I have been a competitive runner for almost twenty years. I was pretty decent in High school and my early 20’s.

Last Year I trained for my 4th marathon. And I quickly realized my high school years are long behind me. My training was riddled with a variety of leg injuries from shin splints, sore muscles, to terrible foot pain. I soon lost motivation in my runs, and my performance showed it.

I came across the greatest Marathon trainer ever, Jeff Galloway, and his experience in training over 300,000 people helped him develop a simple strategy to marathon success……….

WALK!

The theory is if you walk for just 30 seconds every mile, you rest your running muscles and improve your spirit. It helps you relax. And the key to running pain free is relaxed running.

The most amazing part of this, People have actually run better marathon times with the run/walk/run method then their previous run only marathons. I’ll spare you the math quiz, but running 30 seconds per mile means you are walking for about 13 minutes. This doesn’t add 13 minutes to your time because you aren’t stopping, you’re just resting with a walk. When marathons can last from 3 to sometimes 5 or 6 hours, those few minutes you take to relax enable you to run more efficient during the hours you are running.

I adopted the walk routine and I am back to enjoying my workouts. I am not embarrassed to admit, I still walk much more then 30 seconds per mile. Walking saved my runs.

And more importantly it is just as effective in all parts of life. You can actually sacrifice your goals by pushing to hard. You will suffer injuries or setbacks by skipping your relax time. Think twice about pushing off that vacation, date night, or family time. You’ll find that taking your break will ultimately help you achieve you goal faster then you ever expected.

Galloway has written countless articles and books to support his findings which are ready available on the internet. Also see http://www.jeffgalloway.com.