1- Hard days hard: what do you eat in between your workout & lifting session? Depends on when you do it. Ideally it would be a gap of a few hours. In this case, eat protein right away and then a meal. Maybe a snack before lifting If you lift right away after, I would drink a shake while you are lifting or eat a bar Important to know that exercise sometimes suppresses your appetite. It won't hit you until later. Make sure you fuel. 2- Can I run a half marathon 2 weeks after 26.2? Typically the recommendation is 1-2 weeks off after a marathon, but with races coming back, sometimes people want to do all of the races. You may be in a situation where you want to run a half marathon 2 weeks after a marathon and wonder- what will this be like? 3-How to prepare for a higher altitude race How to prepare for a high altitude race when you live at sea level. Get there a week ahead of time. Go to altitude to train. I don’t usually recommend people at sea level go to altitude to race and expect to run super fast. Make sure you stay hydrated and adjust expectations 4- What is the best fuel for your first marathon Fueling can be weird the first time you go into those longer distance races may be the first time you are also fueling. A lot of the advice out there is to ‘experiement’and ‘find what works for you’ but this was not helpful advice for me. I struggled finding my own fueling plan for my first 10 marathons! The best approach is to start fueling on training runs very early in training. Start with an easy run. Try something like a gel or apple sauce or dates. You should really try any type of fuel. Some people like the more natural options. I find the huma gels more convenient and enjoy the flavor/texture of it. Fueling every 45 min. Start with small sips of the gel and get water after. Fueling should be done on runs over 90 min for optimal performance. You CAN do long runs and race marathons without fuel, but fueling can help you perform better. 5- If you don’t go MP on long runs- how do you figure out your MP We typically do not advise people to go marathon pace for their entire long run because MP is the upper end of your aerobic zone. It’s the fastest pace possible to still be in the aerobic zone. This trains your aerobic system just as well as an easy run.. But it puts even more stress on your ligaments, muscles and joints. When an athlete is building endurance, it’s better to do most of your long runs at just an easy pace because it’s already a huge stress on the body. Then the question comes in: how will my body know what pace to run on marathon race day? Within the marathon training cycle, you will be working at a lot of different paces usually around threshold pace *which is faster than marathon pace*. This will get you in the best shape possible. As you get closer to the race, learning what marathon pace is and running at it will be important. I like to add in pace specific work starting 4-5 weeks out. These steady state efforts don’t have to be anything crazy long or fancy. One could argue that it’s actually better to break it up into intervals to train your body how to hop in and out of marathon pace. You want to train your body at what the pace is. A lot of athletes struggle with this because it is such a comfortable pace. You will likely want to run faster than MP when prescribed as a workout. Sometimes we will call these steady state runs and make them 5-7 miles in duration on a random Wednesday. 10:40 pace for her 20 miler in training 11:30 pace for the marathon race day- raining then got up to 90 degrees