I am very excited to announce I have adopted a new marathon strategy which I am sure will see me flying to that marathon finish line, instead of hobbling.  Whilst there is little chance of me breaking my PB (Personal Best of 3hr 53min) at London, it should see me through nicely without hindering my chances of completing Edinburgh 5 weeks later.

So what’s this new strategy?  I’m going to use the Run/Walk Strategy.  I’m a little embarrassed to admit that without the knee injury I would have completely snubbed this idea, as typically the Run/Walk strategy is for beginners.  However, Jeff Galloway - world class athlete and coach, has some rather interesting information on his site http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html and believes it is even possible to complete a sub 3hr 30min marathon using this method.  So surely it can’t be all that bad?

I used this Run/Walk strategy today for this week’s long endurance run.  Today was the first time since the injury occurred 8 weeks ago, that managed to complete an endurance run on the road (instead of a treadmill).  My 27kms/16miles consisted of 4min running, then 1min walk intervals. Surprisingly, the overall time it took to complete this run was no slower than had I of been running continuously.  I guess this proves the benefits of the run/walk strategy; it calls on different muscle groups, delays muscle fatigue and generally you can run slightly quicker inbetween the walking breaks.

I am chuffed!  If you want to know how long it took to complete my run today using the walk/run strategy…please feel free to visit my training page  :o)