Met this random dude before running the City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh a few years ago.
I love hanging out with heroes. I think I own all of his books. Jeff Galloway popularized the method of marathoning called the run-walk method. It all boils down to two maxims:
Run as slowly as you need to in order to remain comfortable.
Take walk breaks as necessary.
You get the best of both worlds this way: You build endurance, and you avoid injury. It has gotten me through 45 half marathons, 20 full marathons, and 3 ultra marathons. And it's definitely more enjoyable than trying to run each and every step of the entire distance. I've found that walk breaks, when taken early and often enough, keep my muscles strong and resilient so that I can actually enjoy the race.
The human body simply wasn't designed to run long distances without a break. But when you alternate walking and running, there's virtually no limit to the distance you can cover.
Thanks for reading!