Galloway’s Book on Running by Jeff Galloway
I read the first edition of Galloway’s Book on Running because my mother found it at a tag sale, but I see there’s now a second edition which is the one linked here. For a book written in 1982 (the 1st edition), it holds up very well. The only part that seemed obsolete was the “running after 40” section. 40 is the new 20 or whatever, so the idea of needing a special section for the over-40 crowd is quaintly old-fashioned. Perhaps “running after 70”. In fact, I see he’s now got a book called Running Until You’re 100, which is closer to the reality of the people I run with.
There was also a semi-slanted “running for women” section but since it mostly concentrated on pregnancy with a tiny warning about amenorrhea, I’m not going to hit him too hard for this. He did have his wife write this chapter, as though women are aliens who can only understand each other, but I guess where pregnancy is concerned that’s fair.
The rest of the book was old enough to be new again. He warns about stretching. He’s mildly rabid on the umpteen glasses of water thing, an urban legend which is only now being called into question, but he doesn’t tout sports drinks. His diet recommendations dovetail very nicely with what I happen to be eating anyway (except for chocolate, but perhaps that was in the section for women).
Most importantly, his program seems very gentle. It’s a bit like when Steve told me to start walking hills. It’s hard to believe that easing up could be the key to moving forward, but the hill walking advice came at the right time, and I’m going to give Galloway’s program a try. I start in a few weeks and I end at the Boston Marathon. Let’s see how it goes.