"I run only three miles a day," he said "and I don't hit the wall in the marathon." As I tried to continue the questions and answers for this small town group, about 13 years ago, my first reaction was that the fellow was trying to "test" me. During similar question-and-answer sessions, I've received some amazing off-the-wall comments and recommendations and I wanted to reject this one quickly. At the time I subscribed to the conventional wisdom that required a steady build-up to 70 miles per week and a weekly long run of no more than 18-20 miles. I felt like a real expert having run over 40 marathons since my first one in 1963.

I could tell that the crowd wanted me to react. It would have been easy to cast it aside with a brief put-down launched by my 140 mile-per-week pride. But I had listened to enough "trick" remarks to know that this fellow was serious. So I started asking him questions and probably learned more than anyone in the audience. He made four points that poked gaping holes in the existing training theories.

1. By not increasing the distance of his daily runs, he didn't get injured. The conventional training programs take 30 mile-per- week runners and increase the weekly quota to 70 miles in a month or three. As a result, most runners who train for their first marathon don't get to run it. Such an increase almost always produces an injury, sickness or leaves one too tired to run the good marathon for which they've trained.

2. He increased the length of the long runs to 26 miles. I've found that each person's "wall" is the length of their most recent long run. By running slower than you have trained to run, you can extend the wall -- but how many people run slower under the excitement of the marathon. If your longest one was 18-20, that's where you can expect to hit the wall in the marathon. By slowly increasing the long one to 26 or farther, you can pr epare for the exact amount of endurance you need in the race itself. There's no better preparation.

3. Long runs were run every other week. There are a few people who can recover in six days from long runs that exceed 16-18 miles. A residual fatigue builds up which accumulates and leaves one too tired at the end of the program to run one's best. Don't worry about losing your conditioning -- you can keep the endurance gained from a 14 miler or more for at least two weeks. The endurance from a 20 plus mile run will last for three wee ks or more.

4. His long runs were run very slowly. You gain the same endurance from a slow run as from a fast one. The faster the run, the longer you must recover from it. By running 1.5-2 minutes per mile slower than marathon ra ce pace, you reduce the recovery time while gaining all of the endurance value of the run.

More than any other factor, I could tell that this fellow enjoyed his training and flowed right through the program. Starting from a long run of 6-8 miles, he'd increase each long run by one or two miles. As he talked, we could all feel the excitement he felt from the challenge of each long one.

For years before this clinic, I had been running a similar marathon schedule: every-other-week long runs of 26-30 miles, each run very slowly. I did not have the confidence to recommend it to others until this anonymous runner showed us with confidence that it could be done while running 3 miles on 2-3 other days per week. I've redesigned and streamlined the program ever since.

So it's possible to become part of the marathon challenge without abandoning your family, neglecting your job or feeling tired all the time. Of course, there may be some tiring runs and some days when you just don't have it. But the gentle progress experienced during the program leads one realistically to the great sense of achievement gained from the final exam: the marathon itself.

This program is designed for finishing the marathon. Those who aim for high performance must include more mileage in their programs and, in many cases, some speed work. A slight decrease in total mileage, while increasi ng the length of the long run to 26 plus miles, has helped many runners achieve their goals. Dramatic decreases in total mileage can lower your performance capacity.

This neighborhood runner showed me again that the best training programs are those that start from where you are now and stay comfortably within your capacity. Our bodies are certainly capable of some amazing things if we coax small changes out of them, through a series of regularly scheduled challenges. I was glad to learn that this old running dog could learn a few new training tricks.

Olympian Jeff Galloway is the author of Galloway's Book on Running, Return of the Tribes to Peachtree Street, and Marathon! And is a monthly columnist in Runner's World. His low mileage training program is in 30 plus cities in North America.