Episode 4-396 – Jonathan – This is my Olympics!

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-396 – Jonathan – This is my Olympics!   (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4396.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-396.  This is your friend Chris.  How are we doing?  It’s marathon racing season.  We just had Chicago, New York is in a couple weeks and every weekend hosts a plethora of regional races in these few contiguous weeks.  I myself am racing this Sunday at Baystate.  Jonathan, who we interview here today is racing at Atlantic City.  If you’ve been with the show long enough, you might remember I raced there a few years back as well.  It’s an interesting loop course that starts and finishes on the boardwalk.  If you’ve ever seen Boardwalk Empire on HBO that’s the boardwalk they’re talking about.  Today’s show is about focus.  So far in this, I guess we might call it a series of themes, we looked at empowerment and then last week endurance.  This week’s theme is focus.  As we talk through Jonathan’s journey listen to the focus that he brings to his training and his goal.  He’s like a berserker warrior in his single-minded focus on this achievement and he’s been able to have some success with this element of his approach.  So, obviously I’m going to tease apart the concept of focus in section two.  In section one I’m going to outline what I have learned over the years about how to take large chunks off your finishing time.  How to break plateaus, surprise yourself and get non-linear gains in performance.  (sounds like a new book). I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for the Baystate marathon on Sunday.  I’m fit, I got some decent training in and I have not real injuries.  I’m still heavier than I’d like to be optimally, but I’m healthy.  Looks like the weather is going to be decent but maybe a bit cold and a bit windy.  If it holds where it is it will be just about freezing at the start and there will be 10-15 mile per hour winds.  I’ve run this course n a windy day before and there are long stretches that are open to it.  With the BAA lowering the qualification standards, (or raising them, depending on your point of view), the race moved all the pace groups up 5 minutes.  That makes it easy for me.  I’ll just attach myself to the back of the 3:30 pace group and chill out.  This is typically a pretty big pace group, at least for the first half, so I can stay out of the wind.  Just try to idle until we hit that final stretch across the river and see how I feel – either hang on or drive it home.  … I seems old-hat to say that we all get the same number of hours in the day.  But, focus is how you find the leverage in what you have to achieve a goal.  Think of a magnifying glass.  Maybe when you were a kid you held that magnifying glass in your hand and noticed that the convex lens focused the light.  At a certain height and angle you found that focal point (or for our purposes ‘focus point’).  This focus point collected all the power of 3-4 inches of sun and condensed it to a point, that dot of light. Then you discovered that this dot of light had the intensity to start fires in the dry leaves or fry unsuspecting insect life.  Through focus you were able to take the same patch of sunlight that might warm your face and create overwhelming energy at one point. That’s the power of focus.  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 – Big Chunks! - http://runrunlive.com/big-chunks   Voices of reason – the conversation Jonathan Lieberman Just that I’ve reached low 180s lbs and will be attempting to BQ for 2020 on October 21 in Atlantic City! Thanks man! Here’s a pic from Philly RnR Half last week: The (much) shorter answer to your question of “How do I do it” re: training is my mantra “This Is My Olympics” (which I of course forgot to mention