The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-477 – The Apocalypse – Nick Sansbury Smith  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4477.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4 477 of the RunRunLive podcast. Here we are a week after the 126th Boston Marathon.  I have no entertaining race report for you.  I didn’t run.  But somehow the race managed to pull itself up and run without me.  In section one I’m going to talk about this year’s Boston Marathon.  In section two I’m going to talk about how to understand and leverage the fear of loss to achieve your goals. And in today’s interview I speak with triathlete and Indy author Nick Sansbury Smith.  It’s a great chat.  I wanted to ask Nick how he manages to be a successful independent author and still manage to stay healthy.  Turns out he works his ass off.  I’m going to keep interviewing people until I find that one who spends 3 hours a day working and is highly successful.  I know they’re out there! I’ve been working myself.  I think that’s the real secret.  To realize you’re going to get up a work everyday until you can’t anymore, but to figure out how to get something out of it – so you’re working on your own terms.  Spring is springing up around here.  Trees are starting to bust out.  My cherry tree and my forsythia bushes are flowering.  My blueberry bushes and raspberries are starting to bud up as well. My chives wintered over from last year.  As a matter of fact the chives have escaped into the woods and gone feral.  They’re out there competing with the poison ivy for world-forest-dominance.  I’m feeling pretty healthy.  I’m back on a clean eating routine.  I am walking Ollie a mile a day in the trails and I’ve got a pretty good fitness routine going that I’ll talk about in the outro.  One advantage of not running a marathon last weekend is that I can start working on my yard without fear of ruining my race!  This weekend I think I’ll turn over the gardens if the weather stays nice.  I’m contemplating spending some, if not all of the summer down on Cape Cod in my other house.  Now that I’ve chased the racoon out.  So I told my wife that she can use my garden beds to plant her cut flowers.  It’s good to give the vegetables a rest every few years.   I do have a fresh crop of hybrid tomatoes for this year.  I got a good germination rate.  14 out of 15 seeds are going strong under the grow lights.  It’s a beautiful thing.  How are you doing?  It looks like the pandemic is winding down.  More like people just stopped worrying about it.  But, did it help you think about your priorities?  Maybe be kinder to yourself?  I wanted to talk with Nick because he is a very successful independent author.  And that’s not easy.  The new world of publishing is a double edge sword.  The inter

Episode 4-477 – The Apocalypse – Nick Sansbury Smith

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-476 – MK Lever – Dystopian College Athletics  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4476.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4 476 of the RunRunLive podcast. Today we have a super interesting talk with MK Lever about her dystopian college athletics novel Surviving the second tier.  It’s a hard book to categorize.  On the one hand it’s a near-future dystopian novel about college sports.  On the other it’s a scholarly critique of the current college sports power dynamic and some of its most destructive aspects.  And then there’s a love story and a rocky-esque championship tension and drama.  Like I said, it’s tough to categorize.  And that makes it hard for a novel because we humans love to label and categorize.  Our brains go all weird and fuzzy if we can’t.  You can see this in every review where they say ‘it’s like X’ or even in startup pitches where they will always say something like ‘it’s the Uber of grocery’.  And that inevitably makes it hard on books and businesses to gain traction.  They have to forge their own paths.  They have to create their own market.  Sometimes it works, because that cross-pollination finds a new unserved and undeveloped market niche.  Sometimes it doesn’t work because it takes a lot of energy to create something totally new.  You have to explain to people what it is before you can sell them something.  There’s an old joke about pioneers typically having short lives. Anyhow… That’s who we talk to today.  In section one I’ll talk about this year’s Boston Marathon because it is next week and for the first time in a couple decades I’m not going to be participating.  I feel like I should say more about that, but I’m, let me just say this, and maybe I’m just having a good day, but I feel like I’ve moved into the 6th stage of grief, which is celebration.  No seriously I was out at Starbucks today and realize I’m wearing a Boston Hat and a NYC jacket and wondering what I’ll say if someone asks me about it, like “Are you running the marathon this year?” and how my usual response for the last year has been to apologize, “No, I hurt me knee.” But, thinking about the stories behind this hat and this jacket, all I can really say right now is “No, not this year, but I did, and how cool is that?” In section two I’m going to talk about garbage.  Because, yeah, garbage. I’ve totally stopped running because my knee was too painful.  It’s been a year or so now so my fitness is at an all time low.  It’s interesting.  I think about that motivational speech where the motivator says “Running is hard.  Being fat and out of shape is hard.  Choose your hard.” And it’s true.  Being unfit is hard. I’ve got some plans to change that and we’ll talk a more in the

Episode 4-476 – MK Lever – Dystopian College Athletics

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-475 – Kayla – Plant-based Coach  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4475.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4475 of the RunRunLive podcast. Here we are.  Back at it again. Today we talk with Kayla who is a coach and specializes in a plant-based methodology for her athletes.  We had a good chat  and I think we can always learn from coaches, that’s why I talk o them a lot.  Coaches have the advantage of experience.  Not only their own direct knowledge and experience, but the leverage of the experience of everyone they coach.  Because when you teach, you also learn. It’s been a long couple weeks since we talked.  My new role at work has been weighting me down.  It’s hard to switch gears to being a creative form being mentally engaged at work. Even though, as you’ll hear in today’s show, I haven’t been running at all I still struggle to find time to do everything I’ve signed myself up for.  But we keep moving.  Like the characters in my apocalypse story we find a way to survive.  In section one I’m going to talk about how you can handle getting injured close to a race.  In section two I’m going to talk about writing. I’ll move you into the episode with an interesting, to me, etymological side path.  It has to do with sheep.  I have been doing a lot of reading.  I usually read 2-3 books at a time.  This week I was reading two of these books and came across the same phrase in both of the books in the same day, so I figured I should look it up.  The word was “Woolgathering”.  You may know this as a phrase, but it’s a word.  You don’t, at least I don’t, hear it much in day-to-day usage, and when you do it’s a bit quaint.  It means ‘to be lost in thought.  It came into English in the 1500’s when modern English was being formed.  Here’s how it works.  England at the time was a big wool producer.  They had a lot of sheep.  When the sheep wandered around and rubbed up against things tufts of wool would get stuck.  So woolgathering was the process of sending someone, probably a kid, out to wander about collecting these bits of wool.  Not very profitable use of time.  There are a lot of wool-related phrases.  “Pulling the wool over someone’s eyes” is from the same time period.  It refers to the fact that judges wore wigs made of wool.  When a shyster tired to trick them it was like he was pulling their wig over their eyes so they could see. Or how about form the same time period “Dyed in the wool”? Yeah that’s when you put the die into the raw wool before it’s made into cloth.  It fixes the color better.  So when you’re ‘dyed in the wool’ it means you have fixed something in the beginning. The word ‘wool’ itself goes way back to the original Indo-European root word Hwol.  So there

Episode 4-475 – Kayla – Plant-based Coach

    The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-474 – Frank Shorter  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4474.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my long suffering friends.  How are you?  Well it’s been a busy two weeks since the last time we chatted.  And I truly missed.  I get lonely.  I worry.  Where have you been?  How do we know you’re not dead in a ditch? Today I’m going to mess with the format again.  I managed to write a really funny piece about varmints that I’m going to perform for you, but it came out at 2000 + words so I’m going to push that after the interview, skip section one and use the intro here to talk about our guest. Frank Shorter.  Yes that Frank Shorter.  It was one of those interviews where I was hopelessly overwhelmed by content and just did my best to touch on a couple fun things with him.  But, the rich tapestry of Frank’s life does not fit easily into a 20 minute conversation – so I’m going to fill in some of the blanks here. Frank was born, ironically in Munich Germany, where he would eventually return to win the Gold Medal in the marathon at the 1972 Olympics.  His Father was a physician in the army.  Frank grew up in a troubled home in upstate New York.  He started running to get away from an abusive father.  Running gave him the freedom we all know and love.  To get him away from his father, his mother arranged to have him sent to a prep school in Massachusetts where he was given the space to expand his running talents.  He went on to run at Yale for his undergraduate and won a number of NCAA titles.  He moved on to Gainesville Florida to study for his law degree – all the while training and racing at an elite level.  The thing about Franks journey in the 70’s was that he showed up at all the marathon runner hotspots with all the legends.  He trained with that famous Florida track club with Jeff Galloway and crew.  He was in Oregon with Prefontaine.  Frank taught Steve how to Ski.  Frank was with Steve before he was killed.  Frank won the elite Fukuoka Marathon . He was the #1 ranked marathon runner in the USA for 5 straight years and in the world for 3. He won the gold medal at the Munich Olympics in 1972.  You may not remember 1972, but this was the Olympics where the world learned about terrorism.  A crew of Palestinians broke into athlete’s village and held the Israeli Olympic team hostage, murdering some of them. Frank was sleeping on the balcony and heard the gunshots.  Coming full circle, Frank was right there on Boylston Street in Boston in 2013 when the bombs went off.  He won the silver medal in the 1976 games losing to an unknow East German athlete, who most likely was a drug cheat.  Frank has become instrumental in removing drugs from the Olympics – a battle that still rages. Through all this he trained himself with an uncanny mixture of speedwor

Episode 4-474 – Frank Shorter

A whole lot of nuthin...

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-473 – Sidney – A Pioneer from Boston  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4473.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-473 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  This one is going to be brief.  As I told you last time, I got a new role, and it’s kicking my ass.  I’m basically working two roles at the same time during the transition period.  So I have to keep the plates spinning in my old job which is customer facing and then spin up my new job which is building out a new business. All of which leaves me… What did you think I was going to say? Exhausted? Overwhelmed?  Nah, you know me by now – it’s true that I have paucity of applicable hours and I’m drowning, but I’m energized!  Actually haven’t felt this alive in years – as far as work goes.  Yeah, I find myself late in the afternoon with my head groggy and I have to get on a call with Japan and I’m like “I’m cooked!”  But, then I remember.  I remember all the things we’ve talked about over the years. How to focus on your process. How to relax into the discomfort.  How to breathe and smile.  When you get tired, focus on your form, your hips and have grit.  It will all work out.  And if it doesn’t, who cares? That was just a long way of saying I didn’t have any spare time this week to work on this podcast.  But I’m going to push through.  Today we have a great chat with Sidney Baptista, a smart entrepreneur from Boston who’s got his hands in a lot of things one of which being a running clothes startup called Pynrs.  You should follow him on Instagram.  Sidbap.  Tell him I sent you.  In section one… well, who knows I haven’t written it yet.  You might get nothing!  You might get poetry.  You might get some tried retread of an article I wrote years ago.  In section two – yeah probably something similar. What can I do?  I’m drowning over here.  The only reason I’m writing this is to avoid housework.  I guess the lesson here is that you’re never too old to learn something.  You’re never too old to fall in love.  Perhaps it’s even easier.  Certainly makes you wonder about how you spend your idle hours. 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

Episode 4-473 – Sidney – A Pioneer from Boston

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-472 – Brock on the Hilarity of Triathlons  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4472.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-472 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  I was struggling to put content together for the show and I was thinking about taking a couple weeks off.  But, I rallied! I have more going on than ever but, as you know, it’s not about how much you have going on, it’s how excited you are about what’s going on.  Which dovetails nicely with our guest today, Brock, who is one of those lovable accidental athletes that circle our galaxy of endurance sports.  We talk about all the funny things around triathlon and such – he’s got a book about you and you can find the links in the show notes.  Brock would be an excellent person to go on a long run with.  In section one I’ll talk about how to stay warm in the cold weather and in section two I’ll talk about bioluminescent jellyfish… Just kidding…wanted to see if you were paying attention…I’m going to ponder awareness, which is a lot like a bioluminescent jellyfish.  Why am I so happy this week?  I’m having a good week! My running is going well.  I signed up for a race – more on that in the outro.  And I got a new job. Yeah, I know, I didn’t even want a new job, but I got noticed and promoted.  Which is cool.  I’m excited about it.  The universe provides. Let me tell you my ice-skating story from last weekend.  Here in New England we got those once-in-a-decade conditions for perfect ice skating on the ponds last weekend.  It was beautiful, cold and sunny.  Perfect pond skating weather.  Ice hockey was my sport growing up.  I started playing when I was like 5 years old.  I didn’t play after getting highs school.  I wasn’t good enough to compete at that level.  I good skater and could go forever, but didn’t have the eyes or the speed to take it to the next level.  Anyway, always loved skating.  It’s like flying.  I played in pickup leagues all through my 20’s.  Then I started training and didn’t really have room for hockey or skating.  Especially this time of year where it would overlap with my training for Boston.  But last weekend I said, “Hey, it’s a perfect day and I have no reason not to go skate.”  So I dug out my old hockey skates, my old stick and a puck from the freezer, (because that’s where you keep pucks) and went down to the pond. Frankly I was a bit frightened.  It’s probably been a decade since I went ice skating.  And I’m no spring chicken.  And with the buggered knee and all…But, it was exciting too, like a first date. These hockey skates of mine were a brand called Microns which were all the rage in the early 90’s because they had a one-piece plastic boot, like a ski-boot, that was lighter than the traditional two-piece

Episode 4-472 – Brock on the Hilarity of Triathlons

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-471 – Cody Walks the USA Part Two  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4471.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-471 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Good morning.  It’s Monday Morning the 17th of January.  Today is Martin Luther Kings Jr. Day here in the states.  We are having a storm over New England today.  It started snowing after midnight last night and changed over to a heavy rain just around sunrise.  I got up and did my best to clear the driveway before it got too wet.   In a storm like this where it snows then rains the conditions for snow removal get pretty dicey.  The rain turns the snow to slush and it’s hard to move. It chokes the snow blower and gets very heavy.  Then, even worse, if you don’t move it and it freezes it becomes solid ice.  And it’s going to stay there until spring.  But I got most of it up, which is good because now the rain will helpfully wash the remnants I missed away. In our neck of the woods it’s known as Heart-attack snow.  Because it gets so heavy that when people try to shovel it they keel over.  For people like me with a strong heart it’s more appropriately chiropractor snow.  Because when you go to throw a shovel full of that slush you’re more than likely going to hurt your back.  Now it’s just pouring rain and windy.  Glad I don’t have a run on the calendar for today.  The running is going well. I did a test mile yesterday, which was another interesting weather day.  It was minus 1 degrees Fahrenheit when I got up.  It was about 6 degrees when I got to the rail trail.  The temperature was cold, but it was windless and sunny.  It was not a bad day to run.  I found out from my Buddy Tim who lives by the rail trail that they had plowed a section and it was dry and clear.  Which was perfect for the workout I had.  It was a one mile warm up.  A test mile.  And a three-mile cool down.  You’re supposed to do these workouts on the track, but the track is under a layer of snow and ice so that isn’t going to happen.  It was hard to warm up with the temperature.  I hit the test mile and felt pretty strong for the first 1/2.  The last ½ was a struggle.  Looking at the data, I can see my pace drop and my HR max out in that second half.  So I still have some work to do with my fitness.  That being said, it was 30 seconds or so faster than when I ran it on the track in December.  It’s a good measuring stick.   Now I know I need to work on aerobic fitness and pacing. I’m only running 15 – 20 miles a week, 2-3 times a week so I’m happy to be where I am at all.  The knee is hanging in there. It is just about 11 months since the injury popped up.  The holidays were good.  I took a week off, but caught a cold from my mother, so I spent most of it lying around.  It might be the t

Episode 4-471 – Cody Walks the USA Part Two

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast New Year 2022 Episode  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/ NewYear2022.mp3] Link  RunRunLive New Year 2022 Welcome my friends to the new year.  NewYear2022 There will be no net-new episode this week for several reasons.  In no particular order, first, it was the holidays for me, second, I was on vacation this week from work, third I had a cold… I could go on making up rationalizations like a crazy man listing alternate realities on the street corner of a dirty industrial zone – but I’ll leave it there.  The biggest reason we are not doing a ‘regular’ show is that I didn’t find anyone to talk to. Instead, today, I’m going to catch you up on my training and give you some frameworks to think about for your beginning of year retrenchment. … On the training front, I’ve continued to increase my mileage and the knee feels good. I do notice a couple little twinges still, when I’m toeing off on uphills, but nothing crazy.  I’m slow, unfit and heavy – but had a good week of training and feel very confident about the future.  Been getting some solid runs in and lots of cross training.  I’ve been following a Galloway based plan that is 3 runs a week.  My long run last weekend was 11.5 miles.  It’s funny how all training plans converge.  Meaning the elements of this plan are the same as any other plan when you look at it from the building block perspective.  One day is basically speed work.  The other day is basically tempo and the third day is the long run.  In between days are cross training.  Some pool running, some biking, some swimming and some walking. The Galloway part of the plan is taking walk breaks.  That’s the difference and we’ve talked about that before.  The actual plan structure is the same as most marathon training plans that are based on a weekly cadence.  Speed, Tempo, Long and cross training to build base.  It’s a 2-week macro-cycle.  Meaning the long run gets longer every other week.  Long week, fall back week.  This every-other-week macro-cycle is designed to give you the most recovery possible. The whole plan is about recovery.  It’s about gaining mileage without stress.  The 4 days that you aren’t running are supposed to be cross training.  The plan isn’t all that prescriptive about cross training.  You can bike, walk, swim or any other type of light cardio.  It really likes pool-running as a cross training workout.  Pool running gives you many of the benefits of running without stress.  … Why am I training this way?  Because I’m coming off a long stress injury in the left knee.  This is allowing me to train and heal at the same time.  My goal in this training cycle is not a time or distance goal.  My goal is to get to the starting line healthy.  Since it’s a Galloway-based plan, we have to talk about running and walking.   I started out with the bare minimum of running because I was frankly terrified o

RunRunLive New Year 2022

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-470 – Kristina and Rediscovering Yourself Through Running  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4470.mp3] Link    Zero Prostate Cancer 2021 Boston -  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-470 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  I raced shortly after we last talked.  That’s right, the Mill Cities Relay.  I’ve been running this race with the club since 1995.  This year I put together a great team.  I had my regular running buddies Frank, Brian and Tim and invited Just Plain Dave up from Southern Mass to run with us.  I’m going to drop Dave’s race-report audio in here because I think it expresses the special nature of this event way better than I am capable of doing. It’s a 5-leg relay that starts in Nashua NH and follows the Merrimack River through Hudson, Chelmsford, Lowell, Dracut and ends in Lawrence.  It’s all the local running clubs and it’s a really special event.  We got great weather – 40’s and windless.  Dave kicked it off with a 6 ish mile leg, handed off to Brian for a 4.75-mile leg, then to me for a 2.5 mile leg, Tim for the long 9 miler and Frank with another 4.75 on the anchor into Lawrence.  Those guys crushed it.  I took the short leg because I’m a mess, but I figured I could manage 2.5 miles.  I’m pretty sure I could write a whole race report on that 2.5 miles.  It was a real eyeopener for me.  I didn’t realize how much fitness I’ve lost.  I came out of the handoff running hard.  There was a woman there beside me, so I pushed a little to get in front of her and out of her way.  I know this section of road like the back of my hand.  I used to work right there. I ran right past my old office.   I would run this road 3-4 times a week.  I got less than a ¼ mile into the leg and all the warning lights on my control panel started flashing red and sirens were going off.  It was like I had never run before in my life.  My body was telling me I was going to die.  First my body said “Hey, you can’t breathe, you’re having an asthma attack – you’re going to pass out.” And I said “that is ridiculous I don’t have asthma”, just clean up the form, breathe and relax…”  Then it said, “Oh my god dude, you are having a heart attack, you’re going to die.” And I had to say “no, shut up, I’m not having a heart attack…but I wasn’t so sure…” So I kept slowing down until it felt sustainable but I felt like I was crawling and that woman passed me and then another and another. And my body was saying, “You’re going to die, you should walk…” and I had to courageously persevere through the 2.5 miles that felt like 50 miles wearing lead boots.  My conclusion was it is time to bury my pride and get back into shape. I have reached the bottom. What do you do when you reach rock bottom?  You ask for help.

Episode 4-470 – Kristina and Rediscovering Yourself Through Running

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-469 – Russ and the Running Life  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4469.mp3] Link    Zero Prostate Cancer 2021 Boston -  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-469 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today’s show almost did not happen.  I’m pretty busy and I didn’t have an interview so I was going to let it slide.  But then I got an email from Russ.  So grabbed him for a conversation.  Russ is a man full of wisdom even if he may not know it.  When I listen to him talking about the things he gets from the podcast, I don’t think I’m telling him anything he doesn’t know already.  I think I’m just helping him uncover what he already knows.  I’m the catalyst to free his innate wisdom, and maybe contextualize it for him by telling a story.  But that catalyst has value, right? I’ll give you my updates for the week.  I actually didn’t do much this week.  I had a business trip for the first time in almost 2 years and let my PT slack a bit. But, I’m getting fat and I don’t like it.  In section one I step up to the rostrum and preach a sermon on how to incorporate running into the span of your life.  In section two I’m going to talk about King Tut, because I can. We’re deep into the early winter here in New England, it’s cold.  It drives the mice into the house looking for heat and warmth.  You can’t blame them.  But there is always that one mouse that ruins it for all the rest.  That one mouse that has to climb up on my counter and take a bite out of an apple and poop.  That mouse goes too far and ruins it for all the other mice.  By the time you see the bite out of the apple, you have more than one mouse.  You’ve probably got ten or more living with you.   By the way what do you call a group of mice?  It is commonly ‘a nest’ of mice but more whimsically you can refer to them as ‘a mischief’ of mice.  Isn’t that great?  A mischief of mice. By the time you see the bite out of the apple you have a mischief of mice. And there may be some sort of moral to that story, I don’t know, but I clear my house of mice every year in November. I did travel this week.  I flew to Dallas for a meeting with the executives of one of my customers. I read a post by Peter Shankman, who by the way we did have oon the podcast back in the day about why travel is so important.  Peter is a very kinetic person and he said travel cures everything.  When you’re bored, depressed, anxious, confused with life – climbing on an airplane and going somewhere cures all that.  It’s the movement.  It’s the feel of the going that lights you up.  And I feel the same way. I think, all though the insides of our heads are quite complex and rich, it is the influence and addition of outside experiential data that feeds the fire.  Without that life becomes

Episode 4-469 – Russ and the Running Life

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-468 – Thomas and the Emerging Athlete  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4468.mp3] Link    Zero Prostate Cancer 2021 Boston -  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-468 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we’re going to talk to my friend Thomas who is a college cross country runner. If I could name only one benefit from having put out this podcast for the past dozen years it would be, head and shoulders above anything else, the people I meet, and the podcast gives me an excuse to learn about them.  I didn’t meet Thomas through the podcast, but the podcast gives me an opportunity to talk to him.  It’s interesting and enlightening.  I think there’s something to learn here for everyone.  it tells us older athletes that just by showing up we may make an impact on someone. It has some lessons learned for runners just starting out around what the journey could be. It has some things for parents to think about. … In section one I’m going to talk about the magical sport of cross-country.  In section two I’m going to talk about the elliptical – that ungainly piece of equipment in the corner of your gym. As for me, I had a bit of a setback in my return to running.  When I glibly tossed in that trail 5-miler a few weeks back I did something to my knee.  I don’t know if that something was the same something I’ve been recovering from for the last year or a new something – but it was noticeably sore.  So – I am not running.  Instead I’m working with Gina and focusing on some basic core, PT, flexibility and balance.  I, purely on a whim, jumped on the elliptical at the gym for my warm up this week and discovered that this may be a piece of equipment I can use to gain fitness while I’m waiting for the knee to sort itself out.  I haven’t put my bike on the trainer yet.  When I say ‘trainer’ I mean this contraption that is basically some rollers that you can mount your bike on and ride in place.  It is in the top 3 of the ‘endurance training Hall of Pain’ workouts.  It is mind numbingly awful.  But you can watch TV.  I did go out and squeeze a bike ride in last weekend with my buddies.  When I left my house for the ride Saturday morning there was ice in the back of my truck.   It was a bit brisk out on the bike trail, but we stopped for coffee to warm up at the halfway point. I am starting to put on a little weight.  But it is what it is.  My daily workout is a combination of foam rolling, stretching and some core or strength.  None of which is super-challenging.  The only challenging part is convincing myself to do it and then not trying to rush through it! I did buy a set of latex bands from Amazon that I use to add resistance to some of the PT exercises, like clamshells.  They are pretty good.  If you want the link, ask me and

Episode 4-468 – Thomas and the Emerging Athlete

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-467 – Holistic Health with Gina  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4467.mp3] Link    Zero Prostate Cancer 2021 Boston -  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-467 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  How are we doing?  In today’s show we are going to talk with a friend of mine Gina who has recently moved from her 9-5 job to being a holistic coach.  She’s working with me as I try to build myself back into this new season of running.  Oh yeah, before I forget, it’s my birthday.  And the supply chain must be really bad because I didn’t’ receive any gifts from you thousands of loyal friends out there… All those expensive gifts must be sitting in a container ship off Long Beach.  Hey, I know exactly where that is.  I’ve run by the Queen Mary a dozen times in the morning and out into that little marina with the break water there.  Nice weather there.  Too much cement and not enough trees for my liking though.  I bought myself a new Kindle Paperwhite.  I had one of the original Kindles and I really liked the form factor.  But it eventually went end of life and those evil bastards at Amazon sent over a software update that killed it.  That was a couple years ago.  It took me this long to recover from my pique.  I got a couple runs in this week. I went for a nice long 5+ miler with Ollie in the trails on Tuesday.  As much as I enjoyed it, I also made my knee mad and it’s been achy since.  I’m running with Ollie in the fully leashed mode now.  I have him on the 6-foot leash and I try to make him run in a heel position beside me. It’s a work in progress. He doesn’t get why I wouldn’t want to just run as fast as I can.  I spend most of the time correcting him.  He doesn’t work with me and it throws me off balance.  Ollie would make a terrible guide dog.  All you’d see would be Ollie sprinting down the road with the severed arm of the Achilles athlete dragging behind him.  So – I’m a work in progress and Ollie is a work in progress and, let’s face it, that’s life, right?  Anyhow Gina has me doing a routine of foam rolling, stretching and core.  I’ve done this routine for the last coupe weeks.  And I do feel a bit of benefit in terms of my form and balance.  Now I’ll try to load in some strengthening as well.  Start slow.  Build a good foundation.  In section one I’ll share another presentation I did to my group about what we learned from experimenting with morning routines.  Apologies for the audio.  In section two I’m going to talk a little about apps.  … I’m not going to bore you with my whining about not being able to run.  Not being able to run bothers me.  It really does.  It feels like a loss.  Why?  Because running is more than running for us.  Running is art.  Running is a creative, spiritual act.  R

Episode 4-467 – Holistic Health with Gina

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-466 – John from Sqoosh  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4466.mp3] Link    Zero Prostate Cancer 2021 Boston -  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-466 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  It finally turned to the nice cool fall weather this week.  The leaves are falling.  I’ve done a couple of easy runs out on the trails this week with Ollie.  The knee is ok, but I’m in such poor shape that it’s hard to tell.  Everything hurts so a little extra pain doesn’t really stand out. But I have a plan. Of course I have a plan.  I’m consulting with a friend of mine to start building abase of core strength and balance that I can leverage to come back healthy.  I’ll talk a little bit today about how to treat these seasonal transitions where your body is talking to you.  It’s marathon season.  I watched all the folks running the big events like Boston and Chicago and London. Great job everyone.   People were really emotional at these races after waiting so long to run in person.  I forget how important and impactful getting to Boston can be for people.  People ask me if I ran.  I don’t know how to answer.  I completed the distance.  I did not run the course on the day.  I  ran loops over in my home town of Groton on Sunday morning.  I ran a 30 second run, 30 second walk cadence and ended up with a time of 5:05ish.  So I guess, technically I ran.  My friends came out and joined me for the first lap.  Tim hung in for the second lap.  I did 5 laps of different lengths and sizes.  I’m not a very prescriptive person.  I just show up and run.  I know roughly what distance the loops are from the town hall in Groton.  I was aiming for 5 plus miles each.  That seemed like a good distance at that pace so I could have a refuel every 80-90 minutes.  The weather was cool, but oddly humid.  I carried one of the soft bottles in my vest.  I did not take Ollie.  I ended up coming back from the 4th loop at 23 miles and change, so to keep it simple I just did that last 3 miles as an out and back on the rail trail.  I won’t lie, my legs were not happy with me for the last 10 miles.  That 4th loop ended up being 6ish miles and ran out of water.  But, with the 30-30 cadence I was able to pick up my feet and move each time and did not suffer unduly.  I wasn’t’ really sore the next days either.  I did see others out on the rail trail who were obviously running their own virtual races.  I listened through some podcasts and had a nice long thoughtful outing.  For nutrition I had a handful of dates.  I had water and a change of shirts and hat at my truck.  It worked out without much fuss.  I was pretty beat up at the end. Felt like I had run a marathon.  So – there ya go – for the veteran runner – you can complete a marathon on zero training using

Episode 4-466 – John from Sqoosh

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-465 – Murray – Modern Meditation  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4465.mp3] Link    Zero Prostate Cancer 2021 Boston -  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-465 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we talk with Murray about a bunch of stuff.  He’s written a new book on modern meditations, which impresses me as one of those great books to help you with your morning practices.  This weekend is the Chicago Marathon and Monday is the Boston Marathon.   There are a bunch of people who are running both.  Which is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity.  This being the big collection of races that were postponed from the spring into the fall by Covid. It looks like Chicago is going to be a little warm.  Remember the old rule of thumb says you should run 5 seconds per mile slower for every five degrees over 70.  Like most old rules of thumb this probably more anecdotal than scientific advice. I will be running, well kinda running, my Boston virtual Sunday.  I’m going to Run-walk it using the Galloway method and an 30-30 cadence.  Meaning 30 seconds of running, and 30 seconds of walking.  The knee seems to be responding well.  Hopefully I don’t hurt it with this escapade. If it still feels good I can start ramping my training back up, but one thing at a time. In section one I’ll share what I’ve learned using run-walk to work through my injured knee.  In section two I’m going to dust off an old piece about how to successfully implement change in your life. … It’s still pretty warm up here in New England.   The temps are only going down into the 50’s at night and it’s still raining a lot.  Which means My garden is still kicking along with some odds and ends.  I’ve got one last Swiss Chard that is providing some salad.  Some robust Parsley as well.  A couple green tomatoes – we’ll see if they ripen up before the frost.   I’ve got lots of mint and I’ve been thinking about drying it out for winter use.  I’ve got some Brussel sprouts, but the cabbage worms are in them badly – so I’m not sure if I’ll ever get anything out of them.  My Zinnias are going strong, so is the second crop of raspberries.  I cut the sunflowers and was attempting to dry them in a box but they got all moldy and had to be recycled.  I ended up eating all the apples off the tree.  There were a lot. I was eating like 6 a day.  I did make a pie and a crisp as well.  Towards the end I was sharing them with yellow jackets. These are the local angry bees.  I never realized this but they actually eat into the ripe apples on the tree.  They dig little channels in them.  And finally – Ollie Wollie the Killer Collie graduated from K9 training with his certificate in basic dog stuff.  Which was great.  Yvonne was able to join me for every session so

Episode 4-465 – Murray – Modern Meditation

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-464 – Coach Chris Twiggs  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4464.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Zero Prostate Cancer 2021 Boston -  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-464 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Let’s see if I can get this one out on time! Today we have the legendary coach Chris Twiggs on for a chat.  I met Coach Twiggs down at the Bird in Hand Half Marathon.  He is the head coach for Jeff Galloway’s running program.  Chris is a high-level marathoner and ultramarathoner in his own right, and it was interesting to me to compare and contrast the Galloway athletes that he coaches to the traditional training modalities.  The net-net of it is that runners, whether they are the elites, the age groupers, the 100-mile-a-weekers, the casual athletes, the back of the packers – we are all as passionate about our sport and as curious about our training.  And in section one, since we have a lot of new runners in the world these days, with basic questions, … I’m going to give you piece on how to get started from scratch.  But – what you’re going to be really excited about is that I’ll start you out with a garden update and an Ollie update.  Here’s why.  When I meet folks who have listened to my podcast, this podcast, do you know what they ask me?  What they want to know?  Is it about training tips?  Is it about race adventures?  No.  They want to know how my garden is doing.  And they want to know about Ollie my crazy border collie.  So, I’m going to lean in! First the garden.  It was an interesting year.  We had some successes and some not-so-successes.  My tomatoes struggled because there was an epidemic of some sort of tomato disease this year in my area that caused all the leaves to turn brown and wither – they call it “Tomato Blight”.  It’s because the weather has been so wet and gloomy this summer.  I feel like I’m living in Seattle. Basically, you have to plan any outdoor activity around the next rains storm.  It’s not a 100% bad thing.  Lawns are nice and green.  I never had to water.  As a matter of fact, I mixed up a bucket of fertilizer-water in June and have not had to refill it.  The rain just keeps topping it off as I use it.  I did get some splendid heirloom tomatoes.   These nice golden tomatoes with red veins that were incredibly scrumptious with a little goat cheese.  Yummy.  It wasn’t a total loss. Yvonne made me plant onions, even though I told her onions don’t grow in my garden, and they didn’t.  I also had a fun experiment where I planted a bunch of old, sprouted potatoes in my compost bin.  They grew like gangbusters, until something discovered how yummy they were and ate them all up.  The composting process is amazing with all this rain.  It turned 4 feet of leaves and waste into a foot of soil that I’ll

Episode 4-464 – Coach Chris Twiggs

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-463 – Jason Karp – Sexercise  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4463.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-463 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  I’m writing this early in the week because I’ve got vacation time this week and I’m trying to get ahead as much as possible.  Those of you who have been listening for many years may remember that we used to push out a show every week.  I switched to fortnightly so I could have the off week to work on other projects.  That’s how I was able to push out the MarathonBQ, not so much by rigorously working on this other work on the off week but more by just creating some breathing room.  Some mental space. It’s going to be a tight week for me.  It was Labor Day long weekend up here in the States – so Monday was a holiday.  I hadn’t noticed this when I scheduled this vacation for Wednesday through Friday.  So I’m working only Tuesday this week and trying to cram a week’s worth of stuff into it. I’m traveling down to Pennsylvania, about a 7-hour drive from my house, with my wife to poke around a little.  Then we’re going to meet the Extra-Milers for a race next weekend. I am still not running.  I am still on my workout cadence of Swim, Bike, Lift.  And, I was able to locate my wetsuit.  I’m looking forward to shaking the dust out of that tonight and giving it a try at the pond.  The weather is starting to get a little colder.  It’s in the 50’s in the mornings.  Tropical storm IDA dumped about a ½ foot of rain on us last week.  So, the pond water is dropping in temperature.  The wetsuit also makes swimming easier and safer.  It’s designed for triathletes and give you flotation in the placed you need it to help your form.  And, if for some reason you get in trouble, there is no way to sink wearing a wetsuit.  You float like a cork.  So maybe I’ll go a little bit longer this afternoon. The knee feels good.  I feel good. I’m tempted to start running again.  We’ll see how this walk/run of the ½ marathon this weekend feels.  Today we have got a very interesting interview for you all.  I managed to corral Dr. Jason Karp to talk about his book “Sexercise”, where he explores the connection between fitness and sex.  And, probably not surprisingly, there are a lot of connections.  Fair warning, if you’re triggered by people having a frank discussion about sexual activities, (all very clinical and non-titillating), If those kinds of talks bother you, you might want to skip this one.  In section one we are going to talk about race volunteering.  And in section two I’ll continue on my mindfulness sessions and talk about how to keep from following your monkey mind into the ditch. I’ve taken this opportunity of a relatively stable and relaxed training schedule, combined with

Episode 4-463 – Jason Karp – Sexercise

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-462 – Eddy – Fit over 50  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4461.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-462 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we’re going to focus on self-awareness and being in the now and how that helps you deal with hard things and also helps you work with what you’ve got. I have not run a step since we last spoke.  My new strategy is to actually rest my knee and see if that helps. Not sure why that wasn’t my first strategy…  But, we all have to go through these thing sin our own ways.  The knee doesn’t hurt and there is no loss of mobility or anything.  Every once in awhile I’ll feel a twinge when I’m walking Ollie or doing something weight bearing – but in general I’m feeling strong, healthy and happy.  I’ve got a nice cadence going of lift, bike, swim – with a longer ride on the weekend.  I’m really enjoying the summer days and the work from home.  At 5 o’clock when the work whistle blows I can leave my office, jump on my bike and go for a ride or head down to the pond and go for a swim or head over to the gym for a weights session.  It’s a very nice rhythm. It strikes me that I have found this rhythm partly by circumstance, the external factors of the plague and my knee being injured, but also by meeting the universe where it is. Meaning, because of my mindset practices I’ve somehow turned a this into a quite pleasant situation.  I’m at the point now where I’m in good enough practice in all three routines, weights, bike and swim, that I look forward to it and can get a good, hard workout in.  I’m particularly happy about the swimming.  Like I said before, I wasn’t too confident because swimming has always been hard for me.  But, I seem to have cracked the code when I trained for that Olympic tri a couple years ago.  Apparently, I retained that stroke knowledge.  It frankly, amazes me that I can just wander out into the pond after not swimming for 3 years and knock out a satisfying 1,000 meter swim.  I can’t imagine what people think when this old dude rolls up at the public beach, puts on goggles, wades into the water and disappears over the horizon.  Most years I wouldn’t swim in that pond in August because it gets too warm, but with all the rain it’s stayed temperate.   Anyhow, summary is I’m in a good place, keeping the weight off and staying fit. This week we will talk with Eddy who I ran into on YouTube.  He’s a retied guy trying to build a social media empire.  He did a 5K a day for 30 days video that I loved, so we talk about that and some other stuff. In section one I’m going to give you a primer on how to start lifting weights if your strength curious.  In section two I’m going to talk about awareness.  And how awareness allows us to choose how we make our wa

Episode 4-462 – Eddy – Fit over 50

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-461 – Jackie - Sidelined USA  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4461.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-461 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we’ve got a great chat with Jackie from Sidelined USA an organization that helps athletes deal with career -ending injury and rebuild for a positive life.  In section one we are going to talk about Molly Seidel.  Because she’s a great story on so many levels. In section two I’ll give you a quick report out on the century ride I did last week with my running bros. Yup, took a day off from work and went for along ride with Frank, Tim and Brian.  We rode out to Rockport and back.  Tim made a movie out of it you can see on YouTube if you google “” The big news from my side is that I had a follow up appointment with my Knee doctor and the new MRI shows that my injury is not getting better.  Let me explain, because I have a better idea of what the injury is now, and I think I can explain it better.  Before, when I got the first MRI in May, he said I had a ‘stress fracture’.  That’s misleading.  It is more of ‘stress reaction’.  On the MRI it’s a cloudy spot, like a bruise, not a jagged crack or break.  Picture a pirate flag with the skull and cross bones.  Those cross bones on the pirate flag are the femur bones.  That’s the big bone that plugs into your hip socket at the top and rests on your knee at the bottom.  If you look at the depiction on the pirate flag the end of the bones have these two pronounced knobs sticking out at the end of the bone.  That’s not really what they look like but it’s a good illustration of the area I’m talking about.  Those knobs are chondral. The left chondral on my knee has this stress reaction.  Inside the knob, the chondral is a spongy material.  This is where my stress reaction is.  So, you could say it’s a persistent bruise inside the chondral.  Why is it not getting better?  2 reasons.  First reason is that it can naturally take a long time to heal.  Second reason is I’m a compulsive idiot and won’t stay off it.  A couple other points.  First, unlike a tendon or ligament injury, this isn’t going to create scar tissue.  It’s just going to eventually heal.   Second is that you don’t want to completely stop using it, you need to keep the joints in motion for it to heal properly.  Another point is that this area does get good blood flow.  This will help it heal eventually without it getting chronic.  The doctor says I can still bike, hikle and do any other exercise.  You can’t reasonably stay off it.  It just takes awhile to heal.    There is a treatment where they inject something into that spongey material, like a cement or gel to basically fill up the space and create structure in there, but that sounds a bit invas

Episode 4-461 – Jackie - Sidelined USA

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-460 – Larisa on Burnout  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4460.mp3] Link  MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -  Chris’ other show à  Intro: Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-460 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Here we are in July – moving into August of 2021.  We’ve turned the corner on summer and the days are already getting shorter up here in New England.  What’s the update?  I have more doctor’s appointments than an 80 year old.  I’m 6 months into the sore knee.  I tried to increase my mileage last time we talked, but the knee got sore so I took a week off from running.  I had my second MRI and we’ll have a follow up with the knee guy to see if they can figure out why it still hurts.  He saw a stress fracture in there originally, but there’s something else going on.  We’ll figure it out.  And if he can’t give me an answer, I’ll kick him to the curb and do my own rehab. Doctors! I’ve been riding my bike a couple times a week and hitting the gym to lift.  I feel strong but it’s not the same. One of the things that challenges me is those 3,000 calories a week I’d normally burn running.  I really have to watch what I eat, or I balloon up.  And even though I’m eating fairly clean, I’m not losing any weight because I’m just not burning those calories.  I eat about 2,000 calories a day, no sugar, very few carbs.  I haven’t had a sandwich in 9 months or a real pizza.  The cauliflower pizza isn’t bad, but it’s not what I crave! I went down and volunteered as a course marshal for the local Appleman Triathlon.   I’ve run that race a couple times.  It’s an interesting course.  The bike course has 4-5 monster hills and the run course has a technical single path trail section that challenges people.  Especially the non-trail runners.  And it was raining on Sunday, so they did that in the mud! It was good to get out and volunteer.  Cheer some people on.  Good to see people racing again.  I’m taking a day off to ride a century with my old running buddies this week.  Should be fun.  We’re going to ride to the coast.  There may be a brewery involved.  I mentioned last week that I have been corralled to lead the fitness project for my team where I work.  I was out hunting for guest speakers, and I ran into today’s guest Larisa.  Larisa runs  that helps high achieving individuals who are experiencing burnout.   So of course I signed her up for an interview.  We have a great chat.  She is doing honorable and worthy work and I think it should resonate with some of you.  I know it resonated with me. In section one I’m going to talk about the Olympic Marathon.  In section two I’m going to talk about how athletes deal with career ending injuries. I’m still working on turning my other podcast the After the Apocalypse serial into a book.  It’s been hard.  What with all

RunRunLive 4.0 - Running Podcast

RunRunLive 4.0 - Running Podcast