Coach K's opinion on walk-run system

“Coach, is it OK to walk when I get tired?”

I get asked this question a lot by my beginning runners. I will tell them yes, and when you feel better, you can start running again. In the history of track and field, this has been a common coaching principle as evidenced in classic saying “run the straight, walk the curve” for beginning runners.

With the advent and cult status of the Galloway method, this simple prescription has turned into a complex and somewhat rigid (OCD) system. Runners are now listening to their watches for when they should run vs. walk, instead of listening to their own bodies.  They keep coming up with different math formulas of walk/run so that they can have a better next race.  I agree with Randy Acetta and Greg Wenneborg in their book “Marathon training” that the ultimate goal is to be able to run the entire distance of any race that you enter.

While I agree that walking a little bit in order to finish a 5K is better than sitting home on the couch smoking crack, it should not be a person’s training strategy.  I have seen ex-clients “progress” from walking-run a 5K to 15K to 1/2marathon and never actually improve their running skills. I like how Acetta and Wenneborg phrase it, ”Learning to exceed our previous abilities and challenging ourselves to succeed at the distance-those are laudable goals in  and of themselves”.  

Become a real Runner