Mere Mortal Marathon Podcast

Welcome to episode five of the Mere Mortal Marathon Podcast, where you'll hear what it's like to train for and run your first marathon. I'm Duane France and I'm joined by Coach Morgan Latimore. And together we're gonna share the week by week training journey that'll take me just a regular guy, a mere mortal to the finish line of my first marathon.
And if I can do it, you can too. Thanks for joining us for the Mere Mortal Marathon Podcast. I'm excited to be going on this journey, and pleased to invite you to join me along the way. There's a couple of ways that we can be connected. Follow the podcast wherever you listen to 'em, and you'll be notified when a new episode comes out.
You can also see where the journey takes me by connecting on Strava by going to strava.com/athletes/m3podcast. The link will be in the show notes. There, you'll see if I'm following the training plan like I'm supposed to be. And finally, before we get into the meat of the episode, you can find all of the episodes on the fundraising page of my charity partner, The Second Wind Fund at Coloradogives.org/m3podcast. The mission of The Second Wind Fund is to decrease the incidence of suicide in children and youth by removing barriers to treatment. They match children and youth at risk for suicide with licensed therapists in their communities and pay for up to 12 sessions of therapy when there's a barrier to treatment.
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This week we're reviewing week two of training and Coach Morgan added a couple of miles to two of the five workouts this week, as well as a day of lower body strength training running plyometrics. We did four miles on Monday and Friday and three miles on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
For plyometrics we did some toe taps, lunges, and squats. He shared some videos on each exercise, and this is his guidance on plyometrics.
Plyometric training increases muscle strength, which allows you to run faster, jump higher, and change direction quickly.
I will link to each of the videos in the show notes as well as give you a rundown of the training for the week. So check out this week's coaching call, reviewing the week, and we'll come back afterwards to wrap things up.
Duane: All right, so here we are done with week two.
Coach Morgan: Week two. How you feeling?
Duane: pretty good. Pretty good. We started plyometrics this week, so that was, a little bit of an experience. There was some soreness in me doing some, movements that I'm not familiar with doing, but that's the good type of soreness I think.
Coach Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. I added something to it. People, sometimes overlook that when you on a consistent regiment of something and you just add one small thing that the body will tell you like, oh, what is that?
Like, we don't normally do that stuff. So tell me about it. Tell me how the session went, the good, the bad, the ugly.
Duane: Yeah. On Wednesday you added some run plyometrics and, and again, thinking about, always hearing about the need to do strength training while you're doing marathon stuff. You hear that, but then like, when I think of strength training, I think about going to the gym and hitting the weights and stuff like that.
But this is runners strength training. So, yeah, the, three videos, that you sent walked me through the things, and of course I had to do a little slow and deliberate to make sure I didn't fall over while I was doing my lunges and stuff like that. But it was good.
I think it was maybe, it was definitely less than 8 to 10 minutes before the run. And, you know, I felt it obviously in my muscles, but then stretched it out on the run and felt pretty good.
Coach Morgon: That's good. That's good. And it, sometimes it comes down to what we're looking for right now. We're trying to build consistency. So there will be days I'm like, I need you to do the run first and then the strength training or vice versa. It depends.
Everything has a purpose and reason when we're just trying to build a foundation, right? We can see how the body reacts. Cuz sometimes I know people that do cross training, right? It depended on like low bearing workouts. When do you do 'em and how will it affect the rest of the day or the next workout?
It doesn't matter what type of athlete you are, but if sometimes say, What is the focus of that day? That's the key. And so as you have a training schedule, usually, I wanna make sure I say that very clearly for people that are listening, is that what the focus for that day is usually the first workout, right?
Coach Morgon: Not unless there's some other built-in warmup routine, prior to that, right? And so what you now it's just that we just doing, that consistency and is really getting the repetitions in. But there will be a time where say, okay, I have you do strength training.
Maybe biometrics could be something else, and I have you do that first. Maybe I'm looking to fatigue the legs a little bit and then seeing how your body responds to the training load during the run.
Because guess what, what is running? Running is, something that puts a lot of fatigue on the body.
A lot of energy is expended through that movement. And so sometimes, as you know, I'm watching your knee and your ankles. If running day, day-to-day, it becomes too taxing on your joints and your ligaments or any preexisting injury, what you want to do is you gotta find something else.
Coach Morgon: Like, don't keep doing the same thing that ain't working right. And so I'm watching your body and how you respond. Luckily, as we went through the week, you're like, I feel good. Like I feel better, and that's the key. Because at the end of the day, what we could still do, there's rowing, right at, the row machine, there's elliptical, there's swimming, there's biking.
Those low impact exercises that still may be cardio. Do they replace, running? No, they can't replace running. Cause you need a little bit of that. But at the same time, each individual athlete it's a mental and a physical thing. Certain people, like for my body, I can go run a very long period of time and do minimum amount of running because I've been running so much over my lifetime, that my body can take it.
Well, there’s others out there that have to build up to that resilience and you'll hear people call it building your base. When your body has a history of running or physical activity. It merely needs to be what I would call reminded. And when it remembers, then you are like, ah, there it goes. Like you had those run you when you got back into running and you got out there that first day, you were like, oh, this is gonna be a long journey, , Right.
Coach Morgon: but then it clicks and your body's like, okay, I remember this. And so the key is to kind of wake those muscles up, wake those tendons up in different ways and just finding that. But the plyometrics is very important because, we want to just of change up the movements as you start doing, kinda going forward the whole time.
So all you're doing is running. Nobody's running backwards. Most people ain't running side to side. You so you only work a certain set of muscles. I like to keep everything in layman's terms. You only work a certain set of muscles. To be well-rounded because guess what? When you're doing the toe taps or the lunges or the squats or, what other one, I got you here.
More lunges and side lunges, right? And so we working the hips and things of that nature, cuz everything has to be strong. Because as you become even in training, but mostly on race day. As your body becomes more fatigued, right? You start to, recruit other muscles that you probably normally don't use and they're like, man, why is this I cramped a place I never cramped before?
I'm sore in a place I've never been sore before. You hear people say those things because they're working these muscles. I always say the body is a computer, right? And the brain is okay, this is the CPU, this is what is telling us what to do, what's going on.
Say you have two muscle groups there. One is the more dominant, say the legs, right? You got these big hamstrings or these big glutes that are big muscles, and so they're gonna take the blunt of it. But there's muscles on the side of those, under them, right, and sometimes they don't get reached.
Coach Morgan: Well, when you put plyometrics in other type of exercise, like cross training in a workout. What it does is it helps you hit those areas so you get real specific, in like, okay, I wanna hit this muscle group. I wanna hit this muscle group, because when the big muscles get fatigued, they're gonna recruit the other muscles.
And that's where you see people start having cramping or pull something because they go in a direction that they haven't been going. Or if you're running slow all the time and you haven't done any speed work, and suddenly you go fast and you wonder why you pull something. Because you probably pulled a muscle that hasn't been trained.
Or pull the muscles that's been overworked. Either way it goes. And so implementing plyometrics is a good way to mix it up a little bit, but also prepare for the worst.
Duane: Yeah, I appreciate that. I remember, again, back from before. At one point I was training for a half marathon that I was gonna run in Annapolis, and was probably a month, maybe five weeks ahead of that race. And me and the unit for sports day, we played flag football. iI's just flag football, it's pickup game.
The next day I was sore and I'm like, I'm running at that point 25 miles a week preparing for this half marathon and like an hour and a half of playing flag football. It cramped me up, but it was because it was a lot of that stop start, side to side. It's a different type of sport and I realize that… And again, when I saw this in starting to incorporate plyometrics, for a lot of people, that I understand is we do marathon training.
They just run. They just run. And like you just, you run straight and you turn left or you turn right, and that's where I saw and felt the plyometrics with different muscles that I hadn't been using.
Coach Morgan: Yep. And even, like you just said, turning left and right, like most people, and this is a thing, are unsteady with those movements. Like turning at a high rate of speed you're almost in a lean most of the time. Because to keep that angle, to keep that speed, you don't just go forward, right.
It ain't like walking where you just, you upright and you cruise up. Or when you're running and you're running fast for, and fast being relative to the individual, right? And you try to hold that speed. Think about it. Next time when you walk around the corner, now run around it. It takes a little bit more stability.
And if you haven't been training the muscles to that well, it becomes unstable and that's how people fall in corners and trip and things of that nature. When you have those things, when you're doing those things outside, you know your norm, then it's more likely for something to go awry.
Duane: Yeah, and some of this is adding all this together. I know that first run this week, I went, I found a trail and that trail was a little bit up and around the corners, and it was a bit zigzag and it was up and down hills. And so I was concentrating on running the trail, staying on the path, and then after the run I was like, I was a little fast. I was a lot faster, I think, than what we were going for.
Our goal,
Coach Morgan: 9:30
Duane: it was putting these pieces together that, it’s like I'm concentrating on this piece, but then I took my mind off my speed.
Coach Morgan: Yeah, people always… You’ll hear me, probably this whole podcast series, hear me tell you like if you going out there running and you say you bored, that means you don't have a purpose. That's just, that's what it comes down to. I don't care what training you're doing in life. When something becomes mundane or complacent, that means you don't have a purpose anymore.
Like it becomes normal. And so if you're running and you are like, man, I'm bored on the treadmill, I'm bored on this. What are you there for? And, oh, I hate the treadmill. I hate this. Yet you hate it because you only focusing on being on it.
Duane: Mm-hmm.
Coach Morgon: not what you need to be doing on it.
Like that's the key. And you have a lot of athletes that are wear, headphones and all these other things and they wonder why they never can get better or they don't understand. But like when you look at athletes and I always, reference,Olympians or elite level athletes. What they are doing out there is very specific, like specificity is everything when you're training.
And the only way to hear your body and to listen to your body is not to have distractions, right? And so just like this, when you out there and you running with your friend you're focusing on the conversation with your friend or running with them or slowing down or speeding up. It's always, it might not be a negative concentration, but it like, you're not focused on you.
Treadmill is the same thing you worry about just being in the treadmill cause you ain't outside. guess what? You ain't focusing on what you need to be doing there. And then the other part is that, and people are probably say, oh, I'm gonna wear my music and you wear your music all you want, but if you are listening to music, you ain't listening to your body.
You can't do both. People don't understand we can't multitask. That's a computer function. We can't do the… We have to do one thing or the other. we can go back and forth quickly, but we can't do both at the same time. So something will be lacking during that timeframe. So when you are out there, that focus is so important.
and I'll bring this up as… There's so much I can give you in this one pod… I can give you, if we stayed on here for hours, we could just talk about like the training cycle itself and break it all down. But we can't brain dump on athletes, right? And so each time, each week, each talk like we gotta either bring something to the table or walk away with something different.
Because to brain dump everything I know onto you, it's not gonna benefit you. You're not gonna know a lot of things, and that's the way it's supposed to be. But when you work out, you should have direction. And so yes, at the beginning when you first got off the couch, and it's not for you, but anyone listening.
Yes, 3 miles every day, just getting out there was your focus. That was literally your focus. But over time, that focus is going to be met. That need will be met. And then you have to pick another goal, like for, for you doing like, I know I can run, but what's that next level?
And even with athletes that have been with me 5, 6, 7 years. They're like, man, you switch it up on me, because I have to. I have to keep learning one so I can keep making things better. And then understanding like everything that I could give you at one given time, there's so much more to it.
Coach Morgan: Like especially even the data side of things, right? And yes. to digress to your pace on Monday at 9:30. I'm like, as soon as I saw it, I was like, that is not slower. We literally talked about this last week. What did you say? You said I tried and it just didn't work.
Duane: I think, and along with that focus, I think one of the beneficial things is there's also limits. Cuz you're talking about we need to focus on this particular pace. But also, with plyometrics, you said, this contained amount we're only doing it on this one day.
Like if I'm thinking of, if I was doing this on my own, I would say, okay, I need to incorporate strength training. Well, I may have done strength training three days a week cuz I don't know that, that's too much or too little. So I appreciate not just, the need for focus, but also based on your experience. The limits that you're setting around, you’re going too fast or I see coming up next week you say we need to look at a particular heart rate range. Without having a coach to be able to say, this is where we're at with these limits.
Duane: We may try to do too much too soon.
Coach Morgan: It’s No may. I'll tell you this story about this guy. I was coaching this team for an organization. And so it was like when I first started coaching and, but I remember him because they had a training plan and basically like cookie cutter.
I don't do cookie cutter anymore that is, I'm so far away from that now. But, you get through cookie cutter plans and they're not made for everybody. They ain't made for you physically, they ain't made for you mentally, and they ain't made for your daily schedule at home. And so he missed every day of the week, but he was free on Saturday and Sunday.
What do you think he did?
Duane: All of them, all the miles.
Coach Morgan: He did all of his training in two days. and he couldn't work out for a week after that. Because it was just, it was like he went out to race and he wasn't prepared to race. I've taken on a few, at least I think four new athletes, including you in the last three months.
And a lot of, of 'em are like, I'm ready. I feel good. I feel good. There's one, he's like, yeah, I'm good at the pacing and there's another one I gotta hold back. And like you said, they're ready to go because they're used to doing more. And we have this notion in our mind, because this is how our generation was raised, is that more is better, harder is right.
And it ain't about the methodical or slowing down or training with a purpose. It's go faster, go further. Do it when you don't want to. That was the old way, right? But now it's like I'm watching. So if you run every day of the week and it's boom, positive comment, great pace, boom, positive comment, great pace, boom, positive comment, great pace, and then negative comment or heart rate goes up.
Coach Morgan: Now I'm like, okay, what's going? So what I can do is, and guess what, 9 times outta 10, if you didn't have a coach, you'd probably have a workout that next day. And then and then you'll tell me, Hey, this is how I'm feeling. I'm like, okay, so tell me more about it. I'll ask some more questions and say, oh yeah, I think you're tired.
And so we have a 6 mile run tomorrow. Let's go ahead and let's either, do some cross training. Either take a day off or lower the mileage. . if you didn't have me, two of things would happen. You were to go do it anyway, right. Cause it's, it's a, it's a mental and emotional thing. You would go do it anyway.
And then you push your body past the level. All you gotta do is just back off a little. Consistency just means doing something, you ain't gotta do exactly that thing. So I'll say, Hey, I'm watching the fatigue. I'm watching your comments. and I'm gonna be your conscious. We're not gonna do anything tomorrow.
Coach Morgan: And so that will help. But then there's that other side where you have the workout tomorrow, you wake up so tired that you can't do it, and people overlook this part, what I'm about to tell you. They overlook the part. It's like when that training plan says, 6 miles the next day and you're fatigued and you don't do it.
The negative energy and emotions you take from not being able to complete it.
Duane: It's because I made the conscious choice not to do something I committed myself to do. I'm a person of my word. I'm dedicated, like this is about psychological endurance as well as physical endurance. But there's a difference if coach says,
Coach Morgan: It is.
Duane: I feel the way I feel. He sees that I feel the way I feel and it's not so much that it's taken the onus off of me and putting it on you.
But I trust you more than I maybe even trust myself to know what I'm doing and where my body's at.
Coach Morgan: And that's exactly what it is. Right? and that's a big piece, man. And. Like coach is conscious. And like it's raining here in North Carolina and I texted my coach like, Hey, it's 40 degrees outside of pouring rain. I got 7 miles. His comment was different than what I would probably give matter of fact, where's my phone? I will read it to y'all. Let me read what my coach told me about making that adjustment. And I love him to death because he's right. But it was funny because he always pushes me like, cuz I'm a coach too, and need somebody to be able to call those things out for me. And he's also told me days, Hey, if you don't feel it, don't do it.
It's not worth it. And he, and I feel better with him because, before I got to that point, I racked my own brain. should I not do it? I don't feel like it arm am just being lazy or, what's going on? is this pace just too fast? Or, you asked yourself a thousand questions, I told him, it was like, yeah, it's raining outside. It's be raining all day. It's cold. He said, no such thing is bad weather, only bad gear. Dress for it. Challenge yourself, that’s what makes us tougher. That's what I got this morning. I'm like, okay.
Duane: But also in, and likely, like you, he's probably looking at your physical response and so he can see that your body's probably not fatigued to the point. Like if both what he was looking at is like heart rate and all this other stuff. If that was stressing you and your comment is stressing you, maybe it might have been.
Coach Morgoa: Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. And, and I'm fine. I'm gonna go run after this. You know what I mean? but it's always just ask, you know, I ask the questions too. Can I make decisions for myself, not all the time. I just gotta be honest with you. Not all. I need someone, or like everyone, we need somebody to bounce that stuff off of to make it better.
So what I would ask you, as we go into another training week next week. You tell me like, what's going through your mind about the last week of training? What do you think you're capable of? What do you think has been bothering you? And we'll go from there. And what I can do, is I'll make some adjustments as needed.
Cause we have about the same amount of volume next week. But what I can do, if you have any schedule adjustments that need to be made, let me know now. And again, everyone, we'll always do this on the phone. There's usually like a text message or email or a comment on, training peaks.
Coach Morgan: They tell me this is what's going on and I adjust. The training peaks has a great scheduling platform where they tell me I gotta go, I got an anniversary, I got a kid's baseball game, or I'm gonna be traveling. so I can, I plan for it because the key. I don't wanna cause stress in your life.
I wanna help you alleviate the stress. I don't wanna be that stress.
Duane: Yeah. no major issues coming up this week. I see, again, like you said, a 4 miles, couple of 3 miles, and then a 4 mile and a 3 mile. So about 17 miles this week. And then the plyometrics on one of the days. This past week really, it was that, like I said, that first, you know plyometrics new movement, feeling a little bit of muscle soreness related to that new movement.
But no major concerns ,I think coming up this week. I, I do see that you, for the easy pace runs, keeping my heart rate below 140, and even that's something new, right? I'm thinking about pace, I'm thinking about distance. I don't necessarily think about a lower heart rate, which in my mind means I need to run even slower.
Duane: Or choose a route that doesn't have as many hills maybe. so how do I, and maybe this is the question. How do I make sure that I keep my heart rate below 140?
Coach Morgon: This is a good question cuz I know a lot of athletes. I hope all my athletes listening right now. We've had this conversation because, I had one, actually he just text me. Ryan Anderson is one of my athletes and he always said my heart rate just spikes when I go up hill. Yeah. Spikes when you attack it, like that's, it'll spike if you was on flat ground and sped up.
And so most people don't practice pacing going uphill. I had that issue right. and I still do, sometimes I had to catch myself because you're trying to get up the hill as fast as possible and you're driving right, and you get this momentum and you want to go. But all that does is spike one, your heart rate, and which makes you use, more fuel cuz you engage more muscle and your heart rate goes up.
So you come outta a fat burning zone into something else, right? And so the key is, is like, don't try to push it. Back off a little bit, slow it down a little bit. lower your cadence. Don't try to drive up the hill, just turn 'em over and be consistent. like a, like if you were on a bike, if you do, ride on, if you've ever ridden anyone, just like when you are rep pedaling, you just one, one.
And just as you turn it over, work on that. Feel your body and how much effort you're putting in and catch yourself and pull yourself back. You'll watch your, heart rate kind of fall. The second part of that is, when you get excited, guess what happens when you start thinking about the hill? Like automatically your heart rate's gonna go up.
So remain calm, relax your shoulders, roll your shoulders back. Stand up straight, look at the top of the hill and just turn your feet over. Especially when you're doing an easy run, just let it go and you'll notice that you'll have more control. But when we get riled up or we want to drive up something, the heart rate is gonna spike and then we're gonna come out of that, that, that easy pace zone.
And you want to just this is what training is all about. We're learning your pacing, teaching you what slow is. Relative to you. Like his, he's slow. he keeps running like 9:30’s but that ain't as slow, right? And so when I looked at his other runs, as I slowed you down, I picked the number.
It says, 140, beats per minute or lower, and I'll look at it cuz this'll be the first week that we do it. It's only one.. We have that 140. It's gonna be on Tuesday now, and I'm gonna make some adjustments depending on where that goes, and see where you are.
And that from there, now we're not using as much energy. So when I need to make you go faster or something like that, we're prepared for that. And so I see that you posted on the notes for the podcast, like what you're doing. I'm like, oh, he's just running this.
He is just running this. right now we're trying to get consistent and teach him control, right? Because if we went straight to speed work or other type of things, and I didn't teach him what slow was, that means he wouldn't know what fast is, right? Because there has to be two ends of the spectrum.
And so as I teach him what slow is, it's gonna benefit him two ways Where on fast days, he will have the energy to go fast, right? We are not gonna get a whole bunch of fatigue from it. And then at the same time, you are able to be smooth and train in a way as when we get ready of one of these, recovery days.
And when you're training people like, oh, I'm not tired, I can still do more. You're not supposed to be tired every day, your body should adapt at some point. So if you're pushing all the time, your body starts to really break down and start building lactic acid. There’s other things that flush it out and other, on a cellular level, there's things that are happening chemical wise that are like preventing your muscles from growing.
That's the easiest way to put it. If you're always going fast and I didn't teach you to go slow, then you going to stunt your recovery, hence by killing your performance or fitness growth . And so that's why we do this and learning that piece. so pacing is very important, right?
That's the first thing. Pacing is very important. two, learning what easy is in comparison to what you've been doing. I think three would be, every time you run the terrain is not always gonna be the same.
So once you understand how to run, then you could be more strategic when picking race course. I wanted to be as cookie cutters as I could with that. so if y'all hear me kind of slowing down, sometimes I wanna say, I'm trying to say things in layman's terms so people are not trying to figure out like what does he mean?
But that, those things are very key. if you've ever listen, to the Olympics or any, professional running broadcast, you'll hear him. Or he's a veteran runner. He's a smart runner. He's a calm runner. He's strategic. Those three things I just told you about, that's. Runners that are not, run outside their abilities, they don't understand terrain and strategy, right?
And they don't know the difference between slow and fast.
Duane: You're absolutely right. Again, going back to my experience as far as the Annapolis half Marathon, I was temporary duty in Delaware. There's no hills in Delaware, like literally zero hills in Delaware. And I didn't realize A, I was in Delaware for a month and a half before the half marathon. It was heat and humidity in Annapolis that I wasn't used to in Colorado, and I hadn't run on hills in probably a month and a half or two months.
And so that half marathon was probably my worst half marathon because it was up and down the hills of Annapolis and in the middle of humidity that I hadn't, prepared for.
Coach Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. and maybe, I know we'll go into it as As we are a little bit further out, we can next, episode we can talk about picking racist. We talk about pacing and things because we, have to train, like, I got your back. But everybody out here is not gonna go hire coach. That's just, let's be, 100% honest. But like, how do you pick a venue? how do you train to that venue? as I'm your coach and you sent me the race that you're going, what questions should I be asking you as a coach?
what questions your coach should be asking you? you told me he was in Colorado. The first thing I asked you is that, what elevation do you live at? Where
Duane: Right. And that was a friend of mine, and when I said, I'm gonna run my first marathon and it's gonna be a Colorado, she said, your first marathon's gonna be an altitude, but I'm at altitude. It's not like I live in Delaware at sea level and I'm coming to Colorado for my first marathon.
But you're exactly right. The other also applies as my first marathon at Delaware after training at altitude, probably very different than my first marathon at altitude.
Coach Morgan: Yeah, it's gonna be different. And so that's just learning those small details and it's a whole bunch. It's like this is not a hard process, but there's a lot of information to it. And so it's learning along the way. And really, again, when we get to that point, 8 weeks out and I'm say, Duane, please send me your, your race, plan, and you send it to.
I should have minimum corrections, maybe some adjustments because I shouldn't already have talked you everything you need to know. Like when I asked you like, you shouldn't be asking me, what paces should I be running? like, if we ain't trained to that one, like there's a problem on my end, right?
And you should know what you can hold. You should know what two fast is. You should know what too slow is. Because when things go bad out there, my friend, he told me, he said, you go out there with plan A, B, and C and you end up with plan, like Z.
And why, right?. Yeah, like different versions of the plan. so don't go, it, if it goes perfect, great, but if it doesn't be prepared to triage it. and that's where all these things that you learn pacing, effort, strategy in racing will make you better. Cuz you said the race is hillier on the back end.
You don't want to go out too hard if you haven't trained to that.
Duane: Yeah, no, I, looking forward to it. it was a good week this week and looking forward to another great week next.
Coach Morgan: Yeah, we got a lot one, we got a lot of 'em ahead. And so, what I'm, what I'm also gonna do is I'm going to probably add a couple miles on Saturday. I'm not sure if I'm, I'm gonna take it to 5 or 6, but I'm just letting you know that's gonna happen. cuz there's, you gave me positive feedback.
Your body's feeling good. if I can move you up, let's do it. there would not always be those points where, like the first couple weeks where you said this was hurting, this was nagging me, this is causing me, that's not the time for me to increase your volume until the body says, okay, I'm used to this, I'm ready.
Duane: Sounds good. I'm here for it.
Coach Morgan: Easy day, man. it was great talking to you today and I hope everyone got something from that. And I don't know, like are they able to contact us or send like messages or.
Duane: Yeah, we've got your website. They're able to sign up. If you wanna talk about the People's Coach newsletter, we've got that, in the show notes. Folks can go there and sign up for that and connect with you if they want to.
Coach Morgan: Okay. Yeah. So if that's the case, if you see me on social media anywhere he posts this, and if you got questions that may meet up with what he's doing, right? If he is running, it's gotta be about running, it's gotta be about marathons. and you want me to talk about it? It may not be the next episode, but it may be an issue that he comes across with that we can have on a list of subjects that we can discuss for you all.
But it needs to bring value to marathon, training, and running.
Duane: Sounds good. We’ll make it happen.
Coach Morgan: All right. Easy day man. It was great talking to you.
Duane: Absolutely.
Week 2 of 19, just getting started, but moving forward with it. Coach Morgan even mentioned it in the episodes. Folks may be wondering how 17 miles a week at a slow pace will get me to the finish line of the marathon. But again, it's about training smarter and when it's hard, it's done so strategically.
I really appreciated the point that he made about resisting our natural instincts to push hard and wipe ourselves out.
Coach Morgan: We have this notion in our mind, because this is how our generation was raised, is that more is better, harder is right.
and it ain't about the methodical or slowing down or training with a purpose. It's go faster, go further. Do it when you don't want to. that's, that was the old way, right?

Remember, my ultimate goal for this Marathon is to complete it comfortably. I'm not going out to qualify for the Boston Marathon or the Olympic trials or set a land speed record.
It's to accomplish a hard thing, feeling the best that I possibly can, and I'm certain that with Coach Morgan's help, I'm gonna get there. So thanks again for joining us for the Mere Mortal Marathon Podcast, where you can hear mere mortals like you and me reach our goals as I train for the 2023 Denver Colfax Marathon.
If you enjoyed this episode, we would love to hear from you. You can reach out to me at duane@veteranmentahealth.com. If you wanna support a great cause, I’m a charity partner with the Second Wind Fund, a Colorado organization that focuses on improving access and delivery of suicide prevention care for Children and youth at risk for suicide. You can donate to the cause by going to Coloradogives.org/m3podcast. If you wanna see some exclusive content that I'm gonna be sharing, like, what the training week looked like, check out the donation page where I’ll be posting updates.
If you wanna reach out to Coach Morgan to show appreciation for the excellent work that he does or sign up for the People's Coach Newsletter, you can find him@morganlatimore.com, all of these links are gonna be in the show notes. So thanks for joining us for another episode of the Mere Mortal Marathon Podcast.
And just remember, mere mortals can do extraordinary things.