Jeffing and the Olympic everyman
#31: The run-walk gospel of Jeff Galloway, the Olympic wolfdog, baseball's international minnows, and the winter sport that's stuck in the past...
Tales from the fringes of sport and society…
Sporting revolutions don’t usually emerge from the middle. The lustre and legacy of champions and record breakers are an obvious catalyst, but even heroic failures have been known to inspire awe and admiration (think Derek Redmond, Eddie the Eagle, and Eric the Eel). At the Tour de France, there’s even a treasured term for finishing last: lanterne rouge (red lantern), like the lamps once placed at the rear of a train.
But for those who finish smack bang among the huddle? As Hugh Grant’s floppy faux-gangster from Mickey Blue Eyes would say, fuggedd abowd it.
Particularly in the press, nobody files copy about the median. When it comes to headlines, being decent might as well equate to being absent. Glory or disgrace only, their editors bark.
So it’s rare for a genuine gamechanger to emerge from this storytelling no-man’s-land. But this month we were reminded of one.
Jeff Galloway never considered himself a good runner. Born in Chicago in 1945, he moved to Atlanta as a teenager, constantly changing schools due to his father’s role in the navy. Overweight and struggling academically, Galloway was enrolled on the cross-country programme to get him into shape. As he recalled:
“Throughout the day before my first workout, I questioned my sign-up for this strenuous sport. A stream of thoughts about running went zooming through my brain, and none were positive. Running hurts. The other guys are fit - I’m not. I’m going to be last - and the kids will make fun of me. I will be sore for days afterward. I have crucial homework assignments and can’t think well when tired.”
Galloway went way too hard in his first run and his legs turned to jelly after half a mile. He trudged back to the changing rooms feeling like a failure. But by the time he’d showered and changed, he experienced an unusual feeling of accomplishment. He felt more energised, and discovered a renewed zeal when completing his homework. He found it revelatory that someone like him, someone not “built” for running, could get so much out of it.
But by 1972, it’s fair to say Galloway was built for running. With a blonde moustache and sideburns that made him look every bit the 70s running cliché, he’d finish second at the US trials in the 10k, earning a spot at the Munich Olympics. He was also listed as the alternate for marathon runner Frank Shorter, who’d go on to claim the gold.
But Galloway couldn’t match Shorter’s success. He wouldn’t even come close. He finished 11th in the heats, right in the middle of the field. It meant the 27-year-old didn’t qualify for the final, crossing the line over a minute behind the qualifying pace. Barely a word was written about him. No medals, no ignominy, no story.
But while he didn’t pull up any trees on the track, he’d go on to plant many off it. Just like at school, he’d find a way to process failure into accomplishment. He felt that there was more to running than podiums. That athletics wasn’t just about athletes.
He opened one of the country’s first-ever specialist running shops in Atlanta and named it Phidippides - after the ancient Greek courier who inspired the marathon. A few months later, he started teaching running classes.
“During the class, I discovered that none of my students had been running for at least five years. About one-third had never done any regularly scheduled exercise during their lifetime. During the first lap around the track, I realised that walk breaks would be crucial if I wanted each class member to finish either a 5K or 10K without injury or exhaustion.”
In a bid to prevent his new students from being discouraged, he promoted a “huff and puff” rule, where he’d advise them to walk whenever they found themselves panting for breath.
By 1976, Galloway had perfected his Run-Walk-Run interval technique that proved integral to hundreds of first-time runners finishing 5Ks, 10Ks, and even marathons. He argued that not only did this style of jogging - so anathema to elite marathoners - reduce fatigue and aid quicker recovery, but in many cases even translated into quicker finishing times.
By removing the psychological barriers that deterred many from pounding the pavement, those hundreds of runners soon became thousands, and thousands became hundreds of thousands. When Galloway died this month aged 80, his method - which would eventually become known as “Jeffing” and promoted by the likes of Joe Wicks - was credited with bringing millions to marathons.
Rest in peace Jeff Galloway: the tubby school kid who became the Olympic everyman determined to share his runner’s high with everyone - whether first, last, or in the middle.
Read on for half a dozen of our recommended reads. If you’ve read or listened to anything you’d like to share with us leave a note in the comments, and do consider hitting the like button below or sharing with a friend. Catch you next time.
Olympic outcast
Glorious
Nordic combined, the discipline that requires athletes to launch themselves off a ski jump and then, hours later, race a 5km or 10km cross-country course, with the first across the line declared the winner, has existed since the very first Winter Olympics in 1924. It is a test of explosive flight and endurance on the same day. And it is still the only winter sport that excludes women entirely. Not just at these Games, but at every Olympic Games ever held.
Six essential story lines for the 2026 World Baseball Classic
The Ringer
Baseball’s ethos has always centered on rhythm and endurance. The local team becomes the soundtrack of summer, unfolding nightly across a six-month grind. But that consistency can dull urgency. Contenders pace themselves for October. Rebuilding clubs pivot toward the future by Memorial Day. The true sickos may be locked into the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues, but for most fans, the stretch between spring training and Opening Day can feel never-ending. The World Baseball Classic compresses all of that waiting into something immediate. It takes a sport built on patience and forces it to sprint.
How Nazgul the wolfdog made his run for Winter Olympic glory in Italy
NPR
But then, a friend working at the competition office sent Alice what has now become an iconic image: the high-definition shot of a dog from the camera used to capture photo finishes. A family member dispatched to the Varescos’ apartment reported back, said Alice: “Everything open - and the dog is not there.”
Behold the saga of Nazgul, named for the villainous characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy - whose Olympic cameo began by alarming athletes and organizers but ended with social media and TV stardom.
The awkward kid who became the world’s strongest man
The Guardian
Now 31, he weighs 180kg – the same as a large lion. It took 10 years to double his weight. He eats five times a day to fuel training: eight boiled eggs with cheese and mayonnaise on sourdough for breakfast, then two meals of spicy mince and rice before training at 12.30pm. These days he’s a strongman full-time – running a gym with his brother near his home, where he lives with his wife. He spends his downtime like a biohacker – using an oxygen chamber, red-light therapy, a sauna and cold tub – and works with a nutritionist and sports doctor who monitors his health, including his cholesterol (it’s low). “When I go to the doctor, I’m classed as obese,” he says, but his BMI doesn’t reflect his health.
How Jason Benetti overcame cerebral palsy to become one of America’s top sportscaster
Hoops HQ
While he doesn’t have chronic pain or major health complications as a result of CP, Benetti does have a drifting eye and pronounced limp. His full body hitches as he moves, but he has no trouble getting around. “The hurdles are not physical for me,” he says. “They are because I don’t look the same as everybody.”
Benetti has long understood that in order to overcome those hurdles, he needs to jump higher than the competition. He has risen to the top of his profession through his talent, his intellect, his humor, and most of all, his will. He would like for people to think of him as just a great broadcaster, and not a broadcaster with cerebral palsy.
Doubling heights: The unsung heroes of 2026’s hottest film
BBC
One shot, of main character Heathcliff’s rippling, heavily scarred back, bathed in candlelight during one intimate scene, definitely set tongues wagging and fingers tapping. It became a point of fixation for audiences who’d taken to hyper-analysing actor Jacob Elordi’s portrayal of the tortured anti-hero opposite Margot Robbie as his lover Cathy. But there’s a chance that it wasn’t actually the Australian actor viewers saw on-screen.
BBC Newsbeat’s been speaking to body doubles - the unsung heroes who helped to bring director Fennell’s interpretation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel to life - to find out how it was done.
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“Being an athlete is a state of mind which is not bound by age, performance, or place in the running pack” - Jeff Galloway