RunRunLive 4.0 - Running Podcast

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-434 – Your Training Plans with the Coach  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4434.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hey Folks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-434 of the RunRunLive Podcast. Today we have a long and thoughtful conversation with my coach about his new book that encapsulates his training methods. In the couple weeks since we last talked I’ve been ramping up my training a bit.  It’s gotten hot a few days now that we’re into summer up here.  But it’s still cool in the mornings. The deer flies are out in force as well.  It’s not terrible. With the heat and the bugs there are far fewer people in the woods to contend with.  We are going to talk about running in the heat in section one.  I’ve resurrected my old slant pack that can carry two bottles and I’m wearing that.  But more importantly it gives me a place to put the old iPhone 6 I’m using as an iPod.  That means I can stow a bottle, and the phone to leave my hands free to carry the leash.  And sometimes that leash has a crazy border collie on the end of it, so having both hands free is an advantage.  The heat slows him down a bit too. As for the flies I wear a bug hat – which is a contraption whereby you attach a bandana to the back of one of your running hats, Lawrence of Arabia style, to thwart the aggressive swarms that try to bite you in the head and face. Then I spray that with good old bug spray.  It works for the most part but you do get the occasional suicide attack in the eye or mouth.  I did manage to eat and swallow one today when I was out with my buddies.  If you want to see how to make a fly hat I think I posted a youtube video a couple years back on my channel cyktrussell.  Just search for ‘fly’.  You may get a video of me dancing to the Offspring’s ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’ – but probably not. Thank God there wasn’t ubiquitous personal video when I was growing up. In section two I’m going talk about bringing the energy.  This goes back to the message of controlling what you can control.   I’ve been getting my runs in like I said.  I lost a week to the sore back and that put me behind in my Virtual Race Across Tennessee.  I logged close to 40 miles this week so I’m clawing it back and should catch the buzzard if I can avoid any more injuries.  I’ve also been working in a bike ride a week in preparation for a group ride I’m hoping to host in July.  More on the in the outro. I did get my stand up desk.  I put it together this weekend.  It’s called an AirLift and I got it from Costco for $230.  So far so good.  I have a shoe site for you to check out.  I have held off buying a new pair of Hoka Trail shoes because they are so damn expensive.  Searching around a little for a shoe with a similar cushioning profile I found the Fresh Foam shoes from New Balance that seem to be pretty good.  It takes a couple runs for the foam to form to your feet, but then the ride is pretty good. I don’t need much shoe, but I still need the cushioning and the heel drop or I get PF and Achilles problems when I start loading on the miles.  Links in the show notes.  Take a look at Joesnewbalanceoutlet.com – all one word.  You can get some decent neutral cushion Fresh Foam shoes for $30-$40.  At that price, even if you can’t run in them you can use them for sneakers. I was coming back from a trail run with Ollie yesterday.  I was walking up my front walk.  I have a guy working on the house and he was sitting on a ladder there.  Of course I catch a toe and faceplant right in front of this kid.  I was checking texts or something. He says “Are you alright?”  I smile, brush off the dirt and say, “Yeah, I’m ok, I’m indestructible. 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 – Heat Advisory - Voices of reason – the conversation Coach Jeff Kline Team Prs Fit is a community of athletes from all over the world. We are a team. Alone or together, we strive and we conquer. Prs Fit lets you experience what we call community and social fitness – connecting and motivating each other through our one of a kind global community experience. No matter the weather, the circumstance, day after day, we provide a high quality training experience that produces results. Section two – Bring the energy  –   Outro Ok my friends we have run in a periodic progression of fitness through the training pyramid to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-434 Going forward I’ve adjusted some things.  I let Rachel know I’m going to stop tracking my nutrition.  I got down close to 170 and with the additional miles now I’m tracking very well to stay lean.  I don’t think of this as a particularly big adjustment because it’s my new normal for the past 5 or so years, but I was 10-15 pounds heavier before.  I’ve still got a little gut, but I feel pretty good at this size.  I just don’t’ want to track my weight every day during the summer. It’s summer! I want to be able to eat some of those summer things, in moderation, that I love.  I’ve also resurrect Fuji-san my 20+ year old steel racing bike and I’ve been getting some rides in. I’m trying to organize a group ride for charity in July. I’ve got a course that goes around the periphery of Groton that is about 40 miles which is about the right distance. Long enough to be a challenge but short enough not to be exclusive.  I’m still working out the details. I’m also setting my sites on running the Wapack Trail end-to-end and back around Labor Day.  I was waiting to see when the Boston virtual race would be held and maybe feed two birds with one scone.  But that would be in the mid-forties of miles.  It’s all technical, mountain running.  The 18 mile version takes me about 4 hours so this version will probably take 10 hours. If either of these things sounds like a fun adventure, give me a shout, I’d love the company. All the fall races are canceling now as well.  The only one I see that is still on is Marine Corp. Which, if we’re honest, is the worst marathon you should be holding in a pandemic.  It’s super crowded.  It’s all slow runners and new marathoners.  Everyone crams onto mass transit to get to and from it.  They canceled the Bad Water 135 which is a couple hundred ultra-fiends in Death Valley and they hold Marine Corp with 50,000 amateurs in the middle of a city? Anyhow, I’m good.  Still training.  Still working out of the house.  Albeit standing up more now.  I watched my way through Season one of American Gods.  I loved the book.  I finally broke down and bought the show.  It’s really good. I like Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday.  Which anyone with a working knowledge of the history of the English language can tell you which god he is.  My garden is coming along nicely.  This last few weeks of hot weather has kicked it into high gear.  Garden is the same word in French and English.  It comes from the Indo European root for the enclosure. It has the same root as guard and guardian. The same root gives us ‘yard’ in America. To take you out I want you to remember that as endurance athletes we are well equipped for the apocalypse.  Everyone knows good cardio is important during a zombie attack. Not only that, we trail runners are used to pooping in the woods – another valuable skill in the apocalypse.  So, just remember, if society fails into chaos you can always run away and poop in the woods. And I’ll see you out there. (Outro bumper) To take you out is Track number 13 from Brian Sheff The Rock Opera by - Called "Here, There and Everywhere." Enjoy   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-433 – Eric Runs Across Missouri  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4433.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-433 of the RunRunLive Podcast. Been a weird couple of weeks for me. I’ve been working out of the house, which I’m a bit used to, but the new bit is this part about being on video calls all day long for many days with no break.  It can be really exhausting.  I’ve got a guy replacing all the trim boards on my house over the last couple weeks as well.  So I’ve got him banging on the wall while I’m trying to talk to people.  Which is the new normal.  People just forget they’re on these calls and all kinds of crazy stuff goes on in the background.  Him ripping the boards off has disturbed the hornets that live in the eaves.  I had one wandering around my bathroom one morning.  And as much as I tried to avoid it, it ended up stinging me a little.  Hornets are ferocious little critters.  Bad attitudes.  Up here in New England the seasons have flipped and all is green.  The mosquitoes and ticks are out. I’m harvesting lettuce from my garden.  Good year for lettuce. Immediately after we last spoke I woke up with a back issue.  I don’t know what I did but my back locked up.  It’s a problem I’ve had before when I do too much snow shoveling or something like that.  It is very painful.  You can’t bend and it hurts to sit, hurts to walk, just hurts.  Your lower back is such an integral part of everything you do.  Got up the second morning of this and basically had to crawl on my hands and knees to the bathroom.  Went to my chiro on the third day and got some immediate relief.  It’s still pretty sore this week but I think that has to do with spending so much time in the chair.  I’ve started doing some of these meeting standing up, but you’re still constrained and hunched.  The end result was I took a week totally off from training and it was surprisingly relaxing.  Was a good break to reenergize and rethink what I want to do with my training and racing going forward.  I’m still on my nutrition plan and hovering around 170 pounds but I’m losing enthusiasm for it as we move into summer and all the good eats and drinks that are part of that! I’m back to running now and feel good.  I’m going to pivot to some longer trail based training.  I’m working on cooking up some events in the fall.  Today we talk to our old friend Eric who I ran Leadville with last year.  He did something amazing by running across Missouri on Memorial Day weekend. In section one I’ll talk about taking a week off.  In section two I’ll talk about some ways to recharge in today’s weird hyper-work world.  As I write this on a fine cool morning that looks like it will emerge into a humid summer day I’ve got a purple T-shirt on.  I have been wearing shirts with collars all week to try to look somewhat professional on the video, but this morning I saw a nice purple race T under the pile so I’m wearing that. Did you know that purple is the royal color?  It was a prized color in classical times.  The Greeks and Romans somehow figured out that a predatory land snail in Lebanon, that they called murex, secreted this color and they could make that into dye.  In the Eastern Roman Empire, what we would refer to as the Byzantine Empire, but that’s a construct of modern historians, they just called themselves Romans, anyhow, they referred to a person being of royal blood or royal pedigree as “Being born in the purple”.  Isn’t it amazing how we humans can make the leap from snail snot to justification of royalty?  We really do have an outstanding ability to make stuff up and believe in 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.  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 – A week off - Voices of reason – the conversation Eric Strand Section two – Recharge  – Outro Well, my friends, you have run across Missouri to the well-deserved micro-brewery that is at the end of the RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-433 – Thank you for your company! Alrighty.  So what now?  I have decided to pivot my training for the summer.  Instead of the holding pattern of marathon training I’m going to target some ultra-distance trail running and some casual bike riding.  For a few reasons.  First, because I’m feeling a bit too fragile with all this race-specific training and need to broaden up for a cycle.  Second, if any races are going to be run this fall, they are going to be longer, smaller trail races.  And, bike riding to get some cross training and most of the guys in my cohort can’t run as much anymore so Some casual bike riding is a good way to spend time with friends.   I’m contemplating organizing a Fondo around Groton with my running club for July.  And some dort of longer trail run, perhaps on the Wapack for Labor day, which, by the way would kill two birds with one stone by logging 26.1 miles of it for the virtual Boston. And I’m behind on my virtual race across Tennessee from taking a week off.  I’m 4 days behind, which isn’t much.  It’s only like 20 miles, but some longer sessions would help me get back in the hunt so I can finish before 8/31.  Eric, BTW, with all his shenanigans is finishing this week. OK – so those are my loose plans.  I’ll tell you a couple stories and a dad joke for Father’s Day and we can all get on with our lives. Switching back to the trails is good because I can take Ollie with me.  The challenge is he’s not leash trained yet, so he’s a bit of a nightmare to run with on leash.  With the Apocalypse the woods are just stuffed with cranky people and I unless it’s off-hours I have to put him on leash.  I have the standard 6-foot leash.  He goes right to the end of that and pulls.  No matter how much I correct him he’s constantly leaning on the leash.  It’s exhausting.  It’s also a bit dangerous because he stays right in my line of sight and occludes my line on the trails.  Makes it hard to carry anything in my hands with all the jerking about.  He won’t go near the ponds or lakes to get a drink because he’s decided he’s afraid of them.  He won’t drink out of my bottle, either, because he doesn’t trust me not to squirt him.  I’m gong to have to get some sort of collapsible dish for him that I can carry.  There is a boom population of rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks this year and he likes to take off after those as well.  Friday, when we were out, and he was on leash, a big snake ran across the trail in front of us.  I saw it and calculating its progress could see it would be well out of our way by the time our paths intersected and I didn’t bother to break pace.  We don’t have any poisonous snakes in New England.  Ok, technically there is an Eastern Timber Rattlesnake and the Copperhead viper, but those are both endangered and you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning.  Anyhow, Ollie saw that snake and jumped backwards, causing me to have to jump vertically to vault him.  It’s funny how the fear of snakes is so deeply ingrained in us mammals.  Lots’ of bad blood between us and the reptiles I guess over the millennia.  I had him out Saturday in the trails, mostly on leash and he was a nightmare.  You’d think he’d get tired of dragging my fat ass around after a few miles.  He joined me today for and hour and forty five minutes on a combination of rail trail and roads with my buddies.  I was on the rail trail around 7:00 AM.  I brought my old iPhone and my headphones, figuring I’d be all alone at 7 Amon a cool Sunday morning and could catch up on some listening.  I brought the extendable leash which I think is about 15 feet.  He pulls less on that one, probably because it has some built in resistance and partly because it gives him more line.  Because, you know, Apocalypse… I was to have no peace.  The trail was packed.  Bikes, joggers, walkers and some lady screaming into her cellphone in Spanish – it was like taking public transit on a Friday Afternoon when the Red Sox are playing.  I had to take out my headphones so I could hear the traffic or someone was going to die.  The new herd of Apocalypse bikers are not going very fast. Some are barely moving faster than my running pace.  Which is fine but it’s takes forever for them to catch you and pass you.  Especially if you’re trying to control a mental border collie.  If you’re a heads down cyclist training away at 20+ miles an hour in aero I would stay away from public rail trails for awhile. It’s a bit of a carnival.  And here’s your Dad joke for Father’s Day.  A hamburger walks into a bar.  He goes up to the bartender and says “I’d like a bowl of Chili please.” The bartender looks at him and says, “Sorry, we don’t serve food here.” Keep moving friends, It ain’t all bad, is it? I’ll see you out there.   (Outro bumper) To take you out is Track number 12 from Brian Sheff The Rock Opera by - Called "Hold on tight to your dreams" Enjoy   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

Folks, I am re-releasing episode 4-310 where I interviewed Bryan Lions so we could all hear his voice and listen to his story. Chris,   ... The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-310 – Bryan Lyons on Pushing Rick in 2015 (Audio: link) [audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4310.mp3] Link Intro Bumper: Hello my friends, this is Chris your host and this is the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-310.  Welcome.  We are in our final days of taper leading into the Boston Marathon.  I’m ready.  I’m right on my target race weight, I’m strong in the legs and I’ve done it a few times before. I’m starting from the back this year in the last charity corral.  It will take me awhile to get to the starting line and it will be crowded.  Looks like we’re getting decent weather, cool and rainy.  That’s actually my favorite racing weather. One of my friends from the running club is getting a limo to take a bunch of us out to Hopkinton on Monday morning.  There’s no checked bags from Hopkinton anymore so we’ll have to navigate the cool, wet weather on the morning with some throw away stuff.  There will be a wind.  I don’t know yet if it’s a head wind on not but as far back in the pack as I am there’s lots of shelter if you know what I mean. I don’t know if I’ll be carrying my phone or not.  I’d love to be unplugged but I don’t know how to get it into Boston otherwise without being separated from it for a day.  It turns out this new iPhone6 fits perfectly into one of those ½ size snack baggies and you can use the phone through the plastic. Today we have the great privilege to speak with Bryon Lyons who is taking over for Dick Hoyt in Pushing Rick this year.  It’s a long one, but’s that’s ok.  I think we cover some good ground. In the first section I’m going to muse on this year’s Boston from my perspective, as is my annual tradition. In the second section we’ll talk about how to use an external brain to get important stuff done. I’m good to go for Monday.  I have a red Team Hoyt singlet that I’ll probably put a long sleeve shirt on underneath because of the weather.  It’s also got some rough bits that I’d like to keep off my nipples! I still need to swing by Whole Foods and pick up some Hammer Gels for the race.  I tried to cook up my own energy gels from organic peanut butter and cocoa powder but it was a disaster.  It was like when you give a dog a spoonful of peanut butter and their mouth gets all stuck.  I’ll have to keep working on that.  Damn near choked me to death on my last couple long runs. We might go long today, but I’ll keep my comments short. On with the Show! Section one - Running Tips Tapering into Boston Voices of reason – the interviews Bryan Lyons From “Team Hoyt Racing at Boston With a Different Look For the first time since 1980, Dick Hoyt won’t run behind his son. But Bryan Lyons, a longtime supporter and runner, takes up the cause. By Liam Boylan-Pett; April 9, 2015 Rick and Dick Hoyt with Bryan Lyons Bryan Lyons (left, bib number 33864) at the 2014 Boston Marathon with Dick and Rick Hoyt. In 2014, Dick Hoyt completed the Boston Marathon for the 32nd time—each year pushing his son Rick, who’s a spastic quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, in a custom-racing wheelchair. After last year’s race, Dick wanted to retire. Rick, however, wanted to cover the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston again. He’s going to—this year with a new running partner. Dr. Bryan Lyons, a dentist in Billerica, Massachusetts, and a family friend of the Hoyts, will push Rick in the 119th running of Boston. “It was sort of shocking for [Dick] to ask me,” Lyons told the Lowell Sun. "My friends told me [the Hoyts] don't want the big name, they want the big heart. If that's the least that I can provide, I'm happy." This will be the seventh Boston Marathon for Lyons, 44, who has run for the Hoyt Foundation marathon team since 2008, with a best of 4:15:29, which he ran in 2010. Lyons does have some experience running with Rick, 53. Since January, the two have completed a few shorter local road races and gone on training runs together, according to the Lowell Sun. If Rick isn’t available, Lyons puts sandbags into the wheelchair to simulate his weight. Although Dick Hoyt, 74, won’t be running, he won’t absent from the marathon. He’s the race’s grand marshal, and will ride in a pace car ahead of the lead runners. The Hoyt’s story, chronicled by Runner’s World in 2007, has inspired many. Since 1977 when Rick asked Dick to push him through a 5-mile race, the father-son duo has completed more than 1,100 races, including Ironman triathlons. “Dick will continue to be at the head of the field, leading 30,000 runners on their trek to Boston,” Tom Grilk, Executive Director of the Boston Athletic Association, said in a press release. “Dick and Rick Hoyt will forever be synonymous with the Boston Marathon and the sport of running.” Now, Lyons’ name will be attached, too. Once Dick decided not to run, Lyons was an easy choice for the Hoyts. "Bryan will be out there, and he'll do his best, we know that," Dick Hoyt told the Lowell Sun. "He's a great athlete, a great person, and the type of person that we want to be pushing Rick. And Rick wants Bryan to be the one to do it." Section Two – Life Lessons Using an External Brain – Outro That’s it my friends.  Episode 4-310 in the can.  We’ll see what happens over the weekend.  I may do a race report or not.  It’s a lot of work to write something that I am proud of.  You don’t really know the appropriate theme until the race has been run, so you can’t prepare that much. I’ve got the Groton Road Race coming up on the 26th and we’ve still got shirts if you want to register.  We’d love to have you.  Then I’m going in to get my heart fixed.  Then…it will be summer time and the living will be easy. I was out in California this past week.  I flew out Saturday and came back on the redeye Tuesday night.  I was in Huntington Beach.  You may or may not know that Huntington Beach is known as Surf City USA. This is one of the centers of the surfing culture from Southern California. There are surf shops and beach cruiser bikes and classic cars cruising in circles.   It’s a surfer vibe. Sunday I was wandering around the resort, killing some time before dinner and ended up going into a surf shop, where they sell shirts, baggy shorts and flip flops to the tourists.  There were a couple young guys lounging behind the counter.  They were your surfer dude types.  Being me, I figured I’d chat them up. I say “You guys look tired and bored.” To which the one guy replies, “Yeah, we’re the surf instructors but they make us work in here.” And the other dude says, “Yeah, man, Long night, ya know?” I nod, as if I can commiserate. He thinks I don’t understand.  “I was up all night man, you know those Spanish girls…” I try to act like that’s something I can relate to as I stand there in my business suit and mid-life crisis look. He still thinks I don’t get it and says, “Ya know, man? The 6-2?” I agree and move on, wondering what the hell ‘the 6-2’ means. I tell the story to the guys I’m with and we come up with all sorts of theories around body type ratios and start-stop times.  We Google it but the urban dictionary, while having some fairly unsettling definitions, doesn’t quite fit. We spend the next couple days asking people and not getting any good answers.  I go back to the shop but the dudes aren’t working. At dinner that night I can see that the busboy is clearly a surfer dude cut from the same cloth.  I call him over and tell him my story in a conspiratorial and hushed way, finishing with the big question.  “What does ‘the 6-2’ mean? He says “Well bro, it’s kinda hard to explain…” I say “Just give it your best shot…” He continues. “Well it just mean he was tappin that shit all night long…” The mystery was solved.  That’s all it meant. There were not ratios or timing or measurements involved. Now you know.  You’ve got early access to some surf slang. I can see the ultra runners using this one.  How was the middle 50 miles?  “It was the 6-2, bro, all trail, all night…” With that I will leave you to your own adventures.  Don’t wait.  Step put the door and do it today.  There will never be a good or convenient time to do epic stuff. Enjoy your race. I’ll see you out there. Closing comments

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-432 – Running through the Pandemic  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4432.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-432 of the RunRunLive Podcast. How are you doing?  Really, how are you doing?  This is a powerful question.  I find myself slipping more and more into a coaching and advising role as I get deeper into my career.  And these past couple weeks I’ve found that to be a very useful and powerful question.  And a gift.  How are you doing?  Start your conversation by leaning into that zoom call, smiling, in a concerned way into that grainy laptop camera and asking ‘How are you doing?’ Then sit back and be prepared to listen, to be empathetic.  To nod understandingly.  That’s an enormous gift you can give these days. I’m doing ok.  I’ve been working on my nutrition still.  I’ve gotten close to 170 a couple days but keep popping back up to 175 ish as soon as I eat something.  It’s a bit frustrating.  I’m not getting enough miles in my training to move the needle.  We’ve got a good and timely show today.  I sit down with our friend Dr. Greg to talk about some practical strategies for coming out of the apocalypse.  In section one I’ll talk a bit about some strategies to turn all these nascent runners into life-long runners. In section two I’ll talk about made up things, probably also timely. So – they canceled Boston.  It had been rescheduled to September.  But, they sent an email to us yesterday that the race was being canceled.  It seems like you can get a refund and there is going to be some sort of virtual race, but it will take a couple days for all the details to be sure.  If you were paying attention you got to see Mayor Marty Walsh.  That is the face of every Irish politician in Boston right there.  May-yah Mahty.   That’s the face of the Statey at the airport waving you along.  ‘Yah can’t Pahk Heah!”, or leaning in your car window looking for ‘License and Registration’.  Anyhow… I was running on a charity bib this year, not sure how that works now.  I’m out of qualification.  Funny thing is that I’m in good shape.  I’ve got no injuries and have been basically training since December!  With my recent weight loss and nutrition I’m running fast, for me.  I think the only thing missing is a couple big volume weeks and I could race well.  I’ve been doing a lot of shorter tempo runs and have been hitting good paces even on my tired days.  I don’t feel like I’m in great shape.  I feel like I’m old and tired and slow.  My legs are achy and sore especially my quads on the uphills – but my tempo is in the mid-7’s – which is a minute off my PR’s from 20 years ago – but I only need an 8:13 to BQ. .  I am slogging away at the virtual race across Tennessee.  Falling behind as it were with my puny 30 odd miles a week.  C’est la vie.  Went for a bike ride yesterday.  Did about 26 miles in around an hour and a half.  Almost got decapitated.  True story.  I was rolling down this big hill towards the end of my ride.  Maybe going 20-25 miles per hour on Fuji-san, recovering from having just struggled up said hill.  There was a big construction dump truck coming up the hill in the other direction. You know the ones; used to carry great loads of dirt and rocks around from construction sites.  Now, our roads here is New England tend to be a bit rough towards the edges and I usually try to stay out of the gutter where the roughest bits are, especially when going fast.  I had looked over my shoulder and I was the only one on the road in my direction.  I was therefor riding out towards the center edge of the lane, keeping my eye on the truck as well because for some reason people sometimes drift over into your lane and I was not going to win that argument.  Apparently, this guy, and I’m sure it was a guy, had thrown some long lumber boards into the empty back of the dump truck.  I suppose when he started they were sticking out the back.  Those trucks are pretty bouncy and the lumber had drifted with the jostling and was sticking out of the truck sideways into oncoming traffic.  I’m not sure it was low enough to actually get me, but at the last second I ducked under it.  I felt a bit violated but not decapitated.  I’ll take violated over decapitated most days.  As I turned around to yell some salty language it did look like he was stopping to fix this potential pedalist guillotine.  That’s a story I’m not going to tell my wife.  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 – Advice for new runners -   Voices of reason – the conversation Greg Milbourne Dr. Milbourne is a licensed psychologist specializing in work with children, families, couples and adults across the lifespan. From retirement home residents coping with end of life issues to an office practice helping families, couples, adults and children, Dr. Milbourne focuses on obtaining and maintaining good physical and mental health. “

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-431 – Liz Warner – Running Adventures  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4431.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-431 of the RunRunLive Podcast.    I know, I know, I’m a few days late…  I’m going to be honest with you.  I just wasn’t motivated to produce this past weekend.  Just wasn’t.  My strategy is to spread out the production tasks throughout the week so when I get to the microphone it’s only a couple hours of work.  When I don’t do that it takes a good chunk of a day to pull it together.  I just didn’t have the energy.  Wasn’t motivated.  Hey, I’m just a average guy like the rest of ‘em and sometimes I run out of mental energy.  Truthfully when that happens the product quality starts to suffer.  I’m guessing there’s only a few of you die-hards who even noticed I missed my publishing window! You’re waiting until your weekend run to listen anyhow, right? So, I have recharged the batteries, grabbed the loose threads, gathered up the sundry pieces of episode 4-431, swept them into a slightly greasy bin, and will present them here for you today!  Today we have a good show for you.  I’ve got an interview with Liz who is finishing up her  ‘run 30 marathons before her 30th birthday’ project.  I was really impressed by her sense of adventure and hopefulness.  It’s a refreshing attitude.  It’s empowering.  I enjoyed talking to her.  And indeed, she is running to empower women in many places around the world that would seem sketchy and dangerous to most people, let alone a young woman.  I’m glad to have been able to talk with her. In section one I’ll talk a bit about how to mix in some hard effort sessions into your stale old training.  I’ve been doing this and enjoying it. In section two I have a piece on consumer buying trends that I’ve been thinking about.  I left the old man and the Amazon out in the Apocalypse for now.  I have been doing some writing but haven’t gotten back to that.  If you’re new, I’m talking about an apocalyptic story series I’ve been doing for the past three episodes.  I’ve got some ideas, but I have to find the time.  I think it would make a great serial podcast.  I would be the narrator and we’d assemble voice actors for the parts of the story.  If you’re interested in any of that reach out to me and we’ll have some fun. And if you’re new, this is the RunRunLive podcast.  I’m up to 431 official episodes across 12 years and 4 iterations.  60ish marathons, ultramarathons, mountain bike ultras, Triathlons, a Spartan beast and sundry other fun stuff. We talk to interesting people about endurance sports. We try to have some helpful tips for our endurance athlete friends and we muse on different things that might be interesting to think about while you’re out in the woods with your dog on a long run. It is still the apocalypse here where I live in New England.  My family is safe and I’m still safe.  I haven’t traveled since March and I’m getting a bit of cabin fever.  It’s a bit like Groundhog Day. I’m still training, even though all the races have been canceled.  Well, I should say all the physical races have been canceled.  Humans being humans we are creating a basket full of virtual races to run.  I have signed up for a couple.  Currently I’m running the that of Barkley Marathon fame is putting on.  And I’ll link to all this stuff in the show notes.  He has 18,000+ people signed up from around the world.  That’s over a million bucks in race fees.  My ultra-running friends wouldn’t stop pestering me – so I singed up. It’s all those anarchic ultra-runners. The first day someone ran 84 miles.  We’re 13 days in and someone already finished the 1,000K.   I’m not doing anything special to try to keep up.  I’m not sure I have the mileage right now to make 1,000 Kilos by the end of August.  I’m actually pretty sure I don’t.  I am logging my  1.2 mile morning walks with Ollie the Collie, because according to the rules it counts.  I signed up for another one  which again, I’m probably not going to bust out a 5K alone for fun, but I want to support people in need.  Jerod Ward and Mollie Huddle are running that one. You, my friends, if you’re able, should sign up for some sort of virtual event.  Even if you don’t want to do the event.  Sign up and lend your weight to the sense of community around the race and your shekels to the charity involved.  It’s an easy way to stay involved and contribute. I’m not big on virtual races.  I’ve spent so much of the last 20 years training alone.  I don’t care about t-shirts and medals.  When I race, I care about how I feel and how I compete.  I don’t get that same juice from running by myself.  For me, that’s called ‘Wednesday’.   Close your eyes and join me.  It is a cold morning with the chill of a mist in the air.  The sun is just starting to creep up over a still cold lake nestled in the shoulder of a mountain.  You feel the thrill of the crowded starting line.  Nervous, fit, humans shuffle dust in the dirt road.  Murmurs and stifled laughs fill the background and there is an electric sense of energy.  Like the opening of mass at a great cathedral a hush comes over the throng.  A runner steps forward.  She launches into the national anthem.  Starting out low and haunting like the bugles before a pitched battle and cresting high and brave like a waving flag of freedom.  A large, gathering voice lashed across a sea of energy.  You don your hat, wipe a tear from your eye, and wait for the gun and the surge.  And then, you see, you are out there… 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 – Some high Intensity - Voices of reason – the conversation Liz Warner Run to Reach - Tackling 30 of the world’s toughest marathons for women’s organizations around the globe Runner and philanthropist Liz Warner is taking on 30 of the world’s most challenging marathons, reaching 30 different countries before turning 30 in June 2020. Covering 786 miles, Liz is set to raise $100,000 for women-focused organizations in the final 20 countries, as well as to highlight on a global scale the efforts of each incredible organization and the strong communities, natural beauty and rich culture that each country holds. In It For The Long Run  Marathoner Liz Warner launched Run to Reach in early 2019, marking the beginning of a whirlwind 18-month international fundraising initiative that will see her face 30 marathons across the globe and partner with 20 local NGOs. Each one empowers women in its community to become independent, take control of their futures and fight in the face of vulnerability and discrimination. As the year’s end approaches, Liz is over two thirds into her challenge, with races taking her up active volcanoes in Guatemala, through refugee camps in Western Sahara, and across glacial lakes in Mongolia. For the last series of races, Liz will venture to far-reaching and diverse destinations, like the central highlands of Afghanistan, into the depths of small villages in Somaliland and through the rolling foothills of Mt. Everest. With every inspirational story encountered, Liz has pushed the Run to Reach mission to go even deeper. Through this project, Liz hopes to tell a story of each nation that brings to light a positive narrative in the face of challenging situations and stigmas. Race after race, it has only become clearer that the heart of each country’s promise of prosperity and equality comes from the empowerment and enablement of its women. Now with a clear focus for the last of the Run to Reach marathons, Liz hopes to drive relentlessly the success of each organization she engages with. “I’ve participated in numerous marathons and fully believe in the potential of the running community to make an incredible impact on the planet. I am firmly convinced that our collective impact, linked together, can be exponentially more powerful and change the world we live in today. Through Run to Reach, the organizations I have chosen to work with are strong examples of empowering global women communities.” Whether it’s transforming education facilities in local towns and villages or providing women with the resources they need to become leaders of change, I want Run to Reach to enforce change across the world. Section two – Consumer Trends  –   Outro Well, my friends, you have run through the deserts, oceans and jungles of this mad world to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-431.    Good to spend time with you. Well, my friends, you have run through the deserts, oceans and jungles of this mad world to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-431. Good to spend time with you. I'm glad I delayed this episode for a week.  It gave me a chance to read through the pieces and edit them.  Usually I'm a write straight through and don't worry about editing guy. The funny thing is, whether you believe it or not, I care deeply about doing a good job.  Not just here in the podcast, but in everything I do.  It causes dissonance in me to have to rush through and do things in a slipshod way. And that's not the way I want to tell my story. Research has connected the dots between why affirmation works in some cases and not in others.  It has to do with whether or not you actually believe the affirmation. What does this mean? It means the story you tell about yourself is important. It also means the way you tell it is very important.  And it means you must believe that story. You can repeat whatever positive mantra you want over and over while gazing at yourself in the mirror, but it won’t improve your performance or your life unless you believe it.  You can’t trick yourself into believing. Affirmation, whether internal or external works when it is grounded in what we believe to be our true selves. We all know what our strengths are.  Those are the bedrock of our beliefs. When you can understand and articulate what your strengths are it gives you an anchor.  Rooted to this anchor you can clear your way through the noise of inputs and outputs and set a path that is true to you. Take a moment of quiet today and write down what you are proud of, what you are good at, and what you are passionate about. Then use that statement of strength to tell your story.  Not just to yourself, but to everyone else. Thanks for listening. Chris, And - I’ll see you out there. (Outro bumper) To take you out is Track number 10 from Brian Sheff The Rock Opera by - Called "Searching for so Long" Enjoy   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-430 – Amanda Conditioning Versus Form for Injury Prevention  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4430.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-430 of the RunRunLive Podcast.    Here we are, still in the apocalypse.  Hope everyone is doing ok. I’m cycling between busyness, weirdness, sadness and gratitude. How are you doing?  This week was Patriot’s Day and would have been the Boston Marathon.  Weather was good for it too.  My buddies went out Sunday and ran a bit of the course, but I demurred.  I took Ollie and did a 17ish mile long trail loop around my house.  I just felt like I needed that.  Took me about 3 hours.  Ollie was exhausted and slept all day Monday.  Before you call the SPCA on me, I stay on the trails with him and he’s only got to keep up with my casual trial pace – so other than the 3 hours it’s a low effort affair for him – literally a walk in the woods.   He sleeps most days while I’m working. I’ve been getting him out on base building runs about 3 days a week and I take him with me.  These are all in the trails behind my house and we typically do 7ish miles or 1:20ish and that takes the edge off of both of us for a day.  On the days when I’m not running, I get up early and take him for a walk of the 1 mile loop in the woods.  He really enjoys this, and it gives him a chance to vent some energy.  He’s going to go nuts when I start traveling again. Today we chat with Amanda about injury diagnosis and prevention.  She’s got an interesting take on how runners should focus on strengthening their core primarily to run better.  In Section one I’ll give you a quick primer on how to build your own core routine.  It’s not rocket science.  Or, if you prefer an amusing malaphor,  ‘It’s not rocket surgery…’  In section two, by popular demand we’ll check in on our apocalypse friends who we left stuck on a barn roof.  I have to thank you folks for forcing me to keep the story going.  I’m very good at 1500 word pictures.  Not so practiced at stringing them together into cohesive stories.  Here’s what I plan to do.  I’m going to take this storyline out of the RunRunLive podcast and move it to another place.  Maybe I’ll set up a podcast feed for it.  But, mostly I just want to figure out what the bigger narrative is and see if I can pursue that.  Thanks for the help and stay tuned for details. Today would have been the Groton Road Race.  We had potentially postponed it to the fall, but we met this week and decided to cancel until next year.  It’s the right thing to do.  I went out with Frank and Brian and we ran the old 10k course, then ran the regular 10k course, for the most part.  The word ‘Apocalypse’ is a Greek word that apart from our current usage originally meant revelation, uncovering, and discovery.  And I think that’s a lesson for us here.  As cheesy as it sounds this is an opportunity for you and I to take a deep breath, to uncover and discover, to realign with our families and ourselves.  Take it easy on yourselves though.  I’m finding myself feeling guilty for not getting more done.  There is no reason for that.  Celebrate your wins.  There’s always going to be an infinite number of things you don’t get done.  Do the best you can.  Make progress.  You can’t achieve perfection.  Just make progress.  Do the best you can.  As we settle into this change, remember it takes 20+ days to burn in a new habit.  What better questions can you be asking?  What better things can you be doing?  What small habits of kindess, empathy and thoughtfulness can you use this episode of discovery to begin or learn? We’re all stuck on our roofs with a hungry lion prowling, aren’t we? 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 – Core -   Voices of reason – the conversation Amanda Regnier Hi Chris, Thank you very much for having me on your podcast yesterday - it was fun!  As requested, I have attached a photo of myself.  In terms of a bio: I am a Calgary based strength and conditioning coach, with a specialization in endurance running.  Although I have competed at a national and international level in triathlon, I am not a natural athlete.  Being naturally un-athletic has inspired me to take a deep dive into the science behind endurance performance, to coach myself and my athletes to reach their full potential.  As new science becomes available, I like to share this through various platforms such as my website runningwithregnier.com in the "Running Science" section, social media (@RUNNINGWITHREGNIER on instagram), live presentations in the community and my podcast "Performance Running Podcast" available on iTunes and Spotify. Amanda Regnier MSc. Strength and Conditioning, C.S.C.S Endurance Performance Specalist/ Coach Section two – After the Apocalypse #4  –   Outro Well, my friends, you have fixed your core strength and your knee feels better and you have limped to the end of another RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-430.  I’ve got nothing on the calendar race-wise now, which I find utterly disturbing.  I’ve still got my eye on a July race.  I think the next 2-3 weeks will resolve some things.   I wouldn’t be surprised if they canceled the Boston race or changed it to be just the elites.  My nutrition project is going fairly well.  I’m cooking more and I’m off the beer and bread.  I haven’t dropped a ton of weight but I’m feeling healthier. I’m about 10 pounds lighter.  I’m off the beer.  I have good energy and no real aches or pains.  I’ll give you a couple of simple healthy cooking tips, although I have no right to do so.  I have a big cast iron skillet that I use.  The company that makes those, by the way is Lodge and they are in Tennessee a couple miles from Tim’s house.   It is great for simple, 1-pot meals.  You can take any vegetable.  Broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage and make a nice, filling sauté.  First, heat that pan up pretty high, put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in, dice up a couple garlic cloves and some onion.  Cook those, while stirring until they turn translucent. Will make your house smell great.  Throw your veggies in cover for a couple minutes.  Pour in a cup of broth, shake on some kosher salt, add a couple shots of soy sauce and you’ve got the same veggies you would get from a Chinese restaurant in the US.  You can even eat them with rice.  I’ll give you another, even simpler, cooking hack.  Spices.  Yep.  You can use the same basic spices to make anything taste better.  It doesn’t matter whether you’re making.  If you’ve got any friends from southern Asia have them spice shop for you.  Let’s say you have chicken, doesn’t matter if it’s wings or breasts or whatever.  Take a teaspoon of the good salt, a teaspoon of pepper, a teaspoon of paprika and, let’s say some cumin.  It doesn’t’ matter, you will figure out the ratios, the spices and the amounts that fit your pallet.  I tend to go  heavy on the cayenne pepper.  Take all these spices and combine them. If you happen to have a mortar and pestle, that’s the perfect tool to crush them all together.   Did you know the mortar and pestle is one of the oldest human tools?  Goes all the way back to the stone age.  Mortar comes from the Latin mortarium and is a receptacle for pounding.   Same word gives you the mortar you put on bricks and the mortar board you wear to graduation, if graduation wasn’t canceled. Pestle, uninterestingly, comes from the Latin pistilium, and simply means a tool for pounding. And unfortunately has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘pistil’ which is the reproductive organ of a plant, nor any of the P-words we use for reproductive organs.  Pestle isn’t even related to ‘pistol’, even though I think it should be, ‘pistol’, they think originated from the name of a town in Italy where they apparently made pistols in medieval times.  With all the several thousand bags of crap my wife has carted home from the Christmas Tree shop over the years, ironically I don’t own a pestle, or a mortar.  So I used a small bowl and the head off a small wooden hammer that I brought back from a vacation to Ocean City any years ago and was originally used to  violate soft shelled crabs.  Soft shelled crabs, by the way, are typically very spicy.  You grind your chosen spices together.  Put your chicken or whatever else it is you want to spice into a bowl or bag.  Pour in a glug of olive oil.  Throw in your ground spices.  Mix thoroughly.  Bake in the oven.  That’s it. Sweet tasty food without any fattening cheese sauce from a bottle that any dummy with a pestle can make. Do you feel more capable of facing the apocalypse now?  OK then,  I’ll see you out there. (Outro bumper) You’re not getting off that easy. There are 20 tracks on Brian Scheff, the Rock Opera by The Nays.  Here’s Number 9 – Called Casino.  All music can be found at their website   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-428 – Talking Poop with Rachel  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4429.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-429 of the RunRunLive Podcast.    How’s everyone doing?  I’m really busy.  I’m just about 4-months into my new job and I’m at that point where I’m expected to be production but still don’t really know anything.  There will be some friction for me as I get up to speed.  But, hey, I’m lucky to have a job, right?  Today we have a fun show for you.  Rachel, my long-term nutrition coach, and I talk about poop.  She wanted to talk about poop.  Who am I to argue?  My inner 9-year-old enjoyed it immensely.  I wasn’t sure how it would come out, so to speak, but my editor in Moscow, Dimitri, said he enjoyed it.  Apparently he survived his holiday, which is a good thing. I finished my reading of the Princess Bride into audio / video last night.  You’ll find a post with all the recordings on my website if you’re interested or your kids are.  It’s an interesting thing.  I had never read the book before.  I now appreciate the movie even more. Most of the time when you hear that they have one of your favorite books into a movie you know that they are going to screw it up.  Most of the time they do.  But, in this case, I think the movie was actually better than the book.  The movie grabbed all of the good parts of the book, lifting dialog verbatim.  It really does the story justice while treading lightly around the story within a story about a story metaphor that the author seems to delight so much in the book.   There are whole extra chapters in the book that add no value, and I skipped.  The movie does a great job with casting form the vacuous princess to Andre the Giant as Fezzik.  Great choices.  The movie walks that line between story and parody adroitly.  I’ll have to go back and watch it again. Maybe it’s on Netflix or Prime.  But, you know the rule, “If you really want to watch it, it isn’t on Netflix.  It took me 19 sessions of 15-30 minutes each to get through the book.  Call that about 8 hours.  Certainly you have eight hours to read to your kids in a month and build some lasting memories? My training is going fine, but we’ll talk more about that later.  In section one we’ll talk about a new way to think about hills.  In section two, even though I was ready to abandon the old man to the apocalypse, I will continue that story, after much prodding from all of you.  I’m well and my family is well.  I was getting quite plump when Rachel and I spoke.  I hadn’t planned on it, but was inspired by our conversation to take the reigns back in had on my nutrition.  I got to the point where it I was doing stuff I’d never do, like eating two big servings of ice cream or drinking beer every night.  I had a noticeable roll growing around my middle and my clothes were starting to complain.  So I’m a week in and have dropped 5 pounds and feel better.  I’m working with Rachel. The best thing she does for me is to give me dinner recipes.  I’ve been cooking almost every night.  It’s kinda fun.  I usually post a picture on social media if you want to play along. How’s Ollie Wollie? He’s a tank.  I was going to write a children’s book series about him.  You know, “Ollie Wollie the Collie knocks little Billie down and bites him til he bleeds…” “Ollie Wollie the Collie rolls in Horse poop, eats it and throws up in little Billie’s bed…” “Ollie Wollie the Collie shreds Billie’s homework, for real…” 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 – Hills again -   Voices of reason – the conversation Rachel Shuck Rachel Shuck is a board certified nutrition coach with a passion for running and all things fitness. She specializes in coaching endurance athletes through her company nextlevelnutrition.fitness, additionally she teaches nutrition at the local college while pursuing her doctorate in clinical nutrition. Rachel is certified with the International Sports Science Association and the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Association as well. Her personal journey began with running 5k’s and being at the back of the pack, to running marathons and becoming a two-time Boston Qualifier. Along her decade long path of coaching runners she found a true passion for teaching people proper nutrition to fuel for optimal performance. Rachel’s articles and videos have been featured in Mind Body Green, Personal Growth, and  the Livestrong website, as well as local news shows covering health and fitness.   Section two – After the Apocalypse #3  –   Outro Well, my friends, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go – to the  through the end another RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-429.  Well, the woods behind my house continue to be a superhighway.  I feel a bit violated.  Last week I looked out the window and there was a Shetland pony in my back yard.  Just passin though… My wife just looked out and a woman was walking through our back yard.  As Ollie and I left the trailhead in my yard Friday afternoon an official type gentleman pointed at Ollie and said, “New town law all dogs have to be on leash.”  The trees are pinned with notices.  I thanked him and we kept going the 20 feet to my driveway.  Maybe this is my Thoreau moment for a little civil disobedience? Buddy and I made these trails.  I feel as if I’ve lost something.  My race in June got canceled.  That’s it.  Nothing to train for except Boston in September.  Boston in September means you’ll be hitting the high-volume weeks of your cycle in August when it’s very hot and humid.  Maybe it’s time to take up golf. I did see there’s another, similar race to the tunnel marathon in Washington in July.  Maybe I’ll run that instead.  Same mildly downhill course on a dirt road.  My kind of course.  I’m sure you are all fighting and surviving and working with the current situation.  It’s odd.  It’s scary.  I’m also sure you’ve seen the advice.  Primarily the advice you need is to take care of yourselves.  Especially take care of your mental health.  Be choosey about what you let into your brain.  Lay off the negative social media and the news.  Your brain is very much a programmable computer and what you allow in influences what you get out.  Don’t load it down with fear and anxiety.  Stand guard.  Be mindful. Remember the power of now.  Don’t get lost in worrying about things that could happen or might happen.  You can’t control that.  Focus on now.  What do you have now?  What can you do now?  Be mindful.  Make sure you’re telling the right stories. I watch the local network news occasionally.  I had an odd thought tonight.  As they were reading out the body counts I was reminded of how they used to read out the body counts on the nightly news during the Vietnam war.  Yes, I’m that old, I was a kid at the time.  It was like the scores to a game.  Every night.  The news and the nation were addicted to those numbers and lost sight of so much else.  Not our finest hour. So be careful with what you let into your mind.  Focus on now.  Do what you can and take care of yourself. And I’ll see you out there. (Outro bumper) Track  #6 from Brian Scheff, the Rock Opera by The Nays, She’s a lonely girl, Frank told me last weekend when he, Brian and I were out on a social distance run that all these songs are available on iTunes.  So go buy a couple, music will keep you sane in the apocalypse. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-428 – Matt Fitzgerald – Training with the Pro’s  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4428.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-428 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   So here we are in the apocalypse.  How’s everyone doing?  These are interesting times.  That’s a trick of modern English.  Whenever we don’t want to say ‘bad’ we say ‘interesting’ like somehow we are just observers in the soup? Took me until today to get this show out.  Not because I don’t have time.  Not because I don’t have ideas and content. Not because I have technical issues.  No, just lacked basic motivation over the last couple days.  Been watching low quality TV, eating poorly, playing some my online zombie game…you know, super adult and productive! It’s ok to take a day or two off but don’t let these doldrums turn into patterns or new habits.  Now is a good time to start new habits.  An excellent way to kick out of a malaise is to do a fixed program – like a 10-day meditation challenge or a 20-day plank challenge.  Or a daily journaling challenge. I’ve kicked off a couple new projects this week.  First is I’m reading the Princess Bride into audio for 20-30 minutes every day and posting it on my web site.  I figured if I could read to my kids when they were young, I can read to everyone’s kids.  You can find the current nine reading sessions on my website under Story Time.  I also got asked by some folks to participate in a group story telling event for the Chicago Area Running Association.  That’ll be a live Zoom meeting Wednesday night of this week. My work is super busy.  My training stepped back to just some easy runs and one crazy HIT workout this week. These HIT – High Intensity Training workouts are something you can do from your house.  You can look them up online or just make them up.  The basic form is a short sprint followed by some high-intensity exercises.  For example; go out your front door and sprint 100M out and back, then do 10 fast pushups, 10 fast crunches, 5 pullups then sprint again, 3 more exercises, sprint – you will be gasping like a fish out of water.  Definitely a change in pace for me who’s been doing mostly easy trail runs.  The entire world is marching through my woods these days as well.  I know they’re bored, but I feel a bit violated.  Buddy and I cut those trails 20 years ago.  Now I’m shoulder to shoulder with the hoi polloi in my happy place.  I have to go out at dawn if I want some peace.  Today we have a great interview with old friend and running journalist Matt Fitzgerald who is publishing a new book this month called Running the Dream where he executes all of our adult fantasies and lives and trains as a professional with a professional team for a race.  It’s a great read and gets my thumbs up. In section I’ll give you a the results of a Q&A I did on Facebook which may or may not be useful.  And is section two a follow-up apocalypse story from the same universe I created last episode.  Having fun with this.  Maybe this is the book I was looking for?  … Had a nice outing with Ollie on Friday night.  Coach gave me a day off on Saturday and I was super sore from that HIT workout on Thursday so I figured I could go out late.  The day got away from me from the start.  The dog woke up early, like 5:30 and after I let him out to pee, I laid down on the couch.  Ollie climbed up on the back of the couch and fell asleep sort of sitting on me.  Next thing I know it’s 7:30. Missed my 7:00 AM call.  Took Ollie for a walk and went to work on the back to back calls and deadlines feeling unmotivated.  But, I dropped that 2-hour run on my calendar for 6:30 PM.  I didn’t even come close to completing everything that was due or catching up.  But, at 6:30 I grabbed my new headlamp and Ollie and headed into the woods. Technically the sun set at 7:00.  But, as a trail runner you start to understand the relationship between sunset, weather and having enough light to see.  It was a clear and beautiful day.  Without cloud cover you get another 30 minutes or so of residual light after the sun sets.  Ollie and I set out into the woods.  The melt is on now and there’s plenty of mud to deal with.  There’s a spot out on the trail about 3 miles out where we run along the edge of the pond.  There’s the remnants of a cottage and a break in the bushes where their beach used to be.  I set my sites on getting to this spot before the sun was totally gone to get a photo. I’ve taken to stopping here and taking the same photo from the same place to mark the passing of the days and seasons.  I stand on the same stone and frame the same tree and get the same photo.  I wasn’t sure this one would come out.  The sun had set 10-15 minutes before.  But it came out beautifully.  I arrived right at that point when you have to switch the headlamp on.  It’s a hauntingly beautiful shot.  It’s a shot in the moment.  That peaceful glow of a setting sun.  That slight ripple from the paddling of unseen ducks in the shadow. The water black and smooth.  The tree starkly silhouetted against it all.  That moment of peace and beauty was there whether or not the work got done.  That beauty was there whether or not the apocalypse raged.  That beauty and peace is still there.  I just wasn’t looking for it.  What are you focused on?  Your beauty and peace is still there.  Everything else is just made up.  Own your focus. 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 – Ask me a question about running - Voices of reason – the conversation Matt Fitzgerald Hi Chris, Cover image attached. It's a 3D conversion. I don't seem to have a straight front cover image, but Jessica can supply that, along with the jacket copy. Here's a link to the book page on the publisher's website (which, I'm just now seeing, does NOT have the correct jacket copy!)   Matt Fitzgerald is an acclaimed endurance sports and nutrition writer and certified sports nutritionist. His most recent book, Iron War, was long-listed for the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year, and he is the author of the best-selling Racing Weight.Fitzgerald is a columnist on Competitor.com and Active.com, and has contributed to Bicycling, Men’s Health, Triathlete, Men’s Journal ... And here's a link to my website (which does): Let me know if you need anything else. Thanks! Matt Fitzgerald Author of    Section two – After the Apocalypse #2  – Outro Well, my friends, another week, another episode and another opportunity.  You have run like a pro through the end of yet another RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-428 done and down.  Go get Matt’s book – I think you’ll like it.  By the way, shout out and thanks to Carlos the Jackal for doing the edit on this interview.  My normal editor Dimitri from Moscow was on holiday.  Hope he’s not on a cruise.  I’ve started a new hashtag - #longsongsfortheapocalypse – these are all those great 10 minute plus jams that I listen to in the background while I’m writing.  You can find them on my facebook feed. Well, I’m still training.  My A race in June hasn’t gotten cancelled yet.  I was going to cobble this race trip together with a Vancouver vacation with my wife – but she is making noises like there’s no way she’s getting on an airplane with me in June.  I haven’t made my travel plans yet.  Maybe this will become one of those in-and-out guerilla marathon tries that my races always seem to devolve into. My friend running buddy Frank, yes the drummer for the Nays, is making noises like he might come.  He was training for Vermont and that got pushed.  It’s going to be a full fall with all the races moving.  It will be interesting. You’ll have twice as many races with the same number of runners. This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for a lot of races.  We’ll see some consolidation.  We’ll see that same consolidation and aggregation across industries.  The small and fragile will get washed out and the big and strong will invest and get bigger. It’s the cycle of life, I guess.  The thing is this type of forest clearing creates the next wave of growth.  When businesses see a contraction like this it creates thousands of entrepreneurs for the next cycle. Ollie is being Ollie.  He’s a nut.  He’s so strong.  We’re working it out.  He’s been good interacting with all the new people on the trails.  He doesn’t attack them. He immediately defaults to submissive with other dogs.  That’s good because I don’t’ think I have the upper body strength to run with him on leash all the time. Sorry for getting this one out a little late.  I appreciate you.  I am quite thankful to have you in my life even if it’s a one-way relationship.  I’ve had a couple good interactions these last couple weeks that let me know people are out on the other end and that helps, it really does, so thank you.  Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.  Let me know if you want to collaborate on a project.  Let me know if I’m traveling to your town and you want to grab a coffee.  These things are all still there for us.  The beauty is still there.  The peace is still there. Close your eyes now.  Take a deep slow breath through your nose.  Inhales kindness and empathy. Exhale through your mouth and give that kindness and empathy back to the universe.  Do that a few times.  Let yourself relax. We’re going to be ok.  Whatever happens, we can handle it. We’ll see you out there.  (Outro bumper) Track  #6 from Brian Scheff, the Rock Opera by The Nays, She’s a lonely girl, Frank told me last weekend when he, Brian and I were out on a social distance run that all these songs are available on iTunes.  So go buy a couple, music will keep you sane in the apocalypse. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-427 – Shoshana and Adam – Veggies Saved my Life!  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4427.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-427 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   Here we are at the center of a pandemic!  Most days I’d be sitting in my home office writing, but with the apocalypse in full swing I figure my time would be better spent … umm… sitting in my home office writing? I suppose I should make an effort to paint the context for you because we may need to look back on this episode, listen and think.     So, my future listeners, it is the day before the ides of March 2020.  We are in the grips of the corona virus.  This week they cancelled all major sports seasons, and postponed the Boston Marathon, for the first time in 124 years, until the fall.   Americans are all working from home as most businesses have closed.  There has been a run on toilet paper and bottled water for some reason.   Does it affect me?  I suppose we’ll see.  I started working for a big company a couple months ago and that is looking like a fairly prescient move.  I was down in Dallas two weeks ago after we last spoke.  I was at a conference in Atlanta this week.  I was supposed to be out in Grand Rapids at a client next week but that got canceled.  I can work virtually, so it’s not a game ender.  After we last spoke, I entered into the hard part of my training for Boston.  This week was going to be a monster, with a big miles and three killer workouts.  But, after they rescheduled the marathon I’m backing off and switching back to base-building.  Today we speak with Adam and Shoshana Chaim about how a vegan diet saved Adam’s life.  I know we’ve covered this topic before, but I had a request to specifically explore how to manage a vegan diet while competing at a high level.  In section one I’m going to talk about sleep and the impact of not getting enough or getting too much. In section two, just because it felt right, I wrote an apocalypse story for you.  I love the apocalypse genre.  I don’t know why. It seems like the ultimate escapism, I guess. Before my racing plans got changed I woke up to a fairly sever tempo workout in Atlanta Tuesday morning.   Again, with Boston 4 weeks away (at the time) this was the final push.  Coach gave me an 8 X 7 tempo work out.  So, warm up, run 7 minutes hard, 2 minute recover, repeat 8 times.  Ironically at my current pace and fitness that’s almost perfectly a mile repeat. I knew I was going to be in Atlanta.  Unless you find a track, it is hard to find a good place to do mile repeats in Atlanta.  I was staying north of the city in Roswell because all the hotels were sold out down in the city where the conference was.    I am fairly familiar with this workout, and have run it in Atlanta before and I have a strategy.   While the roads around Atlanta are a nightmare for running on, the parking lots are good, especially early in the morning.  I zoomed in on Google maps around the hotel and found some beautiful giant parking lots less than a mile away.  It turns out, without knowing this, I had positioned myself across the street from the new Atlanta Braves stadium.  I rolled out of bed early and ran over to where I knew the parking lot was.  It was raining but a warm 50ish degrees. The sun wasn’t up.  I had to cross the highway but this was ok because around the stadium the sidewalks and walkways are designed for stadium traffic and are 15 foot wide.  On the Google maps the parking lot looked flat, but in reality it was a bit of a saddle shape.  If I stuck to the outside it was about a 1/4 mile on each side with the center being the high spot in the saddle and maybe 50 feet of drop to the edges.  I hit the old lap button and got to it.  Holding a pretty good pace up and down the inclines getting to practice my form.  It was a struggle in the rain, in my jetlag, in the dark up and down the long lanes. I pushed hard and worked my form and settled into the aching discomfort of tempo. That’s how you do it. This parking lot, as it turns out, was the marshalling area for the local construction worker crews.  As I ground out my repeats they loaded and unloaded into pickups and vans and trailers with their orange vests and hard hats.  I didn’t pay them much attention, but it was a nice distraction from my suffering.  If we crossed paths I’d nod as I pushed by.  I wonder what they were thinking of this old guy pushing up and down the parking lot in the early morning rain.  I got to thinking about how those are the types of workouts that make you strong.  Those are the types of workouts that separate the normal from the exceptional.  I used the Google maps to find a trail head close to the hotel and followed it down to the Chattahoochee River the next day.   Legs were tired but I was grateful to find the river trail.  I know you all have worries today.  This is your opportunity to practice leadership.  Us old ones have been through this before.  The sun has always risen the day after one of these crises.  The world has yet to come to an end.  The things you have that matter, you still have, no one can take those from you.  This is your opportunity to lead with a positivity that looks calmly to the future, that brings hope, that inspires.  Be that leader today.  People are watching you.  Be the calming presence.  Be the positive spark.  Be the hope that they are looking for. 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 – Sleep - Voices of reason – the conversation Shoshana and Adam Chaim Welcome! I’m Shoshana Chaim and, when I was pregnant with my second child, my husband developed a rare tumor on his kidney. Not long after, my son showed signs of severe eczema and I experienced PTSD that left me missing quality time with my kids for way too long. After deciding that medication and surgery to temporarily solve these problems wasn’t an option, I found plant-based living and completely overhauled our lifestyle one day at a time. Now, as a Family Health and Wellness Coach, I work one-on-one with busy parents and families to alleviate the stress in life that’s caused by poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle, and chronic illness. With an emphasis on plant-based nutrition and action steps that are customized to each family’s needs, I’m on a mission to heal people from the inside out, so that they can finally stop solely surviving and start thriving again. The Full Story When I met my husband, we were young gym rats thinking we ate healthy enough. But when I found out I was four weeks pregnant with my second child and that my husband, Adam, had a rare tumor on his kidney, everything changed. We were told that the chances of him dying before the age of 40 were quite high. After doctor visit upon doctor visit, the only solution we were given was to prepare for surgery and genetic testing.  We were told to cross our fingers and I thought I had to prepare for the worst. How was I going to raise one child, never mind two, on my own? How could I lose the love of my life? How was I going to bring a baby into the world and her father not be standing there? What did we do to deserve this? Were we not good enough or nice enough people? I feared the worst, but those fears coming true weren’t an option for our family. Surgery wasn’t an option – there had to be a better, less invasive way that wouldn’t also result in the removal of his kidney. After a ton of research, Adam decided to change his diet. He realized that a plant-based diet allows the body to heal and restore, and found these incredible stories where people have cured cancer and reversed heart disease…all based on the food they were eating. Adam was sold immediately, but I, on the other hand, wasn’t ready. I was a new mom, just learning how to cook and meal plan, and now my husband didn’t want to eat meat or cheese and I didn’t understand why. Because even though we just went through the trauma of Adam’s diagnosis, I still thought it would never happen to me. I thought my kids would never be without me. I figured that if I just did everything else right, then I could still hold on to some of those foods that I loved. But when I experienced PTSD after Adam’s diagnosis, I realized how much a 100% nutrient dense plant-based diet allows me to feel my very best. I saw the full connection between the way I ate and the way I felt. A lot of hard work, support from those I love, and my diet gave me the tools I needed to come of medication and feel the best I’d felt in years. All in all, it took me about six months to jump on board and adopt a fully plant-based diet and lifestyle that worked for me. I was comfortable with my grocery bills (that actually ended up lower!), I knew what and how to supplement the few nutrients I needed, and I knew what kind of meals I should cook for me and my family. In those 6 months, I realized that if we don’t take care of ourselves first, then we can’t take of anyone else later. That life is fragile and family is irreplaceable. I learned that although we cannot prevent every scary thing from happening to our families, we can prevent 80% of chronic diseases by simply changing our diet and lifestyle. After watching this plant-based lifestyle shrink Adam’s tumor, clear our son’s eczema, take a client off insulin, stabilize my PTSD, and do so much more, I’m now on a mission to heal families from the inside out. I want to keep as many children as possible from losing time with a parent due to illness, immobility, or worse. I want to prevent as many parents as possible from having to raise a child alone. And most of all, I want to allow our children to grow up without the same dietary diseases as previous generations. Too much time, money and effort is spent trying to fight off or reverse disease that we could have prevented. If you feel as if this is your last chance…If you’ve done paleo, and weight watchers, and all the diets you can think of…If you realize that we’re not immortal and that our lifestyle affects the people closest to us… Then, welcome. You don’t have to think about leaving your children behind anymore. I know firsthand that the after effects of illness create a ripple effect in your family. Financially, emotionally, physically – the way we eat and live have a greater effect than we can even imagine. Every single thing we put into our mouths has either a positive or negative consequence on not only our health but also the freedom to do what we please, and not only for ourselves but also for everyone who touches our lives. When you live a healthy lifestyle, with an emphasis on plant-based nutrition, your body is given a chance to heal and thrive. Through one-on-one coaching and a plant-based healthy lifestyle, it’s possible to alleviate the stress in life caused by poor diet, unhealthy lifestyle, and chronic illness. With an emphasis on plant-based nutrition and action steps that are customized to each individual’s or family’s needs, I’m on a mission to heal you from the inside out, so that you can finally stop solely surviving and start thriving again. I’d love to invite you to a complimentary 45 minute call to get to know you and hear about where you are in your health journey. On this call, you get clear on what you want to create for your or your family’s health, your life and what’s been holding you back from reaching your goals. And you’ll leave with some actionable next steps too! To take advantage of this offer just click here.    Section two – After the Apocalypse  – Outro Well, my friends, we have stayed calm and leaned on our inherent strength, and nibbled a bit of kale through the end of another RunRunLive Podcast Episode 4-427 done and down.   What now?  Well it’s all a bit up in the air.  Which is ok with me.  My ‘A’ race wasn’t Boston.  My ‘A’ race was and still is the Tunnel Marathon in June.  I think we’ll be through the current headwinds by then.  I’ll drop my training back into base building and strength for a month or so before ramping up for that.  That Grand Canyon run is, unfortunately, probably not going to happen now that Boston is dropped squarely in the same time slot.  We postponed the Groton Road race as well.  It’s really a bit of a relief.  With the new job I was starting to stress out a bit with all that spring-time stuff that happens in this spring-time stuff season.  Now we’ve potentially got the space to catch up on some other things that might have been crowded out otherwise. Ollie the Collie is doing great.  He was getting a bit crazy because my training and travel crowded out his running time.  Now, I can get back to that as well.   He’s still a maniac.  I joked this week that we should have named him Satan.   He’s like a gremlin in the house.  A partial list of things he’s eaten…Socks, shoes, underwear, towels, reading glasses, all the channel changers, print cartridges, hats, gloves,  and napkins.  If you walk around my house, you’ll find socks and shoes perched on the high places – tenuously out of harms way. And he’s a digger.  My yard looks like a scene from the movie ‘Holes’.  He literally sits on my head if I try to watch TV.  His favorite thing is to stick his tongue in your mouth when you’re not looking.  That and having any part of you in his jaws. My current strategy is to survive until he gets a bit older, then try again to train him.  He’ll be an asset in the apocalypse though.  Those of you who have been with me for a few years will know that I was born for the zombie apocalypse.  And here we are!  My time has come! Hope you enjoyed the interview and the story telling today.  Don’t forget to be a leader.  The world needs you.  This is that time when they will say – ‘Remember that time everyone else freaked out and Bob was the rock we could all rely on?”  It’s your moment Bob.  Make us proud.  We’ll see you out there.  (Outro bumper) Track  #5 from Brian Scheff, the Rock Opera by The Nays, A real Corker! “I want to know”, Tunes for the apocalypse my friends.  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-426 – Steve Pero and the Rim to Rim to Rim  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4426.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-426 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   Here we are celebrating a leap year February.  That means you and I get an extra day to do the things we love!  Good stuff, right? Today we have a good show for you.  I corralled one of my local ultra-running friends Steve to give me some coaching on running the Rim-to-Rim in the Grand Canyon.   Coincidently, if you want some more around the history of running the Grand Canyon, you can check out a series that Davey Crockett did on the and the Rim to Rim runners of the last 100 years.  I went to the Grand Canyon for the first time int 2015 and I was so impressed that I returned in 2016 and ran down to Phantom Ranch and back with my daughter.  I’m planning on going back in September of this year and doing a 2-day Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim.  Meaning, we are going to run south to north on day one, stay over on the north side then come back on day 2.  If that sounds like fun to you, you are more than welcome to join.  You’ll have to manage your own logistics.  Effort-wise it’s the equivalent of a hilly 50K I’d say, unless the weather goes sideways.  In section one we will try to answer the question of at what age do the wheels fall off your athletic pursuits?  In section two we’ll talk about sticks.  On the topic of aging there are a number of people trying to figure out why we can’t all live to 150 or even 200 years old.  Of course there have probably always been these people, but the modern ones are trying to leverage science.  I was listening to one of these and it turns out they are very big on cold therapy, i.e. plunging yourself into cold water as a way to shock your body into a positive stress response.  Meaning, these things that stress us shake our genomes out of their comfortable slumber and get them awake and cracking, pushing out good youthful stuff that makes us stronger.  And you laughed at me with my ice baths.  Since we last talked I have transitioned into some more intense, race specific training for Boston.  Last weekend coach started me on some hill repeats.   I was pretty proud of myself getting up Friday morning with the sunrise and 10 degrees and knocking them out!  The sun is coming up early enough now to run in the morning.  This is another one of those old-guy tricks.  Instead of doing speedwork on the track you do tempo on the hill.  It has the same positive effect on your footspeed, turnover, form and strength without as much pounding.  Last Sunday I did a 2:30 with surges and a fast finish.  Tomorrow I’ll do 2:45. This will get me close to 30k.   Well into the mid 40’s of miles per week.  I still get out with Ollie the Collie in the woods for some of my mid-week runs.  He is still a maniac.  He has added to his annoying habit of lying in wait on the trail and pouncing on me.  He likes to chose good ground to do this from.  Like when I’m struggling up a muddy knoll or trying to navigate a slippery rock bridge over a stream. He’ll lie in a crouch and spring at me.  If I’m not paying attention I may receive essentially a 45 pound punch to the family jewels.  His new trick is right after this assault he’ll look around for the nearest stick to grab and run with it, growling.  The challenge with this is sometimes he grabs small sticks and sometimes he grabs 6-foot long branches. He then runs in and around me with his payload, joyously growling and swinging his bit of tree.  Try as I may, inevitable he trips me and I get familiar with the frozen or muddy ground.  On time last week he literally stuck a branch between my legs as I was running, like when the Italian rider stuck the rod into the spokes of Dave’s bike in the movie ‘.  What am I talking about?  Well it’s this coming of age movie from 1979 about a townie kid in Indiana who dreams of riding with the Europeans.  It has a great supporting cast with a young Dennis Quaid and Daniel Stern from the Home Alone franchise and the best use of Rossini’s Barber of Seville ever. In this pivotal scene he’s riding with his heroes, the Italian team, and they are mean to him, eventually sticking something in his spokes and crashing his bike.  It’s great movie. Go watch it kids.  That’s what Ollie tried to do to me.  Didn’t work.  My legs were tougher than the stick.  He’s a pain, but it’s only because he has so much love, so much Joie de vivre, and I’m ok with that. Because, If you’re going to live, live with zest! 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 – At what age do the wheels fall off? - Voices of reason – the conversation Steve Pero Attached is a fittingly picture from one of our Grand Canyon runs. Don't look much different these days  I also included a pic of me running a trail race in 1999.   Not sure about a bio...feel free to edit below as much as you want.   Born in Cambridge, Ma. Worked as a Mechanical designer at Polaroid for 32 years, then worked at several other places until I decided to retire in 2017 at age 66.   Living in Somerville growing up I got into bodybuilding at a gym. The trainer had me run around the building as a warm up...I liked running so much that I quit the gym and started running more. That was 1975. I saw Bill Rodgers run across the finish line of the Boston Marathon and I was hooked. Started training for Boston and qualified and ran my first in 1980. After 13 Boston's and hundreds of road races, I ran a trail race and was hooked. Ran my first ultra in 1997, won it and became an ultrarunners and now 23 years later, I'm still at it.   I live in rural SW NH with my wife, a bunch of chickens, three very pregnant dairy goats, a wonderful dog and cat. Section two – Pile o sticks  – Outro Well, my friends, we have run down into the canyon of our youth and up the other side of our age and wisdom to the happy elysian fields of Episode 4-426 of the RunRunLive Podcast. Like I said in the intro I’m starting to get serious in my training for Boston.  I’m not racing for a time but I am training as if, because it is the Boston marathon and it deserves respect.  Thank you to all my friends who have contributed to my ZERO for Prostate cancer campaign for Boston.  I’m getting close to my goal and you, yes you, can push me through the finish!  Links in the show notes. Also big thanks to the small and dedicated circle of RunRunLive sponsors who pay our bills.  I asked them “What can I do to thank you?” and they simply tell me “Keep doing the podcast.” So, with the bar set at an achievable level onwards we strive! I’m staying healthy for the most part.  My weight is still a couple pounds over race weight but it’s starting to drop with a slight tweak in diet and the bigger weeks.  It will all come together.  It always does. My Achilles and Plantar Fasciitis and that chronic tendonitis in my butt all speak up once in awhile but that’s just the cost of doing business.  I keep the fires tamped down with judicious rehab and sensible training.  I’m starting to travel more with the new job which is good news for you.  There is nothing that feeds my creativity more than being trapped in an airplane for 4 or 5 hours.  Also gives me more exposure to the carnival of weirdness that is our modern world. I rented the movie Midway last week.  It’s really good if you are a history buff and like war movies.  (Which is a good way of saying your wife won’t watch it with you.)  It’s a story that’s been told before but with modern special effects they can put your right in the pilot seat of a Dauntless dive bomber.  And who, do you think, plays Admiral Halsey?  That’s right a much older Dennis Quaid.  See?  It all ties together.   I also found the first episode of was available to watch for free.  Love that Neal Gaimon book.  Worth a watch. Genes, hat I’m going to put on my shoes with the chewed laces, go throw Ollie in the truck and drive over to get a haircut and do some grocery shopping now.  While I was writing this, I forgot the latch the door to the master bedroom and the two-tone terror stole my Patriots hat and chewed a hole in it.  Think that’s a bad omen for Brady and Bellichick? This just in – I received the results from the DNA kit my kids got me for Christmas.  A bit disappointing.  Not a drop of Ashkenazi, Sicilian or Moorish blood.  Just your run-of-the-mill Scotch-Irish with a handful of Norman and a small dash of continental French from my Quebecois Grandmum.  Celtic thru and thru.  Explains why good beer is like heroin for me and my love of stone walls and roaring fires.  I suppose that’s where I get my endurance.  My folk were chased out of Africa and didn’t stop running ‘til they hit the North Atlantic then sat around in pubs and complained about it.   Thank you all for your friendship and time. Hope you got your money’s worth.  Got a long run in the morning and then I’m off to Dallas for a couple days.  Keep fighting the good fight and… I’ll see you out there.  (Outro bumper) And the music continues with #4 from Brian Scheff, the Rock Opera by The Nays, “BJ’s Prophecy”, enjoy.  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->