Jeff Galloway

This book delivers exactly what it promises. It is the running encyclopedia. Galloway’s approach can be a little slow initially, especially when you see that if you haven’t run at all, he starts you with running for 10 minutes at a time. It seems a little slow. However, based on my experiences trying to run with the Marathon Team in college, I can appreciate a little slow. You see, I tried to go from someone who never ran, to someone who ran 10 miles in a matter of about eight weeks. It show more doesn’t work. We did a ten mile run one Saturday morning, and I spent all of Sunday in bed with an ice pack on my knee, trying to strategize bathroom and kitchen trips.

Generally, this book is amazing. Galloway takes a very zen approach to running, and his main mantra is that you will perform better if you don’t over-stress your body. Everyone who runs points at this book when they hear about friends who are starting to run, and there is a reason for that. If you want to be intense, it can help push you (in fact, I’m tempted to send it to the Second Lieutenant to see what he thinks, since he ran a marathon with no training whatsoever and described it as the worst 4 ½ hours of his life). If you’re a beginner like me, the basic advice is just to get out there for a half an hour or less a few times a week. The rest of the book will be there once you’ve established your identity as a jogger. Galloway does recommend that you get a heart monitor of some kind (like those sports watches) because heart rate is a good indicator of stress and how hard you should push yourself. I think that’s a good idea, but I’m also a little afraid of what the heart monitor would tell me: I know that I’m an over-caffeinated, stressed out law student. But thanks watch!
Rating: 4 stars (Seems solid and amazing, especially for the “start small” approach. But some of the fitness advice does read like a 1970’s workout video. I refuse to believe stretching is bad for me). show less

This is the first book that I got on stretching, and still the oft mentioned classic. I have read and own several other books that are often overwhelming in their complexity & as I look at the routines, I think that perhaps someday I will get around to learning part of a routine and then get to the rest later, but I never do. This book has simple stretches, and simple illustrations that are doable by someone who is an ordinary person with limited time for this necessary activity.

Anyone can show more do it. For example: Page 110 starts with the words
Spontaneous Stretches
"You can't say you don't have time to stretch. Reading a paper, talking on the phone, waiting for a bus... these are times for easy, relaxed stretching. Be creative; think of stretches to do during normally wasted time."
The rest of page 110 has six simple illustrations of stretches thrown into daily activities.

I gave a copy to a brother and he was thanking me for years after.

If you only buy one stretching book, this is a great choice.

For a book with human illustrations (rather than the sketches that this one has) see: Complete Stretching: A New Exercise Program for Health and Vitality. Complete Stretching has less text, which makes it easier to read, but the explanations are still excellent. They make it the why and how abundantly clear. In addition, Complete Stretching is based on 3,500 years of refining technique. show less

Half-Marathon: You Can Do It is a collection of running wisdom and training programs of Jeff Galloway, one of best known running coaches and former 10k Olympian.

There are different programs for the half-marathon, depending on what time you wish to achieve. They are all based on Galloway's run-walk-run method, though much of the advice applies even if you're not using walking breaks. Then there are chapters that explain how to do speed training, hill training, magic mile trials runs, burning show more fat etc. and some more (pretty light chapters) on equipment and clothing, injury prevention and running in old age.

Overall this is a decent book that you can use as a basis for developing your own half-marathon training program. There are, however, a few complaints:

1. Its look and feel is that of a children's book. I guess the rationale is that runners are not readers so you need a book with big font and shiny pictures to get them to view it.
2. As mentioned above, some chapters are bit light in content. They're probably just there so that the publisher can list that the book give this information on the cover.
3. While he certainly knows a lot about running, there's a feel that Galloway isn't quite keeping up with time. So there's little to no advice about software (such as mapmyrun.com or Garmin Connect) that you can use instead of keeping a running logbook and the likes.
4. He seems to be an adherent of lactate-threshold/cardiovascular anaerobic model of running physiology and doesn't seem to know or care much about latest developments in the field (such as the central governor theory etc.) show less

This is a thorough and user-friendly introduction to nutrition for runners. The authors clearly have plenty of years and case studies worth of experience to draw from. Having already read several deeper works about metabolism and nutrition for athletic performance, this book we more elementary than I needed. If I had to choose one quick resource to get started, this is one I'd recommend.