Meeting with Coach Leach

Today Beth and I met to talk with Coach Leach about marathon training. I learned quite a bit. He said that we should take in energy every 15-30 minutes during the marathon. But the weird thing to me was that we are supposed to take gels that have protein. Most gels do not. Only one brand does. He said that the small amount of protein will counter act the Cortosol release that will cause your muscles to hurt faster. He also stressed running the long runs slow. He said half on the battle is training our central nervous system so you don’t want to cross pollinate. For example if you want to teach it long than don’t introduce fast into it. It was a very informative meeting. I did come away a little worried because he said that he wished I had started my marathon training 3 weeks ago but I should still be “Okay.” Not exactly what I wanted to hear but I guess I will have to settle for “Okay.”