Episode 4-449 – Your Spring Nutrition Plan

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