July 12 - Jeff Galloway

Image courtesy facebook.com

On this day, in 1945, Jeff Galloway was born in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jeff has been a runner his entire life. Whether he's running away from something or towards it we can't say (although we suspect it's the latter), but either way he's really good at it. While attending the Westminster Schools, a private K-12 institution, in Atlanta, Georgia, he ran the mile in 4 minutes 28 seconds, only 30 seconds off the world record at the time. He became the state champion in the two mile run with a personal best of 9 minutes 48 seconds. Jeff graduated and went on to attend Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut where he was naturally on the running teams. He managed to cut his time in the mile down to 4:12 and his two mile time down to 9:06 while earning All-American honors in both cross-country and track.

Image courtesy phidippides.com

Following his graduation from Wesleyan, Jeff spent three years in the United States Navy. He then went to Florida State University to earn a master's degree in social studies. While there, he met his wife, Barbara, who, of course, was part of the FSU women's track team. In 1970, Jeff became the first winner of the annual July 4th Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, now the largest 10K race in the world with 60,000 runners this year. Around the same time, he joined the Florida Track Club, a running team based on the campus of FSU's rival, the University of Florida in Gainesville. There he met Jack Bacheler and Frank Shorter, two runners who would become life-long friends and spur him on to bigger and better things.

Jeff, Jack and Frank collectively shared dreams of being part of the 1972 US Olympic Track team. The trio even went to the mountains of Colorado to train for the trials (the Games were held in Munich that year, not a particularly mountainous region, but definitely hilly). When it came time for the qualifying races, Jeff and Frank made the 10K team, but Jack narrowly missed the mark. A week later, Frank made the team for the marathon. Jeff could have also made the marathon team, but at the final moments he dropped back to allow Jack to take the last spot, thus ensuring that all three friends would be making the trip to Germany. At the Games, Frank took gold in the marathon and came in fifth in the 10K, Jack came in ninth in the marathon and Jeff was eleventh in his heat in the 10K, missing the finals by just over a minute.

Image courtesy disunplugged.com

Following the Olympics, in addition to continuing to run competitively (he broke the US record for the 10-mile in 1973), Jeff began opening businesses to help others get into the sport. In 1973, he opened the his first running store, Phidippides. At one time the chain boasted 35 stores nationwide but has since dwindled to two. In 1975, Jeff started operating running fitness camps. He's run camps regularly in Colorado, British Columbia and California as well as fitness seminars and marathon training groups across the country. Jeff has also been a monthly columnist for Runner's World magazine and the author of 10 books on running and fitness over the years. His latest book, Mental Training for Runners - No More Excuses, was published in 2016.

Jeff officially became part of the Disney family in 2010 when he became runDisney's Training Consultant. He'd already participated in (and finished) all 17 of the Walt Disney World Marathons up to that point, so it was a natural fit that he join the newly branded team. Jeff continues to run in many of the runDisney events, has helped thousands of people train and finish races with both his online plans and in person seminars and just been a general cheerleader for Disnoids of all ages to get off their couches and onto the race course. So if running is your thing and you find yourself at a runDisney event, look for the 74 year old, who just might be passing you. If you can't gasp out a hello when he does, don't worry. He'll be at the finish line cheering you across.