RunRunLive 4.0 - Running Podcast

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-450 – Tom Grilk CEO BAA    (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4450.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-450 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Since we, you and I, have arrived at a milestone of sorts, we’ve got an extra special show for you today.  Somehow I got past the rational screeners of the BAA and got Tom Grilk to do an interview with me.  I had not planned for this to coincide with the announcements around this year’s Boston Marathon, but it did.  I just happened to be talking with Tom while he was being chased by NPR and all the other real news organizations.  He literally hung up with me and then spoke with NPR.  Apparently there was some kerfuffle around letting people run Boston who had not ‘earned’ the right.  You know, all that typical stuff around Boston.  Anyhow, like I said before I have been an admirer of Tom from afar for a long time.  He grew up with the local marathon royalty and now gets to hang out with the marathon royalty of the world as the CEO of the BAA.  It’s a good chat.  Tom is a well-spoken, thoughtful guy.  And a runner. Since we were arriving at a milestone episode I figured I’d put his interview in here.  In section one I’m going to talk about taking some time off the heal.  In section two I’m going to give you a primer on a business bingo term that is all the rage these days.  I have had a hilarious couple of weeks since we last talked.  Remember I said I tweaked my knee?  Yeah, so that’s a real thing.  Haven’t run a step since that fateful Friday night hill workout.  But it’s ok.  I needed the break.  Also in these two hilarious weeks was my wife’s birthday and our anniversary.  Always a dangerous time.  Fraught with opportunities to make an ass of myself.  But, this year it was hilarious.  I came down with some sort of plague.  Not sure what it was.  It might have been psychosomatic.  Maybe stress related?  I took a test for the currently popular plague, and it wasn’t that. But, here are the hilarious symptoms.  I got a horrible rash over some large swaths of my body.  Had to go to the clinic and get some prednisone.  The fake Dr. at the clinic told me I had scabies – which, although matches the symptoms was not entirely possible given that I’ve been locked in my house for 12 months.  At the same time I had 3-4 days of horrible gas.  Like drive the humans out of the house gas. Like, painful, have to mute the zoom call every three minutes gas.  Yes, and this is the set of symptoms that my long-suffering wife had to contend with during our anniversary. You can’t make this stuff up. Well, you could, but it wouldn’t be as funny. I’m out the other end of it, pun not entirely unintended, but I haven’t done a workout in two weeks, and I find myself oddly humbled and sanguine.     I also drove my mom down to Foxboro to get her second shot of the vaccine which is a load off everyone’s mind. Poor Ollie is suffering through this as well as he creeps up on his 2nd birthday.  No runs for him.  I did manage to limp in a walk or two. But he doesn’t like to sit around.  I’m going to give the knee a full 3 weeks off before I test it.  One of the things I’ve learned over the many years is that coming back to early doesn’t pay.  Tomorrow I’m going to take my old bike Fuji-san out for a roll.  I’ll work in some strengthening yoga this week.  We’ll see if we can’t get back out on the roads next week.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day.  I think I read that I can claim Irish citizenship because my Grandmother was an Irish citizen.  Not sure what that buys me.  I’ve never been to Ireland and would love to visit.  Put that on the bucket list. Can you believe that it’s been over a year since I’ve gotten on an airplane?  Holy cow!.  Who knew?  The world ahs changed so much in my lifetime.  Change is where it’s at.  There’s an old joke that everyone should embrace change, except, of course the people who are telling you to embrace change. Change is great, as long as it’s happening to someone else, right? It’s a journey.  What I like about talking to Tom is that he’s discovering new things and helping the BAA bring change to the Boston Marathon.  It’s a real skill of management to shepherd something with so much history through positive change.  If you look at happy people, successful people and admired people they haven’t led calm and peaceful lives with no change.  Just the opposite.  Their lives have been filled with rapid and abrupt change.  How they dealt with, or reacted to, or led through that change is what makes them happy and successful.  So – my friends, don’t ask for a passive life that rolls down a smooth road from cradle to grave.  Lack of change is not peace.  Lack of change is stasis and ennui.  Give a big hug to the bumpy road of life and smile you way through it. On with the show.   About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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.  … Section one – Healing time  - Voices of reason – the conversation Tom Grilk – CEO BAA Tom Grilk Executive Director, Boston Athletic Association Tom Grilk is the Executive Director of the Boston Athletic Association, which annually conducts the B.A.A. Boston Marathon as well as a number of other athletic and community service events. He is a long time member of the Boston Athletic Association, having served on its Board of Governors since 1990 and as its President (outside Board Chair) from 2003-2010. In 2011 he assumed the role of Executive Director of the Boston Athletic Association, with responsibility for the day-to-day management of the organization. During his tenure he has worked with the B.A.A. Board and staff to strengthen the B.A.A. as an organization, especially from a managerial perspective. He has also worked with the Board in shaping the B.A.A.’s short and long-term development across all areas of the B.A.A.’s activity: the conduct of athletic events, the operation of community service initiatives, and the training and development of athletes. He practiced corporate and business law over many years in and around Boston, both with the Boston law firm Hale and Dorr and serving as counsel and general counsel to several well-known companies in the information technology and semiconductor fields, including Digital Equipment Corporation, Teradyne, Inc. and Brooks Automation, Inc. As a lawyer he worked in the fields of securities law, M&A transactions, corporate governance, compliance, dispute resolution, competition law, commercial law and intellectual property. He is a graduate of Cornell University and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School In addition to his duties as Executive Director, Grilk has had his share of hands-on experience with the Boston Marathon, the B.A.A.’s premier event. He has been the marathon’s finish line announcer since 1979 and is a former competitor, having run a personal best marathon time of 2:49:03 in 1978 and a Boston Marathon personal best of 2:54 that same year.     Section two – Digital Transformation -   Outro Ok my friends digitally transformed through to the end of Episode 4-449 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  No algorithm will ever be able to run a marathon, right? We set the clocks back! One less hour to get stuff done!  My old man running group went out this morning for 7 miles.  Frank’s coming back up to speed since having his second hip done.  Tim has decided to just ignore the weird feeling in his knee.  Brian is chugging al long at 2 runs a week.  And I rode my bike alongside them.  The knee feels better. A previous version of Chris probably would have taken it for a test drive today, but I’m going to give it another week to heal before I test it.  I’m going to start easing back into things this week.  With the longer days I should be able to get out on Fuji-San, my old road bike a few times and I’ll start working in some long yoga sessions for strength and stability. Then I’ll spin up the running slowly, or not.  I could use a break.  We’ll see.   I do have an itch to get out and see some new places and maybe that means run some new races now that the pandemic seems to be waning instead of waxing.  I took my Mom to get her second vaccine shot but I’m still at the back of the line.  Could I claim over-training as a medical condition?  I am up to 11 episodes of my new apocalypse story podcast project.  I do appreciate any podcast love you can give it.  I have to figure out a way I can get some more eyeballs on it.  I don’t’ have the time or capital for the marketing it needs! You can search for it on your favorite pod-catcher as After the Apocalypse.  Is there anyone who Doesn’t have a podcast these days?  It seems like everyone just paired up to interview each other.   I got a new product to test out.  It’s called .  The owner sent me some to try.  It’s like a caffeine candy with 100mg of caffeine in each candy.  I haven’t tried them yet.  I do like my caffeine though.  I think these might be a good kick in the ass late in a long run.  The timing is poor with me not currently training, but I’ll let you know when I get to them. … I know I’ve been a bit maudlin recently.  The long pandemic, the cold dark days of winter, my training not going great, my work being a pain in the butt… It all weighs in on top of a guy.  But it’s not a reason to despair.  It’s a reason to celebrate.  We get to do these things.  My life is filled with health and prosperity.  I’ve got things I want to do.  I’ve got things I get to do.  You do too.  You may feel like you’re shoveling water, but you get to choose.  You could walk away.  You could buy a van and sell your house.  No one is stopping you.  You, my friend, whether you believe it or not, are in control of your life.  I always liked asking Dave MacGilvray what his favorite adventure was.  Because he’ll always say “the next one.”  And he’ll say it with conviction.  I’ve got a lot of things I want to do.  And I’m doing them.  You’ve got a lot of things you want to do?  You should just start doing them.  As a crunchy old New Englander said: The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   But I have promises to keep,   And miles to go before I sleep,   And miles to go before I sleep   And I’ll see you out there.   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-449 – Your Spring Nutrition Plan  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4449.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-449 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Are you hungry?  Are you feeling a bit porky after this long winter of our discontent?  Well that’s good! Because today Rachel my nutrition coach and I talk about how to tackle that spring nutrition plan.  The do’s and Don’ts and some simple things that can lead to success.  In section one I’ll walk you through a long tempo run.  In section two I’ll talk about tall birds stabbing frogs.  It’s been an interesting couple of weeks since we last spoke.  I was supposed to be wrapping up two weeks of hard training this week with another 3 hour long run today.  But, I seem to have tweaked something in my left knee running hill repeats last night.  That’s the danger of doing high effort, high impact workouts on tired legs.  Eventually something gives up.  The benefit is, if you get through, you have a big improvement in your fitness and your capacity to race.  If you get through, that is.  I was hoping to get through this week and hit all my workouts, but the old body is talking to me.  It’s telling me that I’m not stretching enough, that I’m doing too much too fast and I’m not giving myself enough time to recover.  It’s been challenging because my job is taking up too much time.  Time in the mornings.  Time in the evenings.  That I would normally have for training.  I don’t complain (much).  I focus on getting the workouts done. But this leads to two things that raise the risk of injury.  First is the weather.  I can’t control the weather.  And I do believe there is no such thing as bad weather, just soft athletes.  But, this means I’m throwing some extra work at my body having to deal with the snow and ice on the trails and the slippery roads.  Second, because by the time I get out to do my workout it’s late and I’m emotionally drained.  That’s important, because for these bigger, harder workouts you really need to be able to bring your mental ‘A’ game.  The quality of the work suffers.  I’ve been skating on thin ice, (pun intended), for a few weeks now and it caught up with me.  I don’t think it’s serious.  There’s nothing swelling or aching.  Just a sharp pain when I put weight on the flexed knee – think lunge mechanics.  So – instead of my long run today in the freezing rain, I’m talking to you! Had a great email from an old friend of the show yesterday.  Those of you who have been with me for a while might remember who did all the running parody songs.  He told me that someone with another running podcast had found the old songs we made and interviewed him.  I remember running in Seattle with him when my wife and I were out there on vacation, maybe 2013? I told him I had just watched the Rockumentary on YouTube and had a new song idea for him.  It’s to the tune of “All the Young Dudes” – but the parody would be about a runner who left some gels in their gear bag in the trunk of their car and the gels exploded all over their running stuff before a race. It’s called “All the old Gu’s”. It would go like this: All the old Gu's,  Stuck in my shoes, Banana Gu's,  Stuck in my shoes,    It’s a guaranteed hit.  The weather is turning here.  We’ve got a bit of melt.  This means the trails will go from snow, to ice, to mud, alternatively until the end of April.  I’ll be honest.  I’ve been getting the anxiety as much as everybody else during this house arrest.  There are some days where I just don’t want to show up on Zoom or talk to anyone.  These long days where basically all I do is roll out of bed, work all day, go for a late run, read for a few minutes, fall asleep and do it all over again feel like a treadmill.  By the time I get back from my run it’s after 8:00 and I’m asleep by 10:00.  On a positive note the days are getting luxuriously long now – the sun is up at 6:30 and sets after 5:30.  If I didn’t have a standing call at 5:00 I might be able to run in the daylight!  And I’m getting plenty of sleep.  I’m probably averaging more than 8.5 hours.  And I don’t have time to do anything harmful or stupid.  So there’s that. It’s in situations like this that we endurance athletes have an advantage.  We can look at this life like a marathon or an ultra.  We can appreciate the sucky days, even if we are stringing many together in a row.  We can stand back from it and realize that all we have to do is keep moving through the suck.  All we have to do is keep going with consistency, even when the joy and enthusiasm leave us.  Consistency and perseverance will overcome any obstacles eventually.  So, don’t be downtrodden or disheartened in this winter of our discontent.  Just keep showing up.  And if you can show up with a smile in your face, that’s even better. On with the show.   About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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.  … Section one – The Long Tempo - Voices of reason – the conversation Rachel Shuck – Next Level Fitness Here is my contact info and an attached pic :)   Email: rachelshuck @ nextlevelnutrition.fitness   Website:      Section two – Memories and Notebooks - Outro Ok my friends We’ve eaten a good breakfast and that allowed us to get through to the end of Episode 4-449 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   I always like talking to Rachel.  She’s actually working with my wife right now and it’s weird for me to be in the other side for a change.  Next week I’m going to be talking to a runner who is also a writer of young adult fantasy fiction.  Interesting stuff.  He said he liked my new apocalypse podcast () but I think he might just be shining me on! By the way thank you for all the listens and the reviews on iTunes.  I appreciate it.  The writing and editing has been very satisfying.  And on the horizon I’m coordinating a call with – who is one of the leaders of the BAA here in Boston.  A real mover and shaker in the Boston running scene.  If you have not listened to the I would recommend it.  A couple of Tom’s interviews are outstanding.  is amazing and Boston win in 2018 told through the lens of a couple of insiders is amazing.  There aren’t that many episodes and it appears to have pod-faded but the ones that are out there are good and Tom does a great job.  Very polished guy. I’m looking forward to Massachusetts getting it’s act together on the Vaccine so I can get back into an airplane.  Boston has been pushed out to October.  I’m not sure whether I’ll run or not.  At this point I’m stuck in the end of an age group.  I wrote a post on this, probably 10 year’s ago! Called “Crazy Eights”.  The qualifying standards are linear but your ability loss in non-linear, so when you hit an age that ends with an 8, qualifying is really hard, especially with the new times.  I’d have to run 3:35 marathon to qualify.  Which doesn’t sound that hard in theory, but I think it’s beyond my grasp.  The thing is, in a scant 12 months I get another 15 minutes which reels it back into the realm of possibility.  You never know.  It’s such a heavy lift right now I’m not sure I have the mental capacity to do it again.  … We opened this podcast today with the concept of consistency.  I think it’s only appropriate that we close it with a discussion of habits and to-do lists. I had an interested philosophical conversation with myself this week.  I had it with myself because there’s no one else to talk to in the apocalypse.  Accept maybe the dog.  But his philosophy is much more rudimentary and deals mostly with balls and runs and occasional belly rubs. Frankly, that’s what I like about dogs.  Theirs is a more honest philosophy then we will ever achieve. I was thinking about habits and tasks lists.  What precipitated this was a few recent experiences and some environmental stresses. My current job has me scrambling to keep up with a seemingly endless flow of tasks.  My current training plan is getting into the dark place where workouts are apocalyptically challenging.  We are deep in the heart of darkness winter-wise in New England.  That’s a snapshot of life at a point in time.  A seasonal cycle. I know this.  But it still causes pressure.  A long day on the video calls with clients who have intractable problems that require my attention, my accountability, and my empathy.  Followed by a long, hard workout in the dark and snow.  Left with a scant hour of consciousness to maybe grab a quick dinner, read a chapter in a book and fall into a worried sleep, only to do it all again the next day. Like I said, I know this.  We all have these times.  These dark places.  That is the seasonal nature of life.  And we develop tools to deal with these dark places. Tools to survive so we can enjoy the sunny times. One of these tools is habits.  Habits allow us to get more done more efficiently.  If you can habitize yourself to get up, do the work, and be rigorous about the tasks in front of you, you can get through to the other side.  But, this week in the philosophical discussion with myself I questioned the outcome assumptions. We build these habits so that we can get things done, but why?  What does getting these things done have to do with anything important?  Isn’t this just an attempt to automate rote and joyless activities so that we can get through them faster without giving as much? It starts to feel like you’re bailing the ocean with a toy bucket. The justification in optimizing the task list and building habits is to be able to free up time to do the things you want to do.  In my philosophical discussions with myself I realized that this justification was just another form of a classic lie.  The classic lie is that by making you more efficient we are going to free up time to do ‘more important things’.  Whether by choice or rule, that’s not what happens.  What happens is that as soon as we lift one plastic pail of tasks out of the ocean another pail-full of tasks flows in behind to fill the void.  Until you are at capacity again.  You aren’t doing ‘more important things’.  You’re doing more of the same stuff faster with less attention and no joy.  Now, one saving grace of the habit hamster wheel is that it promotes or creates consistency.  And there are many important goals that require consistency.   For instance, if you are training for an event – consistency trumps everything else.  If you are saving money for a worthy thing, again, consistency trumps everything else.  There is power in consistency.  Habit promotes consistency.  But there is also a mindless spinning of the endless wheel that you have to put a foot to or you will habit yourself into a joyless grave. So – as you and I get on with our weeks, let us not be a slave to habit.  Let’s be brave enough not to finish a task list.  Let’s look at these things and ask ‘why?’.  And then say ‘no’.  Find those things that give you joy, not pleasure, joy.  Use your magnificent to-do lists to schedule a few of these things into you habit hamster wheel.  Take an hour and a half in the middle of a perfectly good workday and go out for a run in the sun.  No one will ever know.  When they ask you why you didn’t do X or Y you say “I’ve had to prioritize recently and I just haven’t gotten to it.” Which is the truth. And then if you’re extra Machiavellian, you can ask a follow up question.  “Is there any way I can get some help with some of this stuff?  I hate to leave it half finished.” That’s it.  Do your best.  Make sure you remember to stick up for yourself.  And I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 – A Mid-Winter Tale  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/AMWT.mp3] Link Hello folks this is Chris.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find the time to podcast this week.  I don’t know about you folks but I’ve had a crazy couple of weeks.  Actually it’s been pretty crazy since before the holidays. I won’t bore you with the details but my job has been super time consuming.  I’ve got calls starting in the morning every day and also in the evenings. And you know the morning time is my writing time.  But, I’ll give you an update.  I wrapped up my week of training last week with a stellar 30K long run on the roads.  We got more than a foot of snow and it was too soft to do a multi-hour long run in.  I was worried about switching to the road so abruptly. And I did pick up a little soreness in my plantar, but for the most part it was a great run. Let me tell you the story. I set out from my house in the direction of the rail trail in the next town over.  I figured if the snow was going to be packed down and passable anywhere it would be on the rail trail.  I can get to the midpoint of the trail about 10K from my house, so I headed out nice and slow in that direction.  It was a sunny day, no wind, but pretty cold.  I did my errands in the morning and waited for it to warm up a bit.  The roads were dry but with the snow there were some places where the shoulders got a bit skinny.  I wanted to avoid too much hill work and stay on back roads.  I wore my vest with the two 500ML mammary bottles under my outer layer because it was in the high-teens, low twenties.  After the previous week’s bad adventure with the spoiled gel I decided to go full ultra-fuel and keep it simple.  I made a nice organic peanut butter and honey sandwich on Dave’s 21 grain bread.  I cut it into 3X3 chunks – so 9 bite-size pieces and threw them into a plastic bag and stuffed them in a pocket.  When I got to the trail It was impassable.  I stopped to eat a couple pieces of sandwich, take a drink and figure out what to do next.  As I was standing by the side of the road, basically having a stand up picnic, cars kept stopping and waving me across.  And I was like, “no, I’m not crossing.” I finally had to scootch back into a driveway to stay out of their line of site.  I figured I was an hour in and felt pretty good, so I’d just keep going east and see where I ended up.  I vaguely knew where I was.  I headed out through the back roads of Westford and east into Carlisle.  Babe Ruth lived in Carlisle when he played for the Red Sox.  Eventually I came to a main road.  I was trying to figure out where I was. I only needed a few more minutes, so I mentally flipped a coin and turned left.  I’m glad I did because in a couple hundred feet I came upon Great Brook State Park.   This is a good-sized park in Carlisle that I’m familiar with having mountain biked in there a few time.   I learned that I am about 9 miles away from the park crow-fly if I take the back roads.  Which is cool.  With the snow, they had opened it up as a snowshoe and cross-country ski venue. The place was packed.  On the east side they were selling tickets to get in and ski.  I asked if I could go into the trails on the west side where people were snowshoeing.  They said it was ok. The trails were packed down and perfect for running and it was beautiful. The sun was high and families were out.  I just ripped around in the woods for a few minutes. Then I popped back out on the road and headed back home after eating some more sandwich and taking a drink. Really beautiful day. On my way out I had noticed that it was apparently trash day in Carlisle because all the trask cans were out at the end of driveways. I began playing the beer can game that I like to play.  The way this works of course is that you pick up a beer can that some a-hole has tossed out the car window and you drop it in the next trash can.  I felt pretty good now, still running well.  Not fast.  But well.  No crash.  Good energy.  And I crossed back into Westford.  As I was coming back through Westford, I got cocky.  I saw a brown paper bag in the snow bank and figured I’d throw it out.  It turned out to be a empty fifth of vodka.  Which is a good-sized bottle.  And a glass bottle too.  Then I see a Bud-light tall boy and grab that too. So I’m running down the road carrying an empty vodka bottle in a brown paper bag like a football and a big beer can and I realize “Oh Crap!” it’s not trash day in Westford and there’s no place to put these.  I went on for a mile or so like that looking in peoples’ driveways and such, but eventually gave up and put them back into the snowbank.  I chose and obvious place at the corner of a neighborhood figuring someone would pick them up.  Ce’st la vie. As I was heading up Powers road towards my house I realized I was going to be short on my planned time so I re-routed through the Nashoba Mountain ski area.  It was packed too.  I guess the virus is afraid of heights.   I stopped at the kiddee slope to see if I could find my running buddy Bob who is a ski instructor there, but I didn’t.  I kept going, starting to get a bit leg-tired now, out through the back to the tubing hill.  It was a perfect day for tubing.  Plenty of snow and cold enough to keep the snow fast.  Of course the tubing hill was packed as well.  As I churned through watching the kids rocket down slope, I thought about how we would do this when I was a kid.  We’d grab something totally dangerous, like a cafeteria tray or a trashcan lid or the hood of a VW and we would break our necks sometimes.  Even our official sledding implements were super dangerous.  My family had a 6-person toboggan.  There was no controlling or turning these things.  You just went until you crashed into something.  I can remember falling off the toboggan mid run and getting my foot caught in the rope and being dragged down the hill at high velocity on my face.  We had these things called ‘flying saucers’ that were plastic disks that you sat in.  They had no steering or padding or anything.  You just went until you wrecked.  But the pros had sleds.  The old Flexible Flyer.  You sanded down and waxed up the steel runners.  Then you hauled ass down the hill face first on the sled.  You could steer them a little bit and at high enough velocity you could sort of Tokyo drift around the corners.  Anyhow, that was what I was reminiscing about as I wrapped up my 18.6 miles.  I had not planned to run a 30K.  I was just running by time.  It was serendipity.  Felt pretty good.  Didn’t eat the whole sandwich.  Wasn’t sore on Sunday.  Ran an hour with my buddies the next day.  Good weekend effort.  … Work being so crazy and time consuming reminds me of another story.  This one is a SCUBA story.  Anyone know what SCUBA stands for?  Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. In my 20’s I used to go diving for lobsters off Halibut Point in Gloucester.  I had a bunch of hand-me-down SCUBA stuff.  But we never went deep and never more than one 80 tank.  So we really couldn’t get into too much trouble.  I remember one afternoon; my buddy Keith and I went out.  We had to hike a bit out through the state park to get to the shore.  It’s a good place to lobster dive because the shore is rocky and drops off quickly to 30-40 feet. And by rocky, I mean big chunks of granite. Like refrigerator size.  To get to the water you had to climb down the rocks and jump in.   Now, if any of you know anything about SCUBA diving you know there’s a bunch of equipment involved.   You have the tank.  A hose comes off the tank and connects to the thing you put in your mouth, called a regulator.  The regulator allows you to breath off of the tank. Then you have your mask with a snorkel attached.  The water in the Atlantic off of Gloucester is pretty cold, even in the summer, like 60’s.  So you have a wet suit. You wear fins so you can propel yourself.  All good so far. But the part that non-SCUBA folks don’t get is that you need buoyancy regulation.  Any of you triathletes know that if you have a wetsuit on you float.  With the whole point of SCUBA being the underwater stuff you need some way to overcome the floating of the wetsuit.  The way you do this is to strap a bunch of medieval looking lead weights to a belt around your waste.  The lead makes you sink.  Which creates the opposite problem because you don’t’ want to get stuck on the bottom. What you want is to find that perfect buoyancy where you neither float, nor synch.  This is where you have that last piece of critical equipment, the Buoyancy Compensator.  This is like an inflatable life vest you wear.  So, the way it works is, you inflate your BC – Buoyancy Compensator, jump in, snorkel out to where you want to dive, because you want to save your air for the dive.  Then you put your regulator in and start deflating you BC until you sink.  Easy peasy. I remember on this day the weather wasn’t great and the surf was pretty high.  Pounding on those rocks.  Makes it a bit tricky to get into the water.  You have to get in, put your head down, use the fins and power out through the surf. Which is what I started to do as Keith was on the rocks behind me.    It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had forgotten to inflate my BC.  So, instead of snorkeling out through the surf, I was snorkeling straight to the bottom with 35 pounds of lead.  Lucky for me, and I suppose you, I’m a pretty strong swimmer.  Because I panicked.  Nothing like in haling that first big gulp of sea water to put some adrenaline into the system.  The smart thing to do in these situations is to drop your weight belt.  It’s got a quick release on it.  And then put your regulator in your mouth so you don’t drown.  I didn’t do that.  I treaded water with 35 pound of lead in the washing machine surf until I could get some air in my BC.  The surf tore my mask off me.  I caught glimpses of Keith looking distraught trying to decide whether he should come in after me.  And, not to spoil the story, I lived to tell the story.  We retrieved my mask and went back in to see if we could catch some dinner.  But, that’s how I felt at my job this week.  Like I was treading water in the heavy surf with 35 pounds of lead. But, I’m older now.  I don’t panic as much.  I’ve traded stoicism for panic.  Here’s a tip for you.  You can download a translation of Marcus Aurelius’’ diary for free.   It’s basically his morning journal.  He was the last of the good emperors.  He was a stoic.  And yes his son was Commodus, who, yes, liked to pretend he was a gladiator.  But, Russell Crowe did not kill him.  His wrestling partner Narcissus killed him.  And finally to take you out, I heard a great piece of advice from the Olympic runner Alexi Pappas.  It’s the ‘rule of thirds’.  It says that if you look at any part of your life, whether it’s your work, your workouts or your relationships – a third of the time they are going to be good, another third of the time they are going to be OK, and the final third of the time they are going to be crappy.  The key is to realize this when you’re in the crappy spots.  For those of you who like math that would be a normal distribution.  So my friends that is my race report for you this week.  What shall we call it?  The Lost Pirate 30K?  The Tired Turkey 30K?  The Old Man 30K? Your choice. We’ll see you out there.

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-448 – Dave McGillivray Boston Marathon to Covid Vaccination  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4448.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-448 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  How we doin?  Here we are flipping the page to February of 2021.  How about that?  Big news from my side of the world, that being New England, is the cold.  Cold, cold, cold.   It was zero degrees F this morning.  I just got back from 7ish miles in the woods with Ollie.  We waited until after lunch and the temp came up over 20.  Nice day, sunny, windless, cold.  It’s really good running in the trials right now.  With the freeze, the ground is nice and hard.  We got a couple of light snowstorms earlier in the week, maybe 3-5 inches of fluffy snow.  With so much traffic in the trails these days it’s all packed down and hard and fast.  It’s only icy where the spring come up.  I had a pretty good week of running coming off the end of the infected toe.  The antibiotics cleared the infection up.  I took a bout a week off, but was back on it this week.  I bought some silicone toe caps,  toe protect that toe while it heals.  They work really well for me.  For some people they fall off, but for my big toe they fit great and keep the toe safe.  I got back to training.  Had a pretty good weekend, despite the cold weather.  Friday I did a set of long hills in the cold, which were awful while I was doing them, but when I looked at the data were a decent effort.  Yesterday I did a long 16 miler in the trails.  Most of it was pretty sucky, but that’s how ultra training is supposed to go.  You run until it sucks and then you run more.  That’s the name of the game.  And Ollie and I knocked out another 7 just now so that’s close to 30 miles in 3 days.  That’s encouraging.  I didn’t take Ollie yesterday for the long run.  I thought it might be too cold for him.  I didn’t want to chance him hurting his feet.  For myself, I had to figure out how to carry water.  The challenge with this weather is that your bottles freeze in under an hour in any handheld. And the bite valves freeze even faster on your packs.  What I ended up doing was wearing my Aonjiie vest with the two 500ML bite valve bottles under my outer layer.  I had my phone in an inner layer as well.  That worked well.  The bite valves didn’t freeze and I could unzip my outer layer to get a drink.   I brought an old spring energy recovery gel from my ultra-bag; that bag where I keep all the ultra stuff, for fuel.  But when I opened it up at the halfway point it tasted like it had gone bad.  So – basically 3 hours in the cold with no fuel.  My balaclava froze to my head.   But I got it done and felt fine today.  After the antibiotics and taking a week off I was noticeable chubby so I’ve been watching my food this week and have already knocked 5 pounds off.  Today we chat with out old friend, director of the Boston Marathon, Dave McGillivray.  He is a case study in resilience and the power of a positive attitude.   This pandemic knocked his business of race directing right out from under him.  He had to pivot.  And he did.  He’s now running the vaccinations at Fenway and Gillette stadium. Of course we also sneak in some Boston Marathon talk.  In section one I’m going to talk about what to expect and how to counter the effects of aging as an athlete and in section two I’ll talk about work stress.  Because I’ve had a really stressful week of work.   And I got through it.  Next week might be worse or better – but I’ll get through it.  I try to show up with a positive attitude, have empathy and lead as best I can.  I also know I’m not going to get everything done and I make choices about what to not get done based on what’s important to me.  Getting my workouts in is important to me. Writing and communicating is important to me.  You, you’re important to me.  We’re in this together right?  That’s what they keep telling me anyhow… On with the show. About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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.  … Section one – The Aging Athlete - Voices of reason – the conversation DAVE MCGILLIVRAY– DMSE Sports     WHEN DAVE MCGILLIVRAY FOUNDED DMSE SPORTS IN A MEDFORD, MA, STOREFRONT IN 1981, RUNNING WAS KNOWN AS JOGGING, WICKING MATERIAL WAS A TERRY CLOTH HEADBAND, AND SPORTS DRINKS AND RUNNING SHOES WERE IN THEIR INFANCY.   OUR MISSION DMSE Sports is an industry leader in event management operations and logistics. From road races to charity walks, we pride ourselves on producing safe and technically excellent events by creating trusted relationships, paying attention to every detail, and executing flawlessly. DMSE strives to produce the highest-caliber experience, whether consulting on existing events or building and managing them from the ground up.   OUR COMMITMENT Black Lives Matter.   We at DMSE Sports have always supported that sentiment internally, but stayed silent externally. However, we  want to be part of the change for good, and to do that, we recognize it’s necessary to speak out and stand in solidarity with those who are fighting for equality and racial justice.   It’s time we become better allies. To externalize our internal anti-racist beliefs, to learn from those who have lived the experiences, to listen when they point to injustices and prejudice. Black and brown lives matter, and they deserve to have an equal opportunity for happiness, success, and long life.   As a start, we will be donating all funds raised by the DMSE Foundation during the Medford2Medford race to organizations that directly support communities of color.   This is just the beginning of DMSE's effort to effect real change. We know we have a long road ahead.   OUR EVENTS The company and its 75+ consultants manage more than 30 major road races and charitable events per year, including:   New Balance Falmouth Road Race   Eversource Walk for Boston Children’s Hospital   Camp Harborview Citython 5K   Run to Home Base   Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk   Delta Dental Mount Washington Road Race   BAA Half-Marathon   BAA Boston Marathon   lululemon San Diego 10K   TD Beach to Beacon   Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon   BAA 5K   Feaster Five Thanksgiving Day Run   Harvard Pilgrim Finish at the Fifty at Patriot Place   BAA 10K   “There are 3 rules I never break—No questions asked. 1) Call my mom back within an hour. 2) Tell someone every day that I love them. 3) Always say yes to Dave McGillivray.” — DAVID BROWN, CHIEF ADVANCEMENT OFFICER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION FOR THE BLIND & VISUALLY IMPAIRED THE EARLY YEARS Since 1981, DMSE has organized or consulted on more than 1,000 events, raising millions for charity and earning a reputation as one of the most thorough, well organized race management firms in the U.S.   DMSE’s first event – the Bay State Triathlon at Wright’s Pond in Medford, Mass. – attracted 100 participants and was one of the first triathlons ever held in New England and the nation. McGillivray had competed in the 1980 Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii and brought the concept back to his native Northeast. A triathlete for years, McGillivray competed in eight Ironman triathlons and introduced the inspirational father-son team of Rick and Dick Hoyt to the sport. In January of 2011, he was inducted into the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame.   Triathlons were just the beginning for DMSE. As the group organized more athletic events, McGillivray and his staff quickly earned a reputation as detail minded, safety oriented and creative thinkers in the competitive arena of event management. In 1988, the B.A.A Boston Marathon noticed and appointed McGillivray technical director of the world-famous marathon, and in 2001 he was appointed race director – a title he still holds today.   PICKING UP SPEED As DMSE grew, McGillivray added to his team, hand picking the best in start and finish line management, lead vehicle programs, runner registration and results, while working with local volunteers, race committees and police and fire departments to create a smooth operation come race day. So when Olympic Gold Medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson had an idea for a road race in her hometown of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, she reached out to McGillivray and his team.  The TD Bank Beach to Beacon 10K was launched in 1998 and is now among the most popular on the U.S. road race circuit, attracting some of the world’s fastest elite athletes and drawing rave reviews from participants.   Others noticed as well. From the Bellin Run in Green Bay, Wisconsin and the Lady Speed Stick® Women's Half Marathon Series throughout the U.S. to Run to Home Base at Fenway Park and Run For The Dream in Williamsburg, Va., a DMSE race is known for being safe, organized, technically advanced and produced without flaws. No wonder that in 2000, McGillivray and his team received the prestigious Race Director of the Year award from Road Race Management.    MAINTAINING THE PACE In 2014, DMSE added another high-profile event to the portfolio as the team was brought on to manage the Across the Bay 10K in Annapolis, MD, which has had more than 20,000 runners in each of the first two years!   PHILANTHROPY DMSE Sports also is a pioneer in what is now one of the most important aspects of the athletic industry – combining athletics with philanthropy. Nearly every DMSE endeavor has that unbeatable combination of fitness and fundraising, giving back to the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital, Lazarus House and many others.   MILESTONES DMSE has been involved with more than 900 major events over the 30+years, but here are a few highlights:   1980 Dave McGillivray Running and Sports Center opens in Medford, Massachusetts   1981 Dave McGillivray Sports Enterprises (DMSE) is born, sets up offices in Medford   1982 DMSE directs first triathlon, the Bay State Triathlon at Spot Pond in Medford   1983 DMSE produces Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon, first Ironman-distance triathlon in the continental U.S.   1984 Dave McGillivray Sports Enterprises, Inc. is incorporated, April 19, 1984   1988 DMSE is hired as the Technical Coordinator of the BAA Boston Marathon.   1989 DMSE manages Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk   1990 DMSE directs the Triathlon World Championship at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida   1993 DMSE manages Feaster Five Thanksgiving Day Road Race in Andover, Massachusetts   1996 DMSE assists with 100th running of the B.A.A. Boston Marathon with a record 38,000+ official entrants   1996 DMSE consultants hired to assist with venue management of all road events for Atlanta Olympic Games   1998 DMSE directs Goodwill Games Triathlon in New York City   1998 DMSE asked by Olympic Gold Medalist Joan Samuelson to manage the first TD Bank Beach to Beacon 10K (then the People Beach to Beacon 10K)   2003 DMSE creates its own foundation: The DMSE Children’s Fitness Foundation   2004 DMSE manages USA Women’s Marathon Olympic Trials in St. Louis   2008 DMSE assists BAA in managing USA Women’s Marathon Olympic Trial in Boston, Massachusetts   2010 DMSE launches four new races – Spring Training 10K Classic in Jupiter, Florida; Run to Home Base at Fenway Park in Boston; Harvard Pilgrim 10K at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough; and the Run Gloucester 7-Mile Race in Gloucester   2010 DMSE Foundation launches “Running in Places” program for Boston-area school children   2010 DMSE hired as consultant to the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon   2010 DMSE hired to manage 2011 Run for the Dream half marathon in Williamsburg, Virginia, and 2011 Mt. Washington Road Race   2011 DMSE celebrates "30 Years Running" March 12 with more than 450 dignitaries, consultants, and athletes; DMSE hired to serve as the race director of the New Balance Falmouth Road Race in Cape Cod in time for its 40th running   2013 DMSE manages the 25th Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk   2014 DMSE assists with the Across the Bay 10K in Annapolis, Maryland   2015 DMSE hired to direct the USA Invitational Half Marathon in San Diego, California   2016 DMSE manages the Runner's World Half & Festival in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania   2017 DMSE celebrates 20 years of managing the TD Beach to Beacon in Cape Elizabeth, Maine   2017 DMSE hired to manage the inaugural Fenway Park Marathon   Section two – Managing Work Stress -   Outro Ok my friends we have lined up in the parking lot between the barriers to get our shots through the end of  Episode 4-448 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   So I watched “the Dig’ on Netflix.  I’ve been excited to see it.  Because I’m a big history buff.  And if you don’t know ‘the Dig’ is a period piece about the excavation of an Anglo Saxon ship burial in , on the coast of Suffolk in England.    I won’t disparage the program but I was hoping for some archaeology and it turns out it’s more like ‘the English Patient’.  Lots of feelings and relationships and very little actual Anglo Saxon.   They don’t even show the helmet or mention king .  So if you like British period dramas go for it.  If you like archeology, not so much. The other wonderful discovery I’ve made in the last couple weeks are some very entertaining science fiction podcasts. Since I have my own “After the Apocalypse” podcast now – which you should go like and comment remember – I did some searching and found some others to listen too.  There are three I’ve been listening to on my runs.  The first is podcast that reads stories form Asimov’s magazine.  The second is , another science fiction story podcast.  And finally my favorite is .  I think I like that one the most because the editor always sounds exhausted.  They are all nice, little 20-30 minute chunk-size stories.  Perfect company for running in the dark, snowy trails.  Some are better than others.  The good ones make the so-so ones worth it.  Other than that I’m working my way through a Jimmy Buffet novel called “” which is refreshingly easy to digest.  A bit of a palette cleanser – so to speak.  Cowboys, boats, lighthouses – typically breezy Jimmy Buffet style.  Cringe-worthy at time but unapologetic. And that’s what I have for you this week. A decent week.  The days are getting longer fast now.  4+ minutes a day.  The vaccinations are rolling out.  We might even be getting on airplanes and gettiggn back out into the world soon.  Stay warm.  Stay strong.  Be a leader, And I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-447 – Mental Health in Lockdown – Dr. Sarb  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4447.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello and welcome to episode 4-447 of the RunRunLive podcast.   Here we are, the middle of January and I’ve got a lot to talk about today.  Which is good, because one of the things that bothers me about house arrest is that I don’t get enough experiential input.  I’m not out traveling and running races so I have less input, less to talk about.  I had to take a week off from running last week.  I managed to give myself an infected toe.  I’ll talk about that in Section One.  It’s better now and I went out for an hour in the trails yesterday.  It seems to be ok.  I’m a week into a course of antibiotics and that seems to have cleared it up.  The good news is that I’m not going to die a slow painful death from gangrene.  The bad news is that I lost a week of training and I had to take a course of antibiotics.  I don’t like taking antibiotics.  IT wipes out all the helpful and friendly bacteria in your body as well as the cantankerous buggers living in your cuticles.  The antibiotics mess up my digestion, especially with my diet that includes a lot of roughage.  It basically gives me the digestive system of a Canadian goose.  It also compounds the dry skin I get this time of year.  I think in general we underestimate all the helpful things that a community of symbiotic bacteria do for you.  Today we’re going to talk to Dr. Sarb. I’ve ‘known’ Dr. Sarb for many years from the online running community. He’s a New Zeeland based psychologist and is just now putting out a book about how to survive the Covid.  I had some tech problems and had to cut him short so I had him send me a preamble which I’ll stick on the front of the interview.  By the way why is it called New Zeeland?  Doesn’t that imply an Old Zeeland? Isn’t this a British colony? Zeeland isn’t very British.  In fact the is an old Zeeland and it’s north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.  The first people to ‘discover’ what would become New Zeeland were Dutch.  Specifically a dude named Abel Tasman.  Yup, that’s how you get Tasmania.  At the time he thought he had run into Argentina.  His GPS must not have been charged.  Anyhow, subsequently the Dutch thought, hey, this place is made up of islands like Zeeland, which in old Dutch means “Sea Land” and so you have New Zeeland.    In section two I’ll talk about living life like it’s improvisational art.  … At the risk of being the crazy old etymologist, I want you to think about the word ‘compassion’.  It’s a good old Latin word.  The first bit means ‘with’ the second bit means ‘suffering’.  Having compassion means the ability to understand and feel another’s pain and suffering.  “With Suffering”.  At this point most writers will go off on a screed about how you have to suffer for what you want.  How passion is the ability to suffer for a goal.  I’m not going to do that, although it’s a great screed.  Very biblical.  Has the smell of ancient empires and codes of honor to it.  Unsurprising it’s Roman in origin.  I’m going to talk about having compassion for someone else.  Understanding and appreciating someone else’s suffering.   If you think about anyone you know, live with or work with – to some extent they are all suffering.  Whether they show it or not.  And the ones that are suffering the most are the one’s that are the hardest to have empathy for.  Because they are typically externalizing that suffering in ways that are negative.  It doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. It doesn’t mean you have to like them.  It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable.  It means you understand their suffering.  This is important because people who are suffering tend to externalize that suffering.  They lash out.  They act out.  It is in our nature to suffer.  It is in our nature to be passionate.  It makes us human.  Passion by it’s nature is irreconcilable with the norm.  Passionate people are outliers in one way or another.  If you can bring yourself to look for the suffering behind another’s actions it will help you understand them.  It will help your own suffering because it will allow you to understand.  Understanding converts emotion to reason.  And with that reason you are in a better position to deal with those who are suffering.  But compassion also means celebrating those who are achieving happiness.  It is part of empathy and growth.  When was the last time you told someone you were happy for them? Try saying this in a moment of contemplation while visualizing someone you know who has achieved something that has made them happy. Because that empathy for others happiness begets joy in yourself. Now try saying this: "May I have appreciation for my own joy. May my happiness grow." And notice how that makes you feel and how the two are intertwined.  On with the show! About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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.  … Section one – The infected Toe - http://runrunlive.com/the-infected-toe   Voices of reason – the conversation Dr. Sarb Johal  – Mental Health in Covid     I’m Dr Sarb Johal. I’m a clinical psychologist, consultant, speaker, and media commentator with an insatiable curiosity about this human experience.   Over my 30-year career in psychology, I’ve been privileged to work alongside many brilliant minds producing phenomenal psychological research into the way our brains work.   The problem is that very little of this incredible work filters down in a useful way to the people it could really help. Ordinary people trying to sustain relationships, bring up kids, hold down a job, lead a team or an organisation, make a contribution and generally do life well. In other words, all of us.   Until now. Through my videos, podcasts, consulting and speaking, I uncover and interpret the latest psychological research from experts around the globe, transforming complex concepts into useful insights that help individuals, leaders and organisations navigate this ever-changing world.   Section two – Life as Improv -   Outro Ok my friends we have holed up in our home offices for almost an entire year, and most certainly,  through the end of Episode 4-447 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   I’ve got a couple stories for you to take you out, but first remember to go listen to my new podcast the apocalypse serial “After the Apocalypse”.  Like it, write a review, forward it to your friends and share it on social, please.  It was a busy week back at work.  This seemed to be the week when everyone showed back up from vacation looking to get stuff done. Since I wasn’t running it was weirdly ok because I had one less thing to do.  I’ve been at this new job for a year now, so I guess I have to stop calling it a new job.  I’m grateful to have made the decision to move back into a bigger company.  Doesn’t’ look like we’ll be getting out of lock down any time soon.  I’m eyeballing a April event but not sure I’ll want to get on a plane and not sure I’ll be able to visit the home office.  I’m also feeling a weird “maybe I don’t have what it takes to run an ultra anymore” feeling.  I only made it through a  week of heavier training before I broke myself this time. I guess I’m feeling a bit mortal which isn’t a great feeling.  Maybe it has something to do with the psychology of the Apocalypse.  Ironically my new pair of Hokas showed up the same day I had to go to the clinic for the infected toe.  I down graded to the Challenger ATR’s from the SpeedGoat’s. I just can’t stomach paying $180 for a pair of shoes.  These new Challengers seem much lighter than the older versions.  The outsole seems stiffer too.  And of course the toe-box is a bit roomier! I did end up partially breaking those $30 UBI Bluetooth headphones.  I say partially, because the left ear still works, which is actually ok for podcasts.  Might be a million dollar idea there folks – make an athletic version of those single ear-piece Bluetooth headphones.  Let me take you out with a home-office story.  And it might be a little unsettling for those of you with an aversion to rodents.  So there are mousetraps involved, if that’s triggering for you, you might want to skip ahead.  One of the mornings this week I carry my coffee and avocado toast up to my office to read the news on my computer, like I do most mornings.  I notice, what I think are sesame seeds from the toast on the pad in front of the keyboard.  And I almost drop them into my avocado, before I realize they are mouse turds.  It’s been a low-mouse invasion year because we got the new garage doors in December.  But I left them open last weekend whilst clearing snow.  (how many people do you know that use the word ‘Whilst’?) Anyhow, I think “crap, there’s a mouse living in my office crawling around on my desk eating my breakfast crumbs.  So, I set a couple traps along the baseboard and kept my day going. Then my big-boss calls, can you be on this call in 15 minutes where the corporate blah, blah, is talking about blah, blah.  OK, I can do that, luckily I’m showered and dressed at this point.  So I’m at my stand up desk, on the video call, acting like I have some sort of intelligence, knowledge and authority – when ‘Snap!’ the trap goes off about a foot and a half from where I’m standing.  But, it doesn’t kill the mouse right away.  So, I’m stuck talking to these people on this video call while the mouse is thrashing about on the floor next to me.   They never knew.  Say what you want about this remote work, it comes with new experiences.  I think the biggest challenge of extended home arrest is the sameness of it.  The ground-hog day nature of it.  But that can be comforting too.   It can lead you to feel uninspired and pointless.  And when that happens I think we just have to keep moving.  Like Dr. Sarb suggests you have to make up rules that simplify things for your over-taxed brain.  One I’ve found useful is to commit blocks of time.  30 minutes is a good block of time when you’re having trouble focusing.  Shift the focus from, “I need to do this thing” to I’m going to work on this one task for 30 minutes non-stop.  The old Pomadoro Method.  Adds structure.  I’ve rejoined Twitter after a few years away.  As always I’m cyktrussell.  I’ve got about 13,000 followers.  I tweet about running stuff.  I retweet from the back-catalogue of 1,000 plus articles I’ve written on my website RunRunLive.com.  I mostly make snide comments and tweet Grateful Dead Lyrics.  Follow me and we’ll exchange snark. Ok my friends, whether you feel like a Rockstar or the mouse, let’s make 2021 the best year yet by showing up and doing the work and bringing the joy. And, hopefully,  I will see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-446 – Running the World with Nick Butter  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4446.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello and welcome to episode 4-446 of the RunRunLive podcast.  Here we are at the start of a new year!  How about that?  2021.  Happy new year. Today we have a chat with Nick Butter that I recorded a couple weeks ago.  Nick has recently run a marathon in every country in the world, so you may hear him making the rounds of the podcasts.  I’m always a little hesitant to interview folks that come off on the surface as a bit self-promotional.  But, as you’ll hear in the interview, Nick is a thoughtful, honest runner.  It’s another one of these stories that’s good for the new year.  Another, chuck everything and do something big, story.   I’m looking out the window of my home office as I write this and it is just about freezing.  There is a covering of icy snow on the ground.  Yesterday we got one of those slush storms where it’s warmish and snowing and raining at the same time.  I went out with Ollie for a couple hours in the slush in the trails which was fun. I told you about how Ollie likes to ambush me.  He’ll come running directly at me, hit the brakes, snap and growl and take off growling with a stick.  I have managed to avoid getting bitten since we last talked.  (Although, he did spear me from behind with a pine tree one day this week.)    So, yesterday we’re out running in the slush and he comes tearing down the trail straight at me, throws on the brakes, but because there’s two inches of slush, he can’t get any traction and slides straight through me like a ball through a bowling pin.  I went down on top of him and got nice an slushy.  I know sounds funny now, but I was pretty mad at the time.  Now all the slush is frozen.  It’s going to be dicey out in the trails today. My shoes are wet from yesterday so I’ll have to switch to an old pair.  I’ve started training a bit.  My plan is to be in 50 mile shape for the end of April.  Today will cap a pretty big week for me.   Ran a ½ marathon on the roads with the club on Sunday, 7ish in the trails Tuesday, 8ish in the trails Wednesday, a 10 X 60 second hill repeat set on Friday, 10ish slush miles yesterday and I’ll get another 7ish trail mile in today – so mid 40 miles for the 7 days and over 50 for 8 days.  In section one we’ll talk about how to build a spring training plan.  In section two I’ll give you one of the finished episodes of my new apocalypse podcast – so you can hear what I’ve been putting my energy into over the last couple weeks.   I’m not going to talk about New Year’s resolutions.  But I will talk a little bit about attitude in the outro.  I thin 2021 is going to be a interesting year.  After all of use being artificially tamped down for 2020, 2021 should be a barn-burner! I would counsel you to be prepared.  To take these slow times around the holidays to plan and reflect.  Because every thing that happens is an opportunity.  The failures as well as the successes teach us something – if we’re willing to learn. I’ve often quoted Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech.  You’ve heard it.  It’s famous.  Teddy Roosevelt was a real character.  He’s on Mount Rushmore with Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson.  Which is a bit strange if you think about it. What’s this dude from the early 1900’s doing up on the mountain with the founders and the great emancipator? This little squirrelly guy with the squeaky voice.  We know he had a squeaky voice because this was around the time that audio recordings started to be made.  You know how Teddy got to be president?  He was such a pain in the ass they made him Vice President to get him out of the way.  Basically, they buried him in a do-nothing job so he couldn’t cause any trouble.  Then an anarchist put a bullet in McKinley and the rest is history.  You have to be ready for your moments.  2021 could be your moment. On with the show! About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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.  … Section one – 2021 training plans - http://runrunlive.com/spring-2021-training-plans-start-your-engines   Voices of reason – the conversation Nick Butter  – Every Country in the World Yasmin Li Manager to Nick Butter Contact number: +44 7772 870069 Sponsorships and Partnerships email:  Speaking Events email:  -- Nick Butter British Endurance Athlete | Motivational Speaker | Adventurer Contact number: +44 7745 291591  |  |  Twitter and Instagram: @nickbutterrun Expedition Highlight Reel:   PRE-ORDER NICK'S BOOK - Running The World: My World-Record Breaking Adventure to Run a Marathon in Every Country on Earth Waterstones -  Amazon -      Section two – after the Apocalypse -     Outro Ok my friends we have run a marathon in every country, on every grain of sand in the world, through the end of Episode 4-445 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  You think we’ll live long enough to see some folks run marathons on other worlds?   So that’s my new apocalypse podcast.  Go find by searching for after the apocalypse on iTunes or whatever your favorite podcast app is.  This one cost me real money to make so I need to drive the download numbers.  Even if you hate it and want to have nothing to do with it, go out a subscribe to it and download it. If you want to help, like it, write a review send it to a couple friends. I’m enjoying the creative process.  Thoughts on 2020 Many people are saying 2020 was a ‘bad’ year.  I’m not sure there is such a thing as a bad year.  Labeling anything good or bad is just way to justify our own response to it.  And that’s the interesting thing about it – because our response is the only thing we can really control.  When we say 2020 was a bad year what we’re really saying is 2020 was a year in which our response to external events was bad.  What would change if instead of labeling ‘good’ or ‘bad’ we just took things for what they were?  2020 wasn’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’ it just was.  2020 was certainly different. It caused an abrupt cessation or change to many of our longstanding routines and habits.  I would wager that with every routine lost, the seed of a new routine was planted. People stopped driving to work.  That routine was lost.  Maybe it was replaced with going for a walk before work in the morning, with the dog or the spouse.  Was that a good or a bad change? Surely, we lost people with the virus.  Surely, we lost jobs.  But are we not the type of animals that respond to challenges and change?  Doesn’t this type of abrupt, structural change cause us to look deeply inwards and ask better questions?  One thing became clear to me in 2020.  There are an infinite number of things that are out of my control.  And if I let those things bother me or control me or chew up my valuable time then I’m a chump.  There are things that are squarely in my control.  Where I spend my precious energy and time is under my control.  Somewhat, I’m still boxed in on many fronts by the decisions I’ve made along the way.  But that doesn’t mean I have to acquiesce.  That just means I choose to.  Call it sunk cost or pain avoidance but there are certain things I’m locked into, and I chose to be locked into.  A big, big, big thing that is under my control is how I show up.  Everything in life rewards you disproportionately for how you show up.  To quote a famous fantasy novel, “We reap what we sow.” This is typically applied to the actions of individuals, but I think it applies better to how we show up. If we show p with hate and anger, then we are going to reap hate and anger. If we show up with fear and hesitancy, then we are going to reap suspicion and distrust. If we show up with disinterest and torpor, we are going to be shown the door. But, my friends, it is totally under your control.  If we show up with energy and positivity and a belief in the future and a story about a better place, then we are going to reap the enthusiasm and trust of everyone we meet.  And with that we bid goodbye to 2020.  2020 was a game-changing year.  2020 enabled me to spend time at home with my new dog and my old wife.  2020 gave me space to explore the trails.  2020 allowed me to inject some new creativity into my life.  2020 brought perspective to where I am and where I’m going. 2020 reminded me of the things I’m grateful for.  2020 started with me taking on the challenge of a new job.  I feel quite blessed looking back that I was able to be part of an organization and help navigate these unchartered waters.  That, I think, was a serendipitous use of my experience and mindset.  In 2021 I vow to set new goals in all the important areas of my life.  To plan and execute to the best of my abilities.  But, most of all to show up.  To bring my best self to every day.  And I will see you out there! MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-445 – The Hong Kong Running Scene with Mark Agnew  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4445.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello and welcome to episode 4-445 of the RunRunLive podcast.  How are we doing?  By the time this podcast tickles your inner ears it will be the shortest day of the year up here in New England.  It might even be that “After the holidays” scenario when someone bought you a new audio device or phone and you have downloaded some podcasts and you’re listening in to see what you like and sure enough you find this weird old dude who runs a lot and has a dog and rambles on and on and on about things that no one really cares about and then says something like, “Hey that was a 71 word sentence!” Vladimir Nabokov would be proud! Yup you new listeners can bail out now because it doesn’t’ get any better. This week we talk to Mark Agnew who is the extreme sports reporter in Hong Kong for the South China Morning Post.  No kidding a real, honest to goodness ex-patriot living in Hong Kong and covering the ultra-running scene.  Super interesting.  In section one we talk about running in the snow, because, yeah, I’ve been running in the snow.  Write about what you know is what someone said, so there you have it.  In section two I’m going to talk about the importance of a positive aspect.  Now Aspect is not a good old English word.  It is from Latin.  You might recognize that Latin root ‘Spec’.  As in Spectacles.  So Aspect means “to look” or in the case I’m using it “appearance”. Anyhow…  It’s been an uneventful couple of weeks since we last spoke.  I had a good higher volume week and got 5 runs in.  I did them all on the trails with Ollie so it only added up to 30 something miles but if I had been running those on the roads it would have been over 40 miles for the week. We got a nice big dump of dry snow this week.  Somewhere around a foot and a half.  It’s hard to tell because the storm had 30+ MPH winds so the snow wasn’t evenly distributed. I haven’t been out running in this new snow yet, but I have gone for a couple hikes with Ollie and it is hard going! It got cold and stayed cold. Woke up to 3 degrees Fahrenheit this morning.  It’s amazing how fast you adapt to the cold weather.   It’s so dry and so bright with the snow down.  It’s also acoustically amazing.  You can hear sounds traveling for miles in the dry air.    The coyotes were out last night singing in the woods.  Clear as a bell. Ollie was freaking out.  He wanted to get out of the house and have a go at them.  Or join them maybe.  He is a bit of a free spirit. That son of a gun has taken to ambushing me on the trails again.  It’s a border collie thing.  Buddy, my old dog did it too.  But Ollie is a bit aggressive. He’ll pounce on me and give me a nip if I’m not paying attention.  He’s not trying to hurt me but his big old velociraptor jaws are leaving me with vampire bites on my thighs. I’ve taken to carrying a small stick with me so I can swat him when he moves in for an ambush.  What the southerners would call a switch.  Maybe I’m bringing back some bad memories of someone having a switch taken to them. “Switch” is an old German word.  Means long thin stick.  Maybe I should have used the word ‘crop’ like a riding crop.  “Crop” is another old German word.  I think we’re seeing a pattern.  Lots of swatting going on with those old Germans.  But anyhow I can give him a little swat and it keeps him from biting me.  I read an article about a woman who died from a dog bite.  She got the flesh eating bacteria!.  Yikes.  But what I’m really worried about is turning into a were-collie.  (by the way ‘were’ is Algo Saxon for ‘man’ – so were-wolf is literally ‘man-wolf’) If I were to turn into a were-collie, some morning of the full, collie moon, I might awaken with an urge to go on long runs in the woods, and chase a frisbee, and get my belly rubbed, and roll in dead animals, and have an odd fascination for sheep… Hey wait a second… Oh my God! I’m a were-collie… No, just kidding, that’s not true, I hardly ever roll in dead animals. On with the show!   About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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.  … Section one – Snow Running - http://runrunlive.com/snow-running   Voices of reason – the conversation Mark Agnew – Sports Journalist from Hong Kong Outdoor and Extreme Sports Editor Mark Agnew joined the Post in 2017 to capture the booming extreme sports scene in Hong Kong. He has been involved in outdoor and extreme sports his whole life. Since living in Hong Kong, his interest has expanded to endurance sports, including ultra-running and long distances ocean rowing. Areas of Expertise: Outdoor and extreme sports Languages Spoken: English     Section two – Positive Aspect-     Outro Ok my friends we have run up the side of Mt. Victoria through the end of Episode 4-445 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  We can take the tram down.  Got a lot of gear to review for you today.  First, I invested in a new pair of Hokas.  The Clifton 6.  These are road shoes.  I’ve worn them a couple times and I love, love, love them.  Haven’t done more than 8 miles but they are super comfy and easy to run in.  Second thing is I have been testing my new light.  Remember I told you about this light.  It’s the keyword rich one I got from Amazon for 24 bucks.  (big inhale) West Biking Night Running Lights, USB Rechargeable Chest Light with 90° Adjustable Beam Angle, 500 Lumens Waterproof Ultra Bright Safety Warning Lamp with Reflective Straps for Runner Jogger Camping (big exhale) Nabokov would not be proud.  It works great!  It’s USB, so no batteries and as long as you remember to charge it, it is super bright.  The main light sits in the middle of your chest like the headlight on a train and lights up the road or trail without you having to hold anything.  It’s got a red safety light on the back.  The main light can be tilted up or down and has two brightness settings.  I like the brightness and the hands free aspect.  The only thing I found that is minorly annoying is that since it is fixed, you have to turn your whole body if there is something not directly in front of you that you want to aluminate.  And since there is only one shoulder strap it tends to cant to one side a bit and you end up adjusting it every so often to bring it back to center.  The final thing was that pair of keyword rich gloves I got.  I’m using them but they are nothing special.  They’re not warm enough and I’ve already torn them during a fall.  Ollie and I have kept on exploring the trails in town and hooked in a couple new ones last week.  It’s fun to explore.  Now my other big news and where I’m going to blatantly ask for your help, is my new apocalypse podcast.  I’ve rewritten and added to the narrative of the old man in the apocalypse and created a new podcast called After the Apocalypse.  I’m releasing it as a serial.  There will be a new chapter each week and the whole season will be a coherent narrative arc.  This one is going up on a site called Acast.  I’ve put a trailer up as a place holder and the first episodes will be dropping in January.  If you go to you’ll be directed to the Acast site. I’ve hired a professional voice actor to be my narrator and it sounds great.  I had some artwork made and original music as well.  I’m really excited about this project. What I need form you is, when the podcast is live, go leave a review on one of the podcast sites, and share it with your friends.  I set up a Patreon page as well so if you’d like to help our survivors in the apocalypse you can go there and become a patron.  That’s . Stayed tuned for more, but I think this is going to resonate with fans of that genre.  And you might ask, “Hey Chris, don’t you have enough to do already?”  And you are right.  I have no excuse.  I am already too busy.  But, I listen to these athletes that I interview and they decide to do something.  To pitch their work a day lives and do something big.  Because they want to.  I wanted to do this.  So I gave myself permission to do it.  To do the best I can, maybe not be perfect, but to let myself go ahead and do it without expectation for the shear joy of it.  What is it that you always wanted to do but were too busy to do?  Or maybe you didn’t want to fail?  Or maybe you were afraid to succeed?  You’re not getting any younger my friend.  Pitch it all and do something you want to do.  You deserve it.  You’ve been a good soldier.  Now do something you want to do and make the world a better place because of it! I’ll leave you this week with a wonderful old anglo-Norman word.  Despair.  What does that mean? The prefix De is away or from.  Spair is from the old French meaning hope.  So Despair means to lose hope.  But, did you know that there is another form of this word, that is seldom used?  Respair.  Not kidding.  That’s a real word, even though Microsoft Word disagrees with me.  And of course it means to restore hope.  So use Respair in a sentence.  And I will see you out there! MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-444 – Tony runs LA with the podcast  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4444.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello and welcome to episode 4-444 of the RunRunLive podcast.  How about that?  4 – 444 Seems like that should be some sort of celebration… How many self-supported, amateur podcasts do you know of that make it to 444 episodes?  And that doesn’t include a couple dozen unofficial episodes! Coming up on 13 years in July.  If I have time I’m going to revamp the show.  Like everyone else I’ve got more plans than time.  But, in a perfect world I need to reformat the show, build out a home studio to finally get some decent audio quality and replace my creaky old website. I’m afraid to touch that website.  It’s a house of cards! I’m not thrilled with the idea of poking at it.  In the 12 years since we started podcasting the technology and the industry has changed and moved forward.  It’s time for me to catch up.  But not today! Today we speak with Tony, one of our loyal listeners from Las Angeles, the City of Angels.  Tony is a committed marathoner and a teacher in LA.  I wanted to meet and speak with him for a couple reasons.  First to see what the experience was like to binge listen through RunRunLive episodes but also to talk about how his discovery of distance running has influenced his teaching and life. In section one I’ll talk about another Apocalypse idea to keep your training fresh.  In section two I’ll talk about some yellow sticky notes you can use to survive another day in house arrest.  Ollie and I are doing well.  We had a nice long break over the US Thanksgiving holiday.  The holiday was Thursday and most companies take Thursday and Friday, which mine did.  I also took Wednesday as one of my Volunteer Days that the company wants us to use.  So a nice long, long weekend for me away from the zoom calls.  As you could probably hear in the last episode – I needed it! On my volunteer day I took Ollie and hiked two of the trails in town.  You’ll hear more about that epiphany in section two.  I cleared some trees and picked up some trash.  All in all I think it was 5 hours of hiking to get all the various little bits of trail covered.  It was great!  I did manage to break the haft off of the tang of my machete.  The reason I’m telling you this is that I like to use old words like ‘haft’ and ‘tang’ which are lovely old English words.  By old English I mean Germanic, Anglo Saxon, Norse.  Big hairy guys carrying spears and axes who knew their way around a haft and tang. “Break” is a lovely old English word as well.  And interestingly, you’ll find many of the English words that deal with violence are of Norse origin, which I’m pointing out so I can use the phrase “Homicidal Gingers” again.  But where would we be without words like berserk, ugly, muck, skull, knife, die and cake? … Thursday, Thanksgiving morning, Ollie and I met our running buddies to run the course of the Ayer 5K.  We got there for an 8:00AM start.  Played the anthem.  Then jogged the course.  Tradition!   It was nice. I actually ran everyday and if you include the trail hikes on volunteer Day I got 5 straight days in.  Which was s delight.  Since I was off from work I could go during the daylight.  Daylight is scarce right now in New England.  The sun comes up at 7:00 AM and sets at just after 4:00PM – so a scant 9 hours of daylight.  I’m feeling ok.  I little heavy from all the beer I’ve been drinking in lockdown.  I’m a bit achy from just the season and my age – but I’m getting out.  Whatever I choose to train for in the spring is going to be an effort.  Going to have to get my volume and speed back up and loose some weight.  … The season for me is still busy but not as bad as it was before the Thanksgiving break.  Most of my customers go into their busy season in December so I don’t hear from them.  Still, I know it is hard this time of year for many people.  Especially this year with the challenges of the apocalypse and other wackiness.  I would ask you to get outside yourself by trying to tune into others.  Reach out and ask people how they are doing.  Have that call with those people who need it, just to stay in touch.  Help someone out.  Give someone a compliment.  Do something for others.  And that will make you feel better.  Because we are social creatures.  On with the show,   About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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.  … Section one – Run every trail -   Voices of reason – the conversation Tony Martin – LA running and podcast bingeing   Brief bio: been a public high school teacher in South Central Los Angeles since 2007, been an endurance runner/student coach (for the LA marathon specifically) since 2012. As of 2012, have run around 60 full marathons, three 50ks, the San Francisco double marathon, currently leading in the "cannonball run" (virtual run across the U.S.). Sources of happiness are: noodling around on the classical guitar, prepping (and eating) vegan delights and, of course, all things running.    As far as any links, my social media presence is next to nonexistent. Best bet is to keep an eye out on the local roads, but don't blink ;)   Thanks again, Chris. It was truly a pleasure to meet you and honor to be on the show. -T   Section two – Sticky notes for the apocalypse-     Outro Ok my friends we have binge listened through to the end of Episode 4-444 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  That’s it.  No more left.  Time to move on.  Ollie and I have been exploring the trails around town on the weekends.  We went out on Saturday to a new trail. This one was called Mill Hill.  I had a plan.  Saturdays I do a lot of errand running.  I got up and wrapped Christmas presents I’ve been accumulating on line and packaged them up for shipment.  Went off to the post office to ship them before they closed at noon. Then did some yard cleanup.  Because – the weather was forecasted to be challenging.  We had a nor’easter roll through with rain and wind and snow.  I figured I could hit this park with Ollie on our way back from the dump.  I don’t mind running in a storm. Especially in the woods.  As long as you’re dressed for it it’s actually kind of fun.  So we stopped at this new trail section on the way back.  I figured we’d have it to ourselves because I’m usually the only one out in the woods running in a howling snow storm.  The park looked reasonably big on the web site so I figured we’d run a few laps and check that off for the day.  Turns out it was much smaller than it looked.  The whole loop only took me 6 minutes.  The Hill part of the description was accurate.  It’s basically a little hill and the trails climb and descend that steep little hill.  There are a couple picnic tables at the top.  Here I was looking for a relaxed ramble in the park and I ended up basically doing hill repeats in 4 inches of slush.  Ollie didn’t get it at all.  He was ambushing me and picking up big sticks to run between my legs with.  We ended up doing 16 hill loops of 90 feet of elevation or so.  In the storm.  Quite a work out. The other big news I have is that I’m making progress on my new podcast.  I’m targeting having it live in January.  After the Apocalypse is a serial podcast that tells the story of the survivors of a 21st century plague that has catastrophically wiped out 90% of human population.  Will they be able to survive?  What happens to our modern world when the great plague comes?  Can humankind survive and learn, or will it devolve into a dark age nightmare of our worst traits?  Listen to the story of After the Apocalypse and find out.  Ollie and I went out this morning for another run in the woods.  We didn’t get that much snow.  Mostly rain.  Under the trees it was maybe a couple inches.  Crunchy and crusty – not bad running.  Ollie hated it.  I think it hurt his feet.  We did 2 hours or so and then moved snow and ice for another hour and a half.  Explored a new trails system called Newtown Hill.  It was nice and nobody out there. Lots of trees and branches down from the heavy, wet snow.  I’m tired.  Such is life – Crusty snow, climbing hills and talking about the apocalypse. What more could you ask for? I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

One of my apocalypse stories.

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-443 – Chasing Summits with Gary Harrington  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4443.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Intro: Hello and welcome to episode 4-443 of the RunRunLive podcast.  I’m going to apologize in advance. I’ve been having a hard time staying positive these last couple weeks.  I think some of it is seasonal – maybe you have these blue periods as well.  And, of course some of it is the ongoing apocalypse and the level of uncertainty and weirdness in our worlds.  So – if any of that bleeds through, I apologize in advance. But, here’s the good news, being who we are, life-long endurance athletes of one form or another we are going to take this as an opportunity.  We are going to flip this on its head.  We, you and I, are going to ask better questions.  I don’t have all the answers, but we can as the questions and have the conversations with you and potentially together we can find some strategies to do better.  And at the end of the day, I guess that’s all we can really ask, right?  To do a little bit better.  So in today’s show we are going to talk to a fellow runner, ultra-runner and a peak bagger extraordinaire Gary Harrington about his book “chasing summits”, which on the surface is about climbing a bunch of mountains, but under the covers is about how Gary went from a divorced, struggling, overweight sports journalist to a guy who created a lifestyle of physical freedom, physical and mental health.  As is so many times the case in our journey here at RunRunLive, what we find is that the Running, the swimming, the hiking – they weren’t the point, they were they vehicle for the self discovery. In section one we’ll talk about how to address your sagging enthusiasm for running in the apocalypse.  In section two we’ll talk about strategies for creating freedom in your life. The last couple weeks have been up and down for me.  I’ve maintained my off-peak training schedule of getting out 3-4 times a week for a run with 2-3 core workouts.  I haven’t been really good at keeping up my yoga.  I’ve really lacked enthusiasm for the workouts.  Nevertheless, I have gotten some fairly pleasant long runs in the woods with Ollie.  There are a couple of compounding factors here.  First is that my 9-5 job has been mentally stressful and typically is more like 8:00 to 6:00.  By the time I role out of a day I’m exhausted and not feeling the workout.  And my workout are consistently pushed to the after work hours.  I could get out early but the sun doesn’t rise until after 6:00 so I’m in danger of missing those early calls.  I know, I know, I am the last person who should be in this position.  I literally wrote the book on how to train with a busy life.  But, there it is.  This is different.  Somehow the current house-arrest version of work combined with nothing to train for, makes working out feel kinda onerous and pointless. Humans, right?  Just when we need it most, our brain manufactures ways to make it hard.  The time change and lack of sunlight has been harder this year than previously.  I find that my eyes are really affected by staring at the computer all day and when I’m out in the woods I can’t see enough to manage the technical bits in the dark.  This leads to having to run constantly on guard, which is stressful, constantly tweaking my feet and ankles on roots and rocks and consistently falling down.  None of this creates the mental relaxation that I go to running and trail running for.  I can go on the roads, but then I’m dealing with traffic and the dog and it’s not the best. So, when I got back from running last night I ordered one of those chest-based lighting systems.  I’m hoping if I can light up the trails better it will take some of the stress out of it and open those low-light options up.  My current headlamp and hand held just aren’t cutting the mustard.  Ollie doesn’t seem to care about any of that.  He’s happy to go on the leash or on the trails.  He’s a year-and-a-half old now and there’s nothing I can do that is going to be beyond his ability.  He’s a horse of a dog and I really have to be careful and present with him on the leash.  If he decides to go ‘Call of the Wild’ on me I have trouble holding him.  But, I love him dearly.  Even when he ambushes me on the trails and takes a nip at me.  Last week we had a coyote come in close to the yard and just sit and watch.  Ollie was freaking out.  Hopefully it’s not a sick animal, they can be unpredictable.  I think Ollie could hold his own in a fight.  As a sheep dog it’s basically what he’s designed for.  But, I’d rather not find out.  See?  I told you I was in a dark mood.  Let’s turn up the lights a bit, shall we. Let’s talk about yellow sticky pads.  You know those little pads you can jot notes on and stick on the wall?  I had a couple days this week where I was walking into full days of calls.  Some with angry customers.  My first thought was “I so don’t want to do this today.” But I realized that I was going to do it no matter what so I might as well set the tone.  And if I was struggling to stay motivated then they were too.  So I decided to do one thing that was under my control and not worry about all the rest.  I decided to lead with joy.  To show up in each of those calls and demonstrate joy. Smile.  Ask them to smile with me and go about our business after we set that tone.  Because even if you are totally out of control, you can control how you show up.  It’s a choice. I wrote “J O Y !” in big, block letters on a stciky and stuck it to the corner of my monitor to remind me.  I ask you my friends; what would it take for you to show up with joy today, or tomorrow? On with the show! About Zero ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer is the leading national nonprofit with the mission to end prostate cancer. ZERO advances research, improves the lives of men and families, and inspires action. Link to my ZERO page: (for Donations) … 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 – 11 ways to rekindle your love for your sport in the apocalypse-   Voices of reason – the conversation Gary Harrington – Chasing Summits Garry Harrington hardly recognizes himself in photos any more. Staring down his fortieth birthday, he no longer looks like the collegiate athlete who once loved hiking and running. His dream job as a sports writer no longer holds the same thrill. As his marriage crumbles, he comes to the uncomfortable realization that something has to change before he loses himself entirely… On the trails of New Hampshire’s Mount Monadnock, he begins to feel it. Every heart-pounding slog up gets easier; every break on the summit feels freer, until he racks up 1,000 ascents. As he tackles harder trails in more distant locales, he sheds the life he thought he wanted in pursuit of something more. His journey takes him from the familiar peaks of his native New England to the foreign and famous—from the Rockies, to the high peaks of Mexico to Tajumulco Volcano, the highest point in Central America, continuing ever-onwards and upwards to the summit he’d dreamt of climbing since childhood—the Matterhorn. Harrington is in rarified company, completing not only the High Points in the continental U.S. but also one of a handful to have summited all 66 of the accepted 14,000-footers in the Lower 48 Harrington’s journey of self-discovery parallels the peaks and valleys of life and loss as he seeks perspective and purpose on the high points of the Americas and Europe. His path defies all convention and expectations—including his own—rarely leaving unanswered the echoing question: “What if?”   Section two – Van Life-   Outro Ok my friends we have vagabonded around the world chasing mountain tops to the end of Episode 4-443 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   So another name for the binge listening people is Michael.  I have known him for 5 years but apparently he went back and listened through the original 4 years for the start.  That’s not easy.  I am getting to the end of another podcast that I binged through while painting the house.  I’ll take any suggestions for something new and interesting in the history space. In related entertainment news I started watching the Walking Dead again and frankly the last couple seasons are non-interesting.  They always created tension by being willing to kill off main characters, even main characters you really liked.  The challenge there is that you are left with a bunch of secondary characters that just aren’t as interesting.  In the 2 days between writing the intro to this show and writing the outro my chest lighting system showed up. Along with a pair of winter gloves I ordered. I have not tried it yet but the lighting system has a white LCD light in the center of your chest with a red warning light on your back.  It is USB chargeable – so no more battery issues.  The waist band goes around your torso like a belt with the two lights, front and back.  There is a single shoulder strap that goes over one shoulder.  It’s a WestLight RunLight 5508 and I’ll et you know if it helps with my old eye in the woods.  It was $20 on Amazon. The gloves are a thicker winter glove.  My hands get really cold in the winter.  I misplaced the thicker running gloves I had so I ordered some new ones.  They are “Prodigen Outdoor Winter Gloves Touchscreen Running Warm Gloves” which is a keyword rich description.  It’s hard to shop for gloves on-line because you really can’t know how warm they are until you have them.  But these are cycling gloves so at least they’ll block the wind.  I’ll let you know but the feel good.  I should mention that it seems the number one requirement for gloves is being able to poke at your phone.  I have to confess that I seldom have a desire to poke at my phone in situations where I’m wearing those thicker gloves.  I guess it’s a nice to have.  And finally I bought some socks.  I am pretty hard on running socks.  I like the thin versions.  Typically my big toe pushes a hole in all but the most aggressive running socks.  I hold out as long as I can.  I put the side with the hole on the other foot or attempt a sew job.  But I was running out.  Again buying socks on the internet is hard because you can’t touch them.  So I just opted for a multi-pack of Saucony running socks called “Saucony Men's Multi-Pack Bolt Performance Comfort Fit No-Show Socks” – Again surprisingly keyword rich, but also there doesn’t seem to be a big need to poke at your phone with your toes – but that would not surprise me as the next generation.  I don’t know what the material is but they slip down inside my shoes when I’m running and I have to either deal with it or stop to pull them up.  They seem functional.  I’ll give it 6 months before I tear toe-holes in them.  But they are super comfy to wear around the office in the apocalypse.  Because no one wears shoes anymore in the apocalypse. Ollie Wollie is doing well.  He and I get out a couple times a week.  He’s still very energetic.  But, with both my wife and I home a lot he’s also learning to be more cuddly.  It’s hard for him, he’s not a hugger.  I was just out checking the mail and my neighbor stopped me to complain about barking.  Ollie does bark at the people in the woods a lot.  He’s just doing his job.  The neighbor said it was bothersome at 10 o’clock at night.  Which is impossible because neither Ollie nor I can stay awake past 9.  Taking a rest day today.  Well, working in the yard. Raking, cutting some wood.  But my knees were rather crunchy after my hill workout yesterday on the road.  I realized that my shoes were getting old.  I went and looked and as near as I can tell I bought those shoes in October of 2019.  So, I ordered some new Hoka Clifton’s.  I need to find something to train for.  I’d prefer it be something challenging so I could get some of the old fire burning.  Of course all the Thanksgiving races are canceled.  Victims of the apocalypse.  I’m not going to do the Groton Marathon this year.  It’s just another thing to worry about at the end of the year.  I don’t need any more things to worry about. This would be the perfect time to change routines and take up swimming or lifting but all the gyms are closed too.  I’m going to have to think about it.  I need something to motivate me.  I’m still plugging away at the apocalypse stories and I will drop them onto the RunRunLive feed randomly as I get them written.  I guess life right now for all of us is like that scene in the scary movie, maybe the zombie movie, where the protagonists have survived the initial disaster in one piece and are experiencing a relatively calm spot.  But, as we watch them recuperating and rebuilding their energy we know there are more bad guys hiding just around the corner.  And as the scary, ominous music builds, bah, dum, Bah, Dum! I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->