Totally.
Totally not true. While people may find 29 miles unnecessary for a training run, you can't say that someone who has done it is inadequately prepared to cover the distance. Don't be so stuck up.
I no longer gallowalk races but I will never cut out walking the water stations. I find it gives me a boost and I do better in races when I walk the water stations when I don't (Bryce canyon I ran a 1:51 on an easier course and ran all but one or two water stations, Snow Canyon on a day I wasn't %100 I ran a 1:50 on a harder course and walked every water station and these races were less than 6 months apart). Plus then I don't end up with gatorade all down the front of me, Heck even if the boost is a placebo effect and its all in mind who the frak cares its still a boost and I do better in races when I walk the water stations. I paced a 2 hour half last weekend and we walked all but one water station and everyone did great and I know for a fact I paced at least a dozen people to prs from just talking to them during the race.
To be fast and set prs only works at the top of the bell curve by running the entire distance, gallowalking is just fine when your in the middle of the bell curve or on the end of it. Hence why you never see Olympians or Kenyans gallowalking as they are clearly the top of the bell curve. I would never set another pr gallowalking personally as I have moved away from my personal middle of the bell curve but could easily gallowalk a sub 2. If it gets you to the finish go for it, I gallowalked to numerous prs and it allowed me to get where I am even if I haven't used it in a race in more than year. I am glad I don't need it anymore and I probably used it longer than I needed but I see no harm for middle of the packers to get out and enjoy running and racing like the faster people. Stop turning your nose up on them they can enjoy running too and if gallowalking helps them finish so be it. Eventually you have to eliminate it if you want to get faster and move up more on your personal bell curve but if you never do and just enjoy running and races what is the harm in that.
Beer-and-waffle Powered
I'd ask what his run-walk ratio was when he set the AR for ten miles on the road.
In the words of my late-coach : Just hang in there, relax... and at the end of a race anyone you see.....just pass them
Really, you seem to be missing the point entirely.
Are we there, yet?
Which point is that? I see at least two being made here:
1) using a run/walk method allows people who might not otherwise be able to run a marathon complete the race
2) using a run/walk method will not optimize times for a well-conditioned runner running a well-paced marathon
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
George, the entire snobbishness of a Galloway runner not being adequately trained, that's what I'm referring to. There seems to be this intimidation by people who are not elites, but faster than average, as if people who run/walk are ruining the sport, and somehow less worthy of a finisher's medal. It's just not true.
If you have to take walk breaks to finish at any distance, then you are not adequately trained to race at that distance. I say that as someone who deliberately used an 8 minute run, 2 minute walk strategy to finish that 50 mile run on my 50th birthday. I was in no way adequately trained for that distance. I used a strategy that allowed me to finish and that is all. World class endurance runners will cover 150 miles in 24 hours and the won't walk a single step nor will they take breaks. They will run constantly for the entire time.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
Amy, "adequately trained" is a phrase that would be almost impossible to get people to agree upon a definition. I don't think it's snobbishness so much as using incompatible definitions. It's my opinion that many, perhaps most, people who enter marathons are not adequately trained, but I'm looking at that from the perspective of a competitive runner striving to reach his potential. Most marathoners nowadays have very different goals than I do and very different attitudes toward races and racing. When you consider goals of completing the marathon and collecting a finisher's medal, a run/walk method will get them adequately trained. I see no incompatibility in the goals or in both types of runners participating in the same race, but you'll never get them to agree on a common definition of adequately trained.
If you have to take walk breaks to finish at any distance, then you are not adequately trained to race at that distance.
Sorry, that's just not true. Stop peddling elitist crap.
But even in your response, you morph together both issues. At first it is about being "adequately trained" (to what? finish the race? run the best possible time?) At the end it is about being "less worthy of a finisher's medal".
Although related, these are two not-the-same topics that just allow people to get confused and bristly.
Specific to the last bit, if you finish, you get a medal. I don't know a lot of people... really ANYONE when I stop and think, even those that chuckle about Galloway's stuff... who try to sell it as being "less worthy of a medal". It seems like the people who want to be pissed off are the ones turning it into this. (whether finisher medals are important is an even different topic)
The point is, people who follow Galloway's plans are adequately trained for what they are attempting to do, even if it's to race.
Amy and Brad - you're talking at cross purposes and not using the same definition of adequately trained. See my comment above.
Sigh. You aren't explaining yourself well... you assume we all mean "adequately trained" (now loaded with "for what they are attempting to do") and even assuming a bunch of unsaid stuff about "to race" the same way and you are getting upset and throwing barbs because you don't mean it the same way as others.
That's all I will say. This is another room317 special.
Sigh. You aren't explaining yourself well... you assume we all mean "adequately trained" (now loaded with "for what they are attempting to do") and even assuming a bunch of unsaid stuff about "to race" the same way and you are getting upset and throwing barbs because you don't mean it the same way as others. That's all I will say. This is another room317 special.
You know what, SRL? Really, you don't like me, don't reply to me and attack me.
Amy, I have been made to feel shame by some people here for a number of my 10 marathons. Yet, I have BQed in all of them. I've learned to just shrug and move on. We do what we feel we must do to get where we want, that's all.
PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013
Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013
18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010