“Run rhymes with fun, when the fun stops it’s time to rethink.”

So says Rachael Banfield who knows a thing or two about the sport because she has been running for the best part of two decades.

The 53-year-old is enjoying the sport more than ever these days due to ‘Jeffing’ and the aim of the game for her, her friends, and members of her group, The Jolly Jeffers, is to concentrate on having fun.

So what exactly is Jeffing?

“It’s a run/walk strategy,” she told The Local Answer. “It’s has been around for some 50 years.

“It originated in the US and was the brainchild of one-time 10,000-metre Olympic runner Jeff Galloway – hence the name Jeffing.

“The run/walk ratios vary depending on ability and objective. The walk is a ‘walk with purpose, not a stroll in the park!’

“Jeffing is proven to lower the chance of aches and pains, lower the risk of injury and avoid excessive fatigue. Jeffing makes running more accessible for all levels of fitness.” 

So, what prompted Rachael to take up Jeffing?

“My friend Dawn Hardy and I stopped enjoying our running,” she explained.

“We saw a post on Facebook by the Hucclecote Harriers asking if anyone wanted to join a training group who had plans to ‘Jeff’ a marathon. This was the summer of 2018.

“Our first session was a seven-mile route and we loved it. We got to the end, chatting along the way, and finished smiling and not exhausted.”

The Hucclecote Harriers were preparing for the Gloucester Marathon, a road event, but the race was moved to the Forest of Dean shortly before race day.

The day itself was extremely hot and Rachael and Dawn finished at half marathon distance, suffering from heat exhaustion.

It was a learning curve and a disappointment for Rachael, but it didn’t put her off. Quite the contrary, it made her more determined to share her passion for Jeffing.

And so The Jolly Jeffers were formed and they had their first session on 1^st April 2019 in Tewkesbury.

These days the club meet twice a week – Mondays and Wednesdays – and have some 130 subscribers.

“The Jolly Jeffers like to promote a can-do culture,” said Rachael. “Some consider walking during a run cheating, but we don’t see it like that. It’s a strategy to complete a run, if you complete the run you have succeeded.

“Jeffing is great for anyone coming back to running from injury or who just doesn’t have the stamina or desire to run a 5K! It’s about giving people confidence so that they want to come back.”

And more and more people are certainly becoming aware of Jeffing.

“It’s becoming more recognised,” said Rachael. “Our club are supported by Run Together, which is where the leaders in our group gained their Leader In Run Fitness licences from. At the London Marathon last year there were pacers who were Jeffing.”

Rachael is supported by run leaders Dawn Hardy and Anja Harris.

Rachael ran the London Marathon last year with Anja, who ran for Heart Research UK and raised over £2,000. Rachael, meanwhile, ran for Parkinson’s UK and raised over £7,500.

This year Anja gained a ballot place and Rachael got FOMO (fear of missing out) so she is running it again, raising money for the MS Society.

Rachael and Anja completed the marathon in six hours last year and were very pleased with their time.

“I tore my calf five weeks before the race,” Rachael explained, but that certainly didn’t spoil her enjoyment of the race.

“Because we were Jeffing we had time to take in everything, the crowds, the atmosphere, the entertainment. We had a ball.”

And they stuck pretty rigidly to their strategy of 45 seconds running and 30 seconds walking.

“The only time we didn’t walk was downhill,” Rachael said, before adding with a laugh, “and that banks minutes when we are walking up a hill!”

And while the emphasis is very much on having fun, there is a serious side to The Jolly Jeffers too.

“There are a number of mental health champions in the group who organise chatty runs allowing people to talk about anything they want to,” said Rachael.

“We also raise money for other charities, supporting our runners who enter events for fundraising.

“We want to be as accessible and welcoming as possible and encourage anyone to have a go at Jeffing.”

And even the name The Jolly Jeffers sounds welcoming.

“I used to run with a group called the Jolly Joggers,” said Rachael, a social prescriber for the NHS who lives in Tewkesbury and is hugely supported by her husband Neil. “The Jolly Jeffers just seemed to work; it makes us sound like a fun group.”

It certainly does!

This year’s London Marathon takes place on Sunday 23^rd April.