Episode 4-409 – Julie the Marathon Goddess

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-409 – Julie the Marathon Goddess (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4409.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello, my friends and welcome to episode 4-409 of the RunRunLive Podcast. With any luck I’ll be able to publish this before I jump in my truck and drive up to Burlington VT for my next marathon.  It’s go time and I’m stressed out about it.  I’ve held my weight and conditioning and am coming into the race in good shape, on paper anyhow.  It’s a 3.5 hour drive from my house. Vermont Cities, I’m told, is a much more reasonable course than Boston.  Fewer hills.  My training buddies tell me that it has always been a good race for them.  It still stresses me out.  Age graded, for my goal, I’m targeting times that are faster than I ever ran when I was younger – if you believe age grading. Looks like the weather is going to be dicey.  The race starts at 7:00 AM so I shouldn’t have to worry about heat.  But, they are calling for thunder storms and a stiff wind in the morning.  Doesn’t matter.  I’m committed.  I’ll fight it all the way down. It’s a figure 8 course.  I’m not sure how sheltered it is, but that should mean I’ll have as much head wind as tail wind and side wind.  I’m going to find a pace group and stick with it.  Stay in the shadow of the pace group. I need a 3:35 to requalify and it looks like they have a 3:30 pace group.  I’ll have to decide whether I want to hang with them or freewheel.  10 seconds a mile could be significant and I’d much rather negative split than burn out.  We’ll see. I’m camping in a park on the lake front.  Like I said it’s a trick I learned in my mountain bike racing days.  Frankly, I don’t think those hard-core mountain bikers are house-trained.  I’ve got a tent, a mattress and a mattress pump in the back of my truck.  You don’t sleep much the night before a race anyhow.  Eyeballing the map, it looks like I can walk to the start from where I’m camped. Brian is going to be up there with his son.  I’m going to stay over Sunday night probably.  We’ll see. I can’t wait to have this over with.  I’m pretty sick of road racing and training.  Not sure what I’m going to do if I miss my time.  I might hang it up.  Move on.  What would you do?  Do you think 21 Boston marathons is enough?  Or will my life totally unravel if I remove this prop from the infrastructure? Today we have a great interview with Julie the Marathon Goddess.  You know Julie.  She’s the California Girl from the move “The Spirit of the Marathon 2”.  Which isn’t an awful movie.  The reason it’s not awful is that it has a cast of characters and Julie is one of those characters. In section one I’m going to talk about some new things I learned in this last training cycle.  In section two I’m going to talk about the wild and whacky English Language. And, since we’re talking about the English language and the Boston Marathon I have a question for you?  What is another perfectly good word for ‘unicorn’?  Monocerous!  Isn’t that a great word.  Monocerous! Here’s another one.  Did you know that the word Cadence comes from the same Indo-European root as Cadaver?  Same Latin root meaning, loosely to fall.  The cadence is the foot fall.  The cadaver is a fallen one, so to speak.  So next time you can’t keep up your cadence and you feel like a cadaver, you’ll know why. Oh, I have a redaction from last show.  My childhood friend Dave didn’t die.  He’s living in Seattle I think.  His older brother Eric, who I went to school with passed.  Rest in Peace Eric. 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.   … 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 – LEssons from this long training cycle. Voices of reason – the conversation Julie Weiss Author/Runner/Marathon Goddess    Available now on : 52 Weeks, 52 Marathons: The Miles and Trials of a Marathon Goddess by Julie Weiss with John Hanc and Ali Nolan (Tender Fire/Enhanced Communications)   Do you ever wonder, or have a burning desire to be more than what you have aspired to be? I always knew there was more to life, and I found it through my joy of running. Before I started running I was overweight, on antidepressants and I could barely run around the block. I was a young mom and had battled some very dark moments. Since I started running I am no longer taking any medication and I have lost 20 pounds. Running saved my life. On March 2, 2008, I ran my first marathon, the Los Angeles Marathon. I had made all the beginner mistakes. Ouch! Pretty much sums it up. I had not trained properly, and swore I would stick only to 10K’s after that. But it was not long, two months in fact, until I ran another marathon and then another. My father became my biggest fan. We had a goal, that goal was that I would qualify for the Boston marathon where he would go to see me run. I attempted to qualify for Boston 19 times. Every time I completed a marathon I would call my father and let him know how I did. He was still proud of me, even if it was my slowest time. He always encouraged me to keep going and so I did. In October of 2010, my father was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I was devastated, but my father urged me to continue to train, to work and go on with life as usual. It was hard, but I did as he wished. On December 5, 2010 I finally did qualify for the Boston marathon and made it in 3:47, sadly it was 1 week after my father passed away, just 35 days after his diagnosis. I know he was there with me, he was the wind at my back and had the best seat in the house, my heart. After I ran the Boston marathon in 2011 I looked deeply into the disease that had taken my father. I found that pancreatic cancer was the 4th leading cause of cancer death and the least funded for research. This was unacceptable to me. I knew had to something dramatic to raise awareness and that it should be centered around my passion for running and the love for my father. So I set out to run 52 marathons in 52 weeks to raise $1,000,000 for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. I recently completed marathon#52 on March 17, 2013 at the ASICS L.A. Marathon. I did all of this while holding down a full time job. I work 9-5 as an accountant. I would leave my office on a Friday or Saturday, travel to a different city, state or even country, run a marathon on Sunday and fly back home to get to work Monday morning. Almost every weekend waking up at 3:30 in the morning to get to the starting line. Not even Super Storm Sandy could stop me. I dedicated each of my marathons to someone affected by pancreatic cancer because my fight was nothing compared to what theses people had to go through. They are my heroes. I am now 42, have two amazing kids, who are 20 and 24, my wonderful fiance, and of course my first running partner ever, my dog Jessie. I have found my purpose in life. Now, I invite you to join me in the light, embrace your highest self and start being the person you were put on this earth to be. If it speaks to you, I also invite you to join me in the fight against pancreatic cancer. The disease that took the life of my number 1 fan, my father, and so many others. I am so grateful that we have completed this amazing journey, but we are not done yet.  I am currently on a journey to finish 100 marathons ending at the 2016 Sketchers Performance Los Angeles Marathon and hope to reach my 1 Million dollar fundraising goal by then. When you do what you love, for those you love, that is when the miracles happen. The joy comes from the heart. If your love is running, I have learned that it’s not about how many miles you go, or even how fast. The heart does not have a clock, it has beats. My mission is to make sure those beats are spent on pursuing your dreams, your passions and having fun. Marathon Goddess is about embracing the God or Goddess within us all. Now I am running with a purpose, to fight the good fight against pancreatic cancer. It has become my mission, and I will not stop until we have found a cure. Find your passion, bring out your spirit and let it shine. We got this!! Section two – The Wonderful, Wacky, English Language -   Outro Well, my friends you did that thing where you strike the Goddess pose in your underwear in front of the bathroom mirror and though tno one was watching, but we won’t judge and you have come to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-409, Keep up the good work. We’ve been having a cold and rainy spring in New England.  Every time I hit one of those long hard tempo runs in a 45 degree drizzle I mutter a little curse to the gods.  Why couldn’t we have this weather at one of my target marathons? I’ve been working in my garden for the last couple weeks.  I started some seeds earlier but the weather has been so cold they are quite stunted.  I got some tomatoes and beans and squash in.  We’ll see what come up.  Nothing like a warm, garden fresh tomato on a warm August afternoon. Part of the rhythm of life. I should be able to execute a decent race at Vermont.  I’m still light – hovering around 170 pounds – I’m still hitting my tempo paces in the mid-7’s.  Like, I said, on paper it’s a lock.  We’ll see.  Wish me luck. Send me whatever universal Karma you can. I accepted an invitation to pace a ½ marathon in PA at the end of July.  It’s the Conquer the Canyon marathon and half marathon.  I’ll be the alternate pacer for the 2 hour ½ with Greg.  Light duty. It looks like a pretty course on a rail trail that winds through a river valley.  6-hour drive for me.  This pacing outfit is called Beast Pacers.  If you want to be a pacer they have races all over the country.  They comp you the entry.  Would be a great way to pick up your 50 states. One more of my favorite old-English words for you before you go.  The old/middle English word for window or opening was ‘thirl’.  You may be familiar with a compound word we still use this in.  It combines the word for ‘nose’ and that word for window ‘thirl’ – and you may have guessed – that compound word is ‘nostril’ – literally ‘nose-window’.  Isn’t that great?  Nose window? … Julie’s story is a good one.  On the one hand it’s familiar to us.  It’s the classic hero’s journey.  Over coming challenges to become the champion.  On the other I think it verifies a useful truth: if you just decide to do something you can change the world, at least your little part of the world.  You don’t need permission.  You just do it and let the details figure themselves out. It’s not goal setting.  It’s not achievement.  It’s more like directing, or freeing the universal energy that is in each of us. Looking inside yourself, how do you let that energy free? 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.