Walk Before You Run

At one time in the prehistory of today’s running, which translates to the 1980s or thereabouts, it was thought of as a mark of shame for a runner to walk during arace. A runner walked only when injured or when suffering from the grim effects of going out too fast and then looking for a place to drop out. This philosophy applied to every distance from the mile to the marathon.

The only acceptable exception to the no-walking rule was that especially klutzy hand-eye-coordinationchallenged marathoners were allowed to walk through aid stations to allow them to get more water or Gatorade in them than on them.

As always when discussing running, one group stood as an automatic exception to all rules. Ultrarunners were allowed to cover their ultradistance in any way they could manage—as long as it was on their feet. After all, while marathoners had Pheidippides as their patron saint, ultrarunners followed in the footsteps of the 19th-century “pedestrians” such as Edward Payson Weston and Captain Barclay, who covered enormous distances ina “go as you please” fashion, which incorporated a hearty helping of walking.

The fact that Pheidippides had actually run from the Plains of Marathon to Sparta and back, a distance of nearly 300 miles, and had not died on the steps of Athens after a mere 25-mile jog, was of little import to the legend

that marathoners cherished. The same can be applied to the fact that it took being hit by a taxicab to slow Weston in his advanced age after he had continued to compete into his 70s. Legends die hard.

By the time the ’80s were behind us, Jeff Galloway began preaching a training and racing philosophy of working walking into running to make long distances more accessible to all. His philosophy was that you could cover huge distances if you inserted walking breaks into your routine from the very first minutes. Running 10 minutes, then walking one minute was pretty standard format. The secret was to begin working those walking breaks in immediately and not waiting until you needed them because by then it would be too late for them to be of any help. Of course, Garden State math teacher and distance star Tom Osler had prescribed such a method for successfully doing ultraruns way back in the ancient ’60s.

Armies of runners accepted Jeff’s methods, and it became a matter of self-defense to avoid groups of runners in marathons because you never knew when they were going to slow en masse to take their walking breaks, and good luck if you were running on their tails when they did. Fortunately, most of Jeff’s army kept moving at a regular enough pace, even while taking walking breaks, that they finished marathons in a reasonable time.

Enter the ’90s and an influx of walkers who wanted to go the marathon distance. Fortunately, there were some marathons (Honolulu, Portland) whose courses could be held open long enough for a walker to complete the marathon in an open-ended time. Play with the math: At a 15-minute-per-mile pace, a walker can finish a marathon in just over 6 1/2 hours.

The conflict came when walkers who were going to take 6 1/2 hours to complete a marathon insisted that they be let into marathons in which the governmental entities that controlled the streets and roads dictated that the course be cleared of bodies after 5 1/2 hours. Some especially scenic marathons (Big Sur, Napa) were thus closed off to walkers, lest the race directors tick off the governmental officials to the point that road permits would in the future be refused.

ENTER THE ARROGANT WALKER

The Arrogant Walker came equipped with a line of guilt to inflict on the

hapless race director: “You’re making me a second-class citizen.” It mattered not that the whole subject was out of the hands of the race director. “Caltrans [California Department of Transportation] allows us to completely close down Highway 1 for 5 1/2 hours,” Wally Kastner, race director of the Big Sur International Marathon, says. “People can’t expect them to let us close it down forever so someone can stroll from Big Sur to Carmel. We’re lucky they don’t take back some of the 5 1/2 hours we now enjoy.”

The occasional race director bearded with the “You’re making me asecond-class citizen” guilt trip finally had enough and responded: “You’re the one making yourself a second-class citizen. If you’d make your legs go faster, you’d move up to first class.”

The conflict could occasionally become ugly. In spite of the fact that most walkers understood the difficulty some race directors faced, didn’t take it personally, and gravitated to marathons that were able to accommodate them safely, an arrogant handful decided to take matters into their own feet.