to apply the run/walk method on the San Francisco Marathon which I finished earlier today. On my previous 7 marathons I have been pretty much exhaused by mile 16 or so and the last 10 miles were a marathon by themselves of barely slogging along. Today, I was still running strong at 20 miles and didn't feel much discomfort until mile 24. The psychological change is tremendous. It made the whole marathon a pleasure to run instead of dreading the last 10 miles like I usually do.

Thank you for changing my marathon life. I can now actually look forward to running marathons (and long training runs) in the future instead of dreading the final 10K.

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Mr. Galloway,
I am finally emailing you a message that I wanted to send you in the late afternoon hours of June 18th. That is the day I did something I never believed I could or would do. I finished Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, MN in 5:40. My goal was to finish in under 6 hours.

On a whim I bought your Marathon! Book and you signed it for me. I did almost all of my long runs physically alone but not really alone and that is why I feel I must thank you.

Because of the support I received from my running friends and also from you, through your book, I achieved something that I am truly proud of myself for. Almost every night though my 18 weeks of training for the marathon, I read parts of your book. There were some parts I reread three or four times! Through your words, you helped give me the faith and hope that I could reach my "Mount Everest" goal. As a child and teen I used to try and get out of the mile run at school and now I have run over 26 of them in a row, in one day.

Thank you for helping to change my life. My body may be a little lighter and firmer (which is a great thing) but the biggest gift is that I feel empowered now to chase dreams and goals that scare and intimidate me. I have found my determination. You had a big part in that.

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Dear Jeff,

I am writing to thank you for developing your "Galloway" method of running marathons. I just completed my 14th marathon this weekend in Duluth, MN. I ran my best ever race- beating my previous best by 3 minutes and that was 3 years ago.

Most of my marathons, I have only walked through the water stops, hating that fact that I was losing time. However, I went into a marathon in May with not a whole lot of long runs under my belt and a friend of mine and myself tried your method- running 2 miles and then walking 2 minutes through the entire race. We finished feeling refreshed and ran an "easy sub 4 marathon" and weren't sore at all the next day. So we starting talking this up to our running club and we had 4 different groups try your method and 6 of us PR'd up at Grandma's marathon this past weekend.

What amazes me is that I ran a 3:34 and I didn't think that I was in that kind of shape. (Plus no IT band problems-a first). A friend ran with me with only an 18 mile run as a training run and finished in 3:37. I don't think I will ever run a marathon the "old way" again. I can bet that all the people that tried your method this weekend will not do it any other way in the future. They were all raving about it.

So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. You have helped me achieve a personal best, plus saved my knees- so now I am ready to go to Boston and run it the same way.

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Dear Jeff,

It was great to meet you at the Expo on Saturday. Just thought I'd let you know that the race went really well. Finished at 3:47!!! It's a personal best for me!! I could never have done it without the Galloway program and all the support. Three years ago I was told I'd never be able to run again from car accident injuries!

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Dear Jeff,

Wanted to *THANK* you for your incredible and unique approach to marathoning. I just came home from Hartford this weekend, PRing *again* with the run/walk method. In 2 years I have taken almost an hour off my marathon time (54 minutes!) and I have 61 more to slice off to qualify for Boston.

I thought a BQ would be completely impossible for me, running my first marathon in 5:35. Hartford was my 3rd marathon, with a fantastic finish of 4:41. Here it is 3 days later and I feel *great*!!! I can't thank you enough. Your marathon book has become somewhat of a Bible to me. From the long runs to mile repeats to dirty tricks (!) I have been quite the Galloway disciple.

I realized that I needed to thank you. So here it is. Thank you for being so creative, and helping ordinary non-athletes like me discover our inner athlete and accomplish quite extraordinary things.

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Hi, Jeff. I just wanted to thank you for your run/walk suggestions. I am a member of Team In Training and I'm exciting about running my first marathon this Sunday. I am 41 years old and have always run but never trained for a marathon. Our running coach suggested your program and our times per mile for our long runs have steadily decreased even though we walked more frequently. I didn't believe it was possible but it is!!!

On our last long run, a bunch of us actually sprinted to the end of the run because we felt so great. WALK BREAKS ROCK!

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your wisdom. I can't wait to train for more races and your training program is allowing me to dream.

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Dear Jeff: No question today -- just a note of heartfelt thanks for your programme. I'm training for my second marathon, and the long runs are going very much better than they did the first time around when I only walked when I was too tired to run any longer.

Today I did a very successful 15-miler and felt quite reasonably human at the finish after running for ten minutes and walking for two.

Many thanks for your encouragement and support of those of us in the back of the pack!

Very best regards,

B. S , Dublin, Ireland

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Jeff,

A friend of mine and I had been running at lunch for about six months. Mike had run about 10 marathons. While I had run long distances when I was about half my current age my long run for the last year was 6 miles. I told Mike that I would love to try a marathon but did not know how I would ever have time to train. And I was not even sure that I should give it a shot for the first time at 48. He suggested I read your book and that we train using your method. He had used your walk and run method for years.

Six months later I ran in and finished my first marathon - the Twin Cities Marathon. I ran a 5:15 and enjoyed all of it. The crowds were awesome. It was one of the greatest and most emotional experiences of my life. I just about broke into tears at the end. I do intend to run at least one more.

Your book and your method made it possible. In fact your technique has made in enjoyable. I have continued to run after the marathon with little soreness or pain. Thank you. I am certainly a believer.

Send your success story to jeffgalloway@mindspring.com and you may be published here!

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