As part of the Brighton marathon build up, Event Manager Richard Nerurkar, himself one of GB’s marathon greats, backed by England Athletics, has invited over Italian guru Lucciano Gigliotti. Uniquely, he is the only person who has coached two Olympic Marathon Champions (Gelindo Bordin in 1988 and Stefano Baldini in 2004). He speaks little English so a simultaneous translation is provided. This makes everybody work hard mentally, but well done to Richard for going the extra European mile* to bring over this great fount of wisdom. The ‘support act’ (his own words) is Malcolm Brown, currently coaching Yorkshire’s Brownlee twins to some amazing triathlon performances, but he has his coaching roots in endurance running at the highest level. Even as a detached and objective coach, he marvels at the Brownlees’ weekly training load of over 30 hours of swim/bike/run and their enthusiasm and commitment in tackling this load
*yes alright, 1609 metres