Episode 4-404 – Fjords and Mountains – Run Romsdal

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-404 – Fjords and Mountains – Run Romsdal (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4404.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello, my friends and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-404.  This is the point where I frantically try to remember all those great stories, amusing anecdotes and funny things that I had ready to go when I was running but now retreat into the fog of my memory like scared children confronted by the full, blank whiteness of the empty page and blinking cursor. Bam! Right out of the gate a 54-word sentence!  Yeah! Homeric in its epicness.  I am a prose god! (Editor’s note: Word wants to change ‘epicness’ to epicenes, which is an entirely different thing. That is a Greek word meaning containing both sexes – so androgynous or hermaphroditic and if I wanted to use either of those words I would!  So, get out of my hair Bill Gates!)  Now I am picturing the poor, confused new listener who though they were tuning into a running podcast and instead are getting a crazed etymology tantrum.  Welcome to the inside of the RunRunLive hive mind my friends – sometimes it’s a bit fractal in here. But yes, we do talk about endurance sports.  I have been easing myself back into Twitter after a couple years off and there is a group called #RunChat that is nice.  That’s where I found today’s guest.  I like cool places to run and explore and these folks have gone off to the edge of the map in Scandinavia to set up a running adventure company in the Fjords and mountains.  The photos are spectacular.  Real Viking land stuff. Which causes me to remember one of those amusing anecdotes.  Have you ever heard of Ragnar Lodbrok?  The infamous Viking chieftain who plundered around Frankia and Anglo-Saxon Britain in the late 700’s?  Lodbrok is a compound of two Germanic words.  And literally translated means “Hairy Breaches” or “Hairy Pants”.  You can kind of see some English words in there think ‘Locks” as in ‘flowing locks of hair’ and ‘Breach’ – so Lod-Brok.  Because Old English and Old Norse both came from a common Indo-European root language.  In section one I’ll talk about what my nutrition and diet looks like this cycle that is getting me lean and in section two I’ll talk about a little book I read about fear.  And yes, as we speak I’m about 6 weeks away from the Boston marathon, which in runner-speak means 4 weeks of big miles and 2 weeks of taper.  My training is going really well.  I’m still quite lean and have been sticking to my diet plan for the most part.  I am battling the weather though.  Every time I have a hard workout it seems like it’s snowing or raining or in a deep freeze.  I’ve been spending a ton of time on the treadmill.  Which is good and bad.  It’s good because I can cleanly set the paces I want and hold them.  It’s bad because the treadmill does not translate 100% to road training.  For instance, I knocked off 18 miles on the treadmill last Sunday with the middle 14 at target race pace minus 7.  If I did that outside in the freezing rain storm we were having my pace would be all over the place and I’m not sure I’d get the benefits of the workout.  I need the confidence of knowing I can hold those paces.  Now over the next 4 weeks we’ll throw in some 20 milers and some race specific stuff.  But, all else being equal I feel great.  Light, fast, strong and healthy.  …. One of my habit changes that has been successful in this nutrition cycle is how I’m making my suppers now.  In an ideal world I would eat anything late in the evening, but when I get home from work I’m starving.  What I’ve been doing is using my cast-iron skillet to sauté up some vegetables when I come through the door.  This gives me something to do and takes maybe 20-30 minutes to prepare.  The resulting dinners are healthy and fill me up.  They are nutrition dense and calorie reasonable. Take your big cast iron skillet.  Put it over medium heat.  Pour a glug of olive oil in.  Dice up a garlic clove or two.  Dice up a small onion.  Dice up a teaspoon-sized chunk of ginger.  Put all this into the pan and stir it around in the oil until the onions are clear.  2-3 minutes. While that’s cooking cut up your veg.  It can be mushrooms, cabbage, squash, broccoli – whatever you have.  Fill up the skillet because the veg shrinks as it cooks.  Sauté that while mixing it so it doesn’t burn. Maybe another 5 minutes.  Pour in a half a cup of stock to get the steaming going.  You can cover it and it will cook faster but will get soggy.  Alternately you have to keep mixing it so it cooks evenly.  Serve over rice or anything else you have.  The key ingredient is the ginger.  The ginger makes it taste like restaurant food.  That will fill you up and while you’re waiting for it to cook you can clean the kitchen up a bit and kill two birds with one stone.  Actually, PETA doesn’t want us to use those animal threatening phrases anymore.  They want us to modify our speech to be animal friendly. So – instead I’ll say – you can feed two birds with one scone. Birds like scones. On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills. M … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – My current nutrition - http://runrunlive.com/my-current-diet-and-meal-planning Voices of reason – the conversation Colin – Run Romsdal Run Romsdal is a guided trail and mountain running company set up by Colin Thornton & Hélène Hubert. Through our love of running in wild, remote and spectacular places we discovered the Romsdal region in Norway and decided we could not think of a better place to bring like minded people to come and enjoy the outstanding beauty of the place in the safe hands of people who know it the best. Instagram -  Twitter -  Facebook - runromsdal I have attached a few photos as I can never decide what to use!  Section two – Feel the Fear (and do it anyway) - http://runrunlive.com/a-short-review-of-a-short-book-on-fear Outro Well, my friends you have traversed the dangerous, naked spine of a rocky mountain to the Fjord at the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-404.  Careful you don’t twist an ankle. Next time we are going to talk with Julia who has a great story and a passion for telling it.  I hope you noticed I’m trying to re-energize the podcast.  Baby steps!  I am working on a lot of projects and life gets weird sometimes, but it’s all good.  I’m thankful for your company and the opportunity for us to connect. So – Thank you. My training is hard, but boringly predictable.  I’m getting in 50ish miles on 5 days of hard work on my big weeks.  I’m typically doing 3 hard workouts a week.  I have been doing more speed work this cycle which I really feel like I needed.  I have knocked off 10 Yasso 800’s at my target race time which supposedly is a positive predictor! I had a great workout on Tuesday this week.  On the treadmill again (because the weather was awful) It was a 1 hour step up run, which is actually an ‘easy’ tempo session for me because this is a step back week.  On a build week that would be a 1:30 step up run or even more. For an hour step up you warm up for 20 minutes.  Run at tempo pace for 30 minutes then cool down for 10.  At first I was struggling a little, breathing hard, battling the workout.  But at 20 minutes into the tempo (40 minutes into the workout) it was like a switch flipped and I felt great.  I dropped the pace to 30 seconds per mile faster than my goal marathon pace and held that for the last 10 minutes of the step.  I somehow got into flow state and was just flying and feeling great.  It was effortless.  It was great.  That’s why we do it right?  Every once in a while, it feels effortless and that’s a beautiful thing. … I’m going to leave you with more word play from my current fascination with the history of English.  My favorite Old English word so far is ‘Gongawiver’ which translates to “Going Weaver”, Gongawiver.  That’s the old English word for spider.  Isn’t’ that great? You can use it in a sentence… Like, “The epicene server at Starbucks was frightened by a scary gongawiver. And I’ll see you out there.   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff -> Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.