RunRunLive 5.0 - Running Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Episode 5-496 – Coach Nora and some frequently asked questions

Hello my running friends. Welcome to episode 5-496 of the RunRunLive podcast.

Today we have a fun chat with Nora who is a coach and athlete about frequently asked questions. We ran into each other when I was answering running questions on Facebook.  As always Nora’s contact links will be in the show notes. If you want to take a look at her practice it’s at mileaftermile.co.

I am consistently pushing this podcast out every two weeks while I can manage it, because I enjoy doing so. But, I’m not going to focus so much on the fine details for now because I just don’t have the time. 

This is the RunRunLive ‘compromise’ version, where we don’t edit as tightly and don’t polish as much. But we still have conversations and try to have fun.

In section one I talk about shoes. And if you don’t agree with me, there’s going to be a rumble.  

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The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-419 – Dawn’s Wisdom (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4419.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-419 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  So – I’m a week late with this one, but it’s great show.  Think about it this way – we gave it an additional week to marinate, to grow, to rise like rustic bread or age like fine wine.  Last week I was all lined up to get the show out for Friday. Thursday was my birthday.  I took Thursday and Friday off from work to recuperate a bit and was working on the show.   Then, ironically as I was writing the hero’s journey piece that is in section two, that talks about how life is not a straight line, and it seldom goes as you expect it to, my old computer ceased to turn on.  I’ve had this Microsoft surface since at least 2015 and it’s been the best computer I ever.  It was powerful enough to do all the audio editing for the show, it has a great form factor for traveling.  Just a great machine that matches my need.  End of this story is that I spent all day Friday in the Microsoft store and ended up buying a new surface that I am happily tapping away on now.  I didn’t loose any data, just some time – and oh by the way – I’m about $2,000 lighter so you might want to consider becoming a member of the RunRunLive Podcast to help defray unexpected expenses.  So with that excuse out of the way let me take you back to the primordial jungles of North America where strange and dangerous beasts roam dark, dank forests…. (Fade in Jungle music) Our old friend Peter Herridge everyone with that excellent dramatic reading.  That piece of writing has been kicking around in my head or a few years.  Probably since I first heard the word ‘piriformis’ and thought, that sounds like the name of a nasty dinosaur.  I immediately thought of Peter who has such a great voice.  Peter was a good runner in his day and one of the original podcasters from a decade ago when we all got online and met each other.  Peter does a podcast every once in a while called ‘spikes’. Today we have a really good, timely chat with Dawn.  I have been following Dawn for a few years but never had her on the show.  She is a heavy social media poster and for some reason I see her posts on LinkedIn a lot.  I have always treated LinkedIn as a professional network and haven’t let this ‘hobby’ side of my life bleed over into it.  She stands out, because you’ve got all these businesspeople talking about business stuff and then there’s Dawn talking about empowerment and Joy.  This time of year, in the northern hemisphere anyhow, we all get stressed out.  The weather turns.  The days get shorter.  If you have kids their schedule ramps up.  It’s budget-setting time and trade show season at your work.  The end of the year is approaching with holidays and deadlines and sales quotas.  It tends to push people into anxiety and depression.  I was there myself this month.  With my work having challenges, me getting older and an unruly puppy to train.  Things just felt awful and closed in and trapped.  My mind started repeating a scarcity narrative of how much I don’t have and how much I’ve lost.  Which, I know is ridiculous, because I’m one of the most blessed and lucky people you’ll ever meet, but that’s how your brain works, especially this time of year. Then I stumbled across one of Dawn’s posts talking about gratitude and abundance.  By the way, one of the symptoms of this downward-spiraling mental malaise is you start trying to distract yourself online.  Whether it’s FB scrolling or too much news or video games.  That’s a bad way to avoid life.  Anyhow, I took a deep breath and declared November a month of gratitude.  In section one I’m going to suggest two useful ways you can use your off-season training to learn some new skills and add to your running assets.  In section two we are going to take the hero’s journey together.  Because one of the most effective way to contextualize your experience in this world is to see it as a journey.  Tell your narrative as a journey.  And that is what we are going to talk about today.  Gratitude and journeys.  Because, my friends, no matter how low or shitty it gets the hero in you always knows the way.  Without the shitty parts there can be no hero.  I saw a great post this week that said ‘failure is like stepping in manure, it stinks when you do it but it makes for great fertilizer!” On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – Using your in-between time - Voices of reason – the conversation Dawn Ciccone Make your day a new & exciting adventure! Discover your incredible life. Dawn Ciccone A marathoner, writer, personal trainer, nutrition and running coach, Dawn offers methodologies learned from experience!  Her passion is to help people face challenges, dIscover the gifts they bring and trust themselves as the beautifully powerful person you’re meant to be.   Dawn has conquered abusive relationships, addiction, disordered eating and came through a tragic accident that left her helpless. Dawn has been where you’re at and knows how to turn challenges into opportunities!   Credentials Certified RRCA &   USTAF coach   American Red Cross Health & Safety Instructor   Certified Nutritional Health Educator and Personal Fitness Trainer   Certified Master Reiki Practitioner, intuitive, empath, lightworker, transformational speak.   Section two – Your Hero’s Journey– Outro Well, my friends, you have Made it with gratitude to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-419.  Okey – Dokey – I’m in a down phase in my training.  Which is another, kinder way of saying I’m not training much.  Much for me that is.  I’m just doing 3 days a week in the trails with Ollie the Collie and then a longer run with the boys on Sundays – somewhere in the 20-30 miles a week.  I’ve fattened myself back up with some poor nutritional choices as well, but I think we need to take these breaks to rebalance the humors every once in a while.  I know discipline is power but that can burn you out and I’ve got a lot going on right now.  I’m noticing that I’m starting to get the bug again to do something epic.  Got any suggestions?  I’m not sure if I’ll get into Boston this year.  If I don’t that opens up the spring for something.  Coming up is our traditional Thanksgiving 5k.  But, Teresa hurt her foot, so I’m going to walk it with her.  Maybe we’ll start early and take the dog.  After that the first week of December is the Mill Cities Relay.  I was running with my buddies Brian and Frank and we came up with a the bright idea of entering our own team.  You only need 5 people and we already had 3 so how hard could it be?  As I started reaching out to some of our old running friends, (in our age group), I found that many of them were no longer running at all due to age-related injuries.  In a weird Schadenfreude way they made me feel pretty good about the fact that I’m still getting out there.  It also reminded me to be kinder to myself. Finally, I am planning to run the Groton Marathon, and organize it, for the 7th edition on December 29th this year – please come up and run with us.  It’s fun.  What about Ollie the collie? We were asked not to come back to puppy training.  It started as we were sitting patiently, waiting for class to start.  Ollie the border collie puppy and myself in the big box pet store.  It was our 3rd class.  Ollie was doing well, learning quickly.  The dopey brown doodle came in with it’s handler all stupid and goofy, doh do doh.  The dopy doodle’s exuberance overruled the owners’ ability to control it and it pulled its way over into our space to check out Ollie. Ollie was not happy about this.  He turned to look at me and said  “Dad, what is this madness?   These doodles and snoodles and snickerdoodle caboodles?  What right do they have to play with the canine DNA of pure breeds for their own amusement?  These freaks!  These aberrations! This cannot stand! I draw the line here! I must stop this madness!  Foul abomination I strike at thee! I will blot your aberration from this world!” At least that’s what I thought he said, because it was at this point he went berserk and tried to murder the doodle.  But, since I was holding him by the collar he turned and sunk his teeth into my hand.  As I was bleeding and shaking with fear, that’s when the nice lady said maybe we should leave and not come back.  On the one hand Ollie is mental and that has its challenges.  But, on the other hand, I’m kinda jealous because that’s exactly the kind of punk-rock, hard core mental many of us tried to be as teenagers! He’s just coming up on 6 months old and he’s already 31 pounds of muscular athlete with a big brain to boot.  He’s running 20 – 30 miles with me off leash in the woods each week and he’s scary fast and strong.  He’s not much on cuddling, but as they say, he’s someone you’d want to share a fox-hole with. I just have to train him up.  He’s going to be a great dog.  And remember, as Ollie says, Death to Doodles! I will see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

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The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-418 – Matt’s Long Ride (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4418.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-418 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  It’s been a busy couple of weeks since we last talked.  I did jump on the Ferry out of Hyannis to Nantucket for that half marathon.  It was kind of fun but also a bit of a struggle.  When I first signed up for it, I thought it would be a fun outing.  Maybe take my wife along or some of my running buddies.  In the end it was just me.  I met up with the other pacers on the ferry and met some nice people in the race.  It was a nice sunny day.  It was a pretty big race considering it was out on an island.  This race fell a week before my target race, the BayState Marathon, and I planned to use it just as a final easy run.  That was the plan.  With how inconsistent my training has been this summer I wasn’t feeling very excited about it.  I offered to run the 2:00 pace group, but they had a greater need for the 1:50 and I acquiesced.  I don’t run a lot of ½ marathons, and my math gets fuzzy.  A 1:50 half is the equivalent of a 3:40ish full marathon, and while not super challenging for where I am right now, it wouldn’t be the lark that a 2:00 would.  It works out to a 8:23 ish pace versus a 9:09 pace.  I went in tired.  My week was weird and my tempo run slipped to Friday, which was probably too close to the race.  My whatever-it-is pain in my butt wasn’t helped by the long ride down to the Cape.  I made the morning ferry with no issues and had no issues finding the pace team at the start. I lost my pace group early.  The first part of the course is a lot of sand roads.  They had had a storm for the previous couple days before the race that dumped a lot of rain and left numerous large puddles straddling the road side-to-side.  It turned those early sections into a bit of a steeplechase.  As a pacer I’m supposed to maintain pace no matter what – so I did and lost everyone who was trying to keep up with me.  I was trying to run by the overall average pace on my watch.  Which was a mistake.  I figured if my overall average was an 8:22 – 8:23 I’d be right on that 1:50 finishing time.  I ended up right on an 8:23.  I slowed down a little at the end because I was all alone and thought I might be a bit too fast.  That turned out to be the mistake and I crossed about 30 seconds too slow – which is a cardinal sin in the pacing biz.  I’ll probably get excommunicated.  Pacing isn’t as easy as it sounds.  Even though my average pace was exactly where it needed to be based on my watch, I missed the clock time.  It’s a bit befuddling.  My watch is always off a little on the distance and I guess that could be worth 30 seconds.  It looks like the only strategy that works is to have your mile splits written out, hard copy and check every mile – old school pacing.  And then plan to be a minute early on top of that to make up for variability.  I got it done, but I didn’t feel great.  Another small racing failure in what has been several months of disconsolate results and discontent.  My whatever-it-is pain in my butt was screaming in the car-ride home.  I was in a bit of a blue mood rolling into the last week of taper for BayState.  And that, my friends is what we will talk about in section one!  In our interview today we talk with Matt about his recent experience of riding his bike unsupported across the TransAm route and then writing about it.  In section two I’m going to rant a little on the current ‘hustle’ culture.  As I was lined up in the starting corral in Lowell, the city of my birth, a city that I have some history with.  I had one of those pure moments that I love about racing.  When you are there, on race morning, all the waiting is over.  The decisions have all been made.  It’s a pure moment.  The expectations and worrying are washed away by the rising sun.  The volunteer singing the national anthem fills your soul and dampens your eyes.  It is a pure place without affectation, without choice and filled with the energy of being set free onto the course.   How many pure moments like that are left in our world? On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – BayState 2019 - Voices of reason – the conversation Matt Hi Chris,  I’ve been a listener to your podcast for years now. You’ve been a constant source of entertainment and motivation in my life. I really enjoyed your Marathon BQ book, and used it for my marathon. Though most of my training has been more in the ultra-cycling world, geared towards 24 hour cycling events, and last year I raced Trans AM, a 4200 mile ride from Astoria Oregon to Yorktown Virginia. One of the things that saw me through those 16 hours of riding every day was listening to your podcasts.  Riding across country was a profound enough experience that I wrote a book about my journey “As Fast As You Can: How I Biked Across The U.S. In Duct-Taped Shoes” and there’s a quote from you in there from the podcast when you were talking about your 100 mile race “Here’s the uncomfortable truth.  There is no strategy that is going to allow you to stretch the effort over the distance to make things sunshine rainbows and unicorns.  You are going to be uncomfortable.  At some point, things are going to suck.  And not just for a few minutes like a 5K or 10K.  It’s going to suck for hours on end.  Your goal is to acclimate to the suck.  You can keep going with raw bleeding patches of skin.  It just sucks.” ~ Chris, from the “Run Run Live” Podcast. That was one of my favorite things that you’ve said, and it helped keep me going. If you’re interested, I’d love to work with you, maybe talk with you on your podcast. I have a modest facebook following and would do everything in my power to help promote your show, to add what support I can. Let me know if you’re interested. And thank you for being an inspiration. Regards, Matt Kovacic   Section two – Hustle– Outro Well, my friends, you have peddled non-stop across the country to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-418.  Time to put some nut-butter on those saddle sores.  I was flying back from Miami this week and looking out the window when the following words bubbled to the top of my brain: “Clouds boil up out of the southeast humidity escaping from the cauldron of the world.” That’s how my brain works sometimes.  It paints pictures with words.  But, let’s talk about something important.  Ollie the Collie.  Last week we started puppy class.  Which is a very good thing because he is a wild man.  Technically I could just train him myself without class but this, as in all things, is better with a coach.  Going in I was pretty sure Ollie would be the crazy, uncontrollable puppy in puppy class.  He’s got so much energy and he’s really busy.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ollie was the smartest, calmest puppy in class.  It’s a border collie thing.  When it’s time to work they fall in line.  He picked up the commands right away and he didn’t cause any trouble.  He’s going to be a good dog. I forgot to mention last show that I met up with Tim when I was in Chattanooga a couple weeks ago and we went for a trail run up on Signal Mountain.  It was good to see him.  He’s retired now and is planning to through-hike the Appalachian Trail next summer.  These long endurance events like the AT and Matt’s Trans AM can be game changers.  Matt’s a great example of just deciding to do something and doing it in a way that changes your life.  It’s one of those things that will become a fulcrum for his life journey.  If you think about your life’s trajectory, we tend to fall into a path and either consciously or unconsciously build the conditions that keep us on that path.  One of these big events is a great lever, to pry yourself out of that rut.  I’ve got a funny story about Matt’s interview.  As you may or may not know I have an editor for these interviews.  One of the most time-consuming and hard to automate parts of the podcasting process is the audio editing of the interviews.  The process is that you have to play the interview and cut out the bad bits.  By definition it’s a hard thing.  You have to understand what is being said to know whether it is pertinent or not.  I do my best to be consistent, but some interviewees are harder than others.  Sometimes we go down non-value-added (re: boring) rat holes that need to be ferreted out.  Sometimes I get a real talker or I lose track of time and the interview has to be significantly shortened.  I have had many good interview editors over the last many years that we’ve been in business.  Currently I work with Dimitry who live in Moscow.  He does a good job and seems to have learned my method well enough to make these tricky edits.  I pay him for each show – and that is one of the things I use subscription money for.  It doesn’t seem to bore him too badly.  I have had other editors quit on me, basically saying “I can’t take any more of this!”  Sometimes he’ll comment on what he thought was an interesting topic or person.  With Matt’s interview, Dimitry was very enthusiastic.  He said that he, himself, was a “Bike-Packer” as well and wondered how he could get a copy of Matt’s book.  So here’s a guy I work with every week.  That knows a shitload about my life.  That I’ve never met.  In Moscow.  That’s the world we live in today!  And as weird as that sounds, this conversation with Matt resonated and made a connection.  Think about that.  You never know which conversation or which thing you do is going to make a connection. So keep doing epic stuff and keep having conversations and I will see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

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The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-416 – Nate Does Form (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4416.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-416 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Yes, I did that thing where I published two episodes out of order.  Last week was episode 417 and next week will be episode 418. Today we wrap up our series on running form. We talk with Nate who commands the Run Experience in California and is an expert of form.  You may hear some odd noises in the background towards the end of the interview.  I was trying to do too much and was walking the puppy in the woods behind my house at the same time I was interviewing Nate.  We got going a bit later than planned and I realized I had to get back to my house for another call.  I went off trail to take a shortcut.  Anyhow. How are you folks doing.  Got some new members. In the last couple weeks.  When I ask them what I can do for them they say ‘just keep doing the podcast’ – I guess I can handle that.  Set’s the bar pretty low.  I am sitting in my Cape Cod house.  In the morning I’m going to get up and drive over to Hyannis, catch the 6:10 highspeed ferry to Nantucket where I will pace the 1:50 pace group at the Nantucket half marathon.  They were having trouble finding pacers.  1:50 is a little quicker than I would usually volunteer for, but they needed that more.  It shouldn’t be a problem.  It’s only a 8:23ish pace, and it’s only a ½ marathon distance.  Meh.  We’ll see if we have anyone looking for that pace.  I’m not feeling great.  I took a couple weeks off after Beantown, but it didn’t help my sore butt at all.  It really hurts when I sit for a long while, which is basically the definition of my life.  I have Baystate next week but at this point I’m thinking about switching to the half because I have serious doubts about my fitness and ability to race. I feel like my body is telling me to stop running for a while.  My thinking is to switch to some other fitness routine for the rest of the year and try to get my flexibility and core strength back.  I’m also loath to lose the fitness I’ve built up.  I’d need to find something aerobic to replace the running.  When I took those two weeks off I did do a medium effort bike workout on the Peleton in the gym.  That still aggravated the whatever it is.  I guess I could swim but logistically that is such a pain.  I’d have to join a club, rebuy all the stuff, etc.  I’d love to get into some sort of class that could give me the core strength and flexibility but I’m not confident I’d be able to find anything that fit me.  Cross fit?  Yoga classes?  I don’t know but I need to find something different.  I’m a bit rudderless.  In section one we’ll wrap up our form discussion.  In section two I’m going to talk about brown rice.  Yeah, why not?  Let me share a story I forgot to share last time from the Beantown marathon… Late in the race, after I had crashed and was limping home I had something amusing happen.  It was a loop course so later in the race I was lapping the slower runners. I passed a lady pushing a double stroller with two toddlers in it.  Good for her pushing two kids, I’m assuming her kids, for a marathon distance.  As I pass the stroller and pull ahead one of the kids yells out “Dadda!”  That gave me a chuckle. On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – Finishing up on form - http://runrunlive.com/finishing-up-on-form   Voices of reason – the conversation Nate Helming BIO: Co-Founded The Run Experience in 2014 with the goal of reaching a broader audience of runners and outdoor enthusiasts who want to be able to run and enjoy the outdoors and remain injury-free. He has helped athletes finish their first races, conquer new distances, overcome pre-existing injuries, set new PRs, reach the podium, and qualify for national and world level events. New Training App: (just launched this August) https://therunexperience.com/app Youtube Channel: Section two – On Brown Rice– Outro Well, my friends, you have used that perfect form to stroll nonchalantly to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-416.  I read a couple books this week.  I finished the  It was a decent read.  Very inspirational made you feel like you could do anything.  I didn’t see him, but he was out at Leadville.  He likes the ultra-running.  Likes to suffer.  One of the things he talked about that I found useful was using your past successes as proof that you can do whatever new thing you’re attempting.  You make an invent tory of those times when you broke through and when you succeeded and you pull those out when things get hard. I’m not in a great place in any of the aspects of my journey right now.  And it is useful for me to be able to go back through the inventory of all the amazing things I’ve been able to do in my life.  It gives me patience, and gratitude and even a bit of courage.  We all need courage. The other book I read last week was .  I found it in Starbucks.  They have a little basket of books that people leave and take. If you’re listening to me you probably already know who is.  He was one of the most unique science fiction writers of our time.  You’ve seen his stories in the movies.  Most famously his story, “Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep” became the cult classic “Blade Runner” with Harrison Ford.  But also, “The man in the high castle”, “A Scanner Darkly”, “Minority Report”, “Total Recall” and “The Adjustment Bureau”.  It’s hard to describe a PKD book.  They are all richly tailored alternate universes.  But, close enough to our own reality to make us uncomfortable.  I would recommend you read through his notable works.  This one won the Campbell award.  It was hilariously set in 1988 – which was 15 years in the future from where Dick was writing.  The thing with PKD is that the themes are science fiction-y, but it’s more philosophical fiction.  It’s not all spaceships, ray guns and beautiful women.  The alternate universes are abstractions for him to ask very reasonable questions about unreasonable things and things that matter. Nantucket in the morning.  BayState next weekend then slow things down for the winter months and try to get my kinks straightened out.  Ollie the border collie is doing great. He’s still a terror.  He’s turning into a teenage.  He’s learning how to chase the ball and sometimes even bring it back.  He loves to run on the trails with me.  I run and he zooms around.  He’s a good dog but he has way more energy than any of us do.  I take him to work with me sometimes and let him bother me there.  I have to go up and down 3 flights of stairs to walk through the basement to the loading dock to get him outside.  I suppose it’s god for both of us.  He’s making friends with the ladies in the smoking area.  When I went to the dump this morning the lady there was asking where he was.  He’s such a cutie pie and loves everyone so much he draws a crowd wherever he goes. That’s it for me.  I’m cooked and have to get up super early.  Reach into that cookie jar of past achievements that you are proud of and I will see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

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The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-417 – Robert Owen Hamilton – Beyond Average (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4417.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-417 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Welcome to all my endurance friends as the summer winds down up here in the northern hemisphere.  Maybe you’re wrapping up your season or deep into training for that last fall marathon.  The September weather we’ve been having is more like August weather.  It’s been warm this week and dry for quite a while.  The days are getting precipitously short, it’s dark in the morning and dark in the afternoon and soon it will be dark all the time here in New England like the bottom of some deep, cold well with a small circle of sunlight at the top peeking in to signal the long lonesome memory of sunny days past and the long winter ahead.  In the old, farming days this would be the time of plenty.  The crops are in the larders are full and the new beer and wine are fermenting.  This is the time of Thanksgiving and Oktoberfest.  Before the slow march into the winter solstice.  The ancients saw it, literally, as the death of the world.  I have just started running again after taking two weeks off.  I came out of that last marathon really beat up and decided to give it a bit of a rest.  I looked back over the Spring and Summer and realized that I’ve run 10 races over the last few months.  It was what I wanted to do after spending so much time heads down training.  But it does leave you a bit beat up I’ve been getting OllieDog the border collie puppy out with me more often as well.  He’s going to be a big dog. Today we have an interview with Robert Hamilton Owens who reached out to me to talk about aging and fitness.  Robert is one of those guys with an agenda or passion.  His passion is convincing people that age is no excuse to not do stuff.  You can do more than you think.  Robert has written a book and speaks on this topic.  He’s circulates in that hard core ‘we can do anything group’ with Joe DeSena from Spartan and David Goggins.  He is a retired Special Ops Pararescue guy.  He’s an ironman.  He’s had a TV show and been a minister.  He did that 7 marathons in 7 days thing with McGillivray last year.  He is known as ‘the fittest 66 year old in the world’.  Most recently he went through the equivalent of the BUDS SEAL training Hell Week.  That’s the thing you see with them shivering in the surf and carrying logs around.  Interesting guy.  A bit of a force of nature.  The kind of guy you want on your side in a fight.  One thing you may or may not notice is me getting a bit less interactive towards the end on the interview.  I had set myself up in a conference room to take the call and someone found me towards the end and was sitting there waiting for me to finish which kinda cramped my style.  That whole separating work from hobby thing again. Today I decided to wrap the whole episode around the concepts of aging and what we are really capable of.  In section one I talk about what the current thinking is on age and fitness.  In section two we delve into that ‘giving more than you think you are capable of’ topic and try to weed out truth from magical thinking.   That’s the question my friends.  How much more can you get out of yourself and why aren’t you getting it?  Can you live up to or beyond your potential?  Do you even want to? Let’s find out. On with the show! … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – The effect of age on fitness - http://runrunlive.com/the-boston-problem   Voices of reason – the conversation Robert Hamilton Owens ABOUT ROBERT Robert Hamilton Owens is a man of many hats. He’s been and done a lot – mountain climbing, radio and TV personality, keynote speaker, minister, Ironman, philanthropist, triathlete, Special Ops Pararescueman, and father of five – to name a few. But of all the pursuits he’s undertaken, there’s one title that best describes this literal force of nature: Robert is The Fittest 66-Year-Old in the World. Period. Robert was born and raised in Orange County, California without ever having met his parents. Adopted by a California judge, Robert was raised as a special-needs child who was unable to play kickball with his classmate due to the corrective shoes he was required to wear through sixth grade. In high school, Robert trained under legendary US Olympic swim coach Jon Urbanchek in Anaheim, and later raced outrigger canoes from Long Beach to Catalina with the Dana Point Outrigger Club on his off time from lifeguarding in San Clemente.  In 1973, he entered the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School with a class of 157 men to train as a Pararescueman, the Air Force equivalent of a Navy SEAL. Of those 157, only seven made the through and graduated, one of which was Robert, who was designated Team Leader. As an Air Force Pararescueman, Robert was routinely called upon to risk his life to rescue those in perilous situations, such as climbers stranded on Denali, the highest mountain in North America. As a climber himself, Robert later attempted a winter ascent up the mountain, making it nearly three quarters of the way up before being blown off by 80-mile-per-hour, -100-degree winds. But to his credit, and to Robert’s understanding to this day, no one has ever made it to the top in those conditions. After Robert left the military, he began smuggling literature into the old Soviet Union, and smuggling official documents back out. The documents were violations of the Helsinki Peace Accords under the Carter administration. Robert Hamilton Owens In total, Robert has completed 12 Ironman Triathlons – from Florida to Oahu to South Africa – and is one of the few Ironmen to complete both Honolulu in 1980 as well as Kona in 2003. “My goal is to be the longest active Ironman in the world,” he says. The 140.6-mile Ironman (2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and 26.3-mile run, all done without a break) is among the shorter competitions Robert’s put himself through. At age 65 he embarked on the 238 mile “300 of Sparta Endurance Race,” an eight-day endurance race in Greece to help raise over $315,000 for the families of fallen Navy SEAL contractors who died at Benghazi. A mere four days before his 66th birthday, Robert took on the SEALFIT’s Kokoro 50-Hour Challenge, originally created to train Special Operations Candidates. He was the oldest of the group by 25 years to finish, and at the same time became the oldest to ever complete the challenge, for which he was awarded the “Most Advanced Age Ever Award” by SEALFIT. And then without any training, he took on the Ironman Mexico – his 12th Ironman. And in January, 2018, Robert took on and completed "The World Marathon Challenge – 7 Marathons 7 Continents 7 Days.” But for Robert, a father of five, none of this is done for self-aggrandizement. While he loves the challenge, he derives his greatest pleasure from helping others – motivating, educating, and inspiring them. He does it for one, such as helping a ready-to-quit Ironman competitor and cancer survivor to continue and finish the race, and he does it for many. For more than 25 years, Robert has been speaking before audiences as large as 50,000, from San Diego to Moscow on motivational and leadership topics. His past clients include the Navy SEALs, New York Jets, The Baltimore Ravens, The Philadelphia Eagles, South African Parliament, the Vietnamese Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Philippines Joint Chiefs of Staff. He’s been invited to address the South African Parliament, and has made five trips teaching officials in the Vietnamese Department of Foreign Affairs. During 22 of those years, he hosted the regional Fox network television program “Leadership for Changing Times” in Reno, Nevada where, by two separate Governor’s appointments, he also served for eight years on the Nevada State Judicial Ethics Committee. While it takes extraordinary physical condition to be in the Air Force Special Ops or to best the many Ironmans he’s bested, Robert will readily affirm that success in these physical endeavors – and in life in general – is as much a matter of will and mental attitude as it is physical conditioning. When most have long since slowed as they approach their golden years, The Fittest 66-Year-Old in the World continues to routinely take on unprecedented challenges, and to help others see what can be achieved in their own lives.   Section two – 40% more– Outro Well, my friends, You have used your willpower to rise above the limitations of age and poor thinking to strive valiantly, giving 140% to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-417.  Since we talked I took some time off.  I was really beat up after that BeanTown marathon try.  I shut it down for the better part of two weeks.  I started up again this week.  The tendonitis in my butt still hurts but I feel relatively fit.  I’ve only got a couple weeks of training before I have to taper for BayState.  We’ll see what I can do but I’m not mortgaging the house on this one.  I counted up the races I ran this summer and it turns out there were somewhere around 10.  That’s a lot for an old boy.  They released the statistics for Boston today.  Even with making the cutoffs 5 minutes faster you would have needed to beat the qualification standard by 1:39 to get in for 2020, or about 3200 runner who qualified and didn’t get in.  It’s a brave new world.  I’ll tell you a couple Ollie dog stories to take you out.  I’m getting tried and I need to wrap this up.  First, I had him out yesterday on a trail run with me.  My day got hosed so I couldn’t get out until it was almost dark and it was pissing rain.  There’s a point, about 3 miles in where it opens up and you can get to the pond off of the trail.  There’s an opening.  I usually stop here to let the dog drink or swim, not this dog, the last dog, Buddy.  I pulled out to the opening and told Ollie to go get a drink.  Now, this late in the day, with a full heavy rain going, the surface of the pond looked solid as a cement floor.  He went running into it as if he wa going to run out onto this floor pretty much full tilt scamper…and went right under.  He was quite surprised and managed to dog paddle himself back to dry land.  This morning I got up and he had been sick.  He left me a fairly disgusting mess in his crate.  I toweled him off and took his blanket out.  I carried the hard-plastic liner out and hosed it off outside.  I went upstairs and through the towel and blanket in the washer and turned it on.  That’s how my day started.  Then my wife gets up and starts yelling at me for running the washing machine at 6:00 AM!  I explained the situation and she asks me one of those questions that I can’t answer.  “Did he eat anything he wasn’t supposed to?”  He’s a 4-month old, high-energy, border collie pup.  If he’s awake he’s trying to eat something and it’s usually something he’s not supposed to.  That’s it.  I’ve reverted to being a beginner parent again.  My life is wrapped around picking up bodily fluids and trying to keep my young friend from killing himself.  I’m not sure I’m equipped for it anymore! May the gods lend me patience. And I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

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The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-415 – Kate Williams – Yaks and the Planet (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4415.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-415 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we have a great conversation with Kate who is the CEO of 1% for the planet.  I owe you a bit of backstory here, so try to keep up.  When I first started the podcast 11 years or so ago I was a bit worried about mixing my professional world with my running world.  I’m a pragmatist.  I made the decision early on that if the podcast ever caused conflict with my regular career the regular career would win.  I had this nightmare scenario of sitting in a board meeting and someone saying “You had time to do this stupid marathon race report, explain to us why you missed your numbers again?” As an insider to our endurance lifestyles I get it.  I know what we do is additive to our careers.  What we do doesn’t make us worse at our day jobs it makes us better.  I believe that.  But my beliefs weren’t what I was worried about.  It’s like the old joke about marriage; “Would you rather be right, or be happy?”  I would rather be able to pay my bills than be sanctimonious. I was never that guy.  Because no one at work gives a crap about your training or your marathon times.  I built a wall between what I did for a living and my podcast adventures.  Which confused and intrigued my listeners.  Here I am talking about airplanes and board meetings and hotel stays and clients, and never sharing what I actually did for a living.  I would get questions.  What do you do for a living?  So, I made something up that fit the evidence.  I told everyone that I was a contract killer (that explained all the travel), but that my cover job was a yak farmer.  And if you have the patience to go back and listen to those early episodes you’ll find all the yak farming jokes.  Here’s the thing, I have never even seen a live yak.  I just randomly picked the most absurd profession I could think of.  Fast forward to a couple weeks ago.  I was in LinkedIn doing whatever it is you do in LinkedIn and I came across Kate’s profile.  Here is this out-doorsy, masters runner person with an ivy league education and one of the jobs on her resume is “Yak Farmer”.  I could not resist.  I reached out to her and got her on for this interview.  Which turned out to be apropos and extremely beneficial because she leads an organization that addresses the intersection of business and the environment – a topic that I have done much rumination on.  Why can’t we be business friendly and environmentally friendly at the same time?  Why are those two things antithetical?  I think you’ll like our conversation and I’m grateful that this silly podcast thing has led me to engage with another outstanding individual who I would have never otherwise had the opportunity to meet.  In section one I’m going to ruminate on the Boston Marathon some more. In section two I’m going to ruminate about rumination.  And, I hope you enjoyed my attempt to be funny with the Leadville race report.  Sorry for the salty language.  Hope the kids weren’t listening.  To make up for it I’ll give you a Dad joke.  What kind of animal do you need to take with you on a trip to the Himalayas?  A Yak of all trades… On with the show! … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – The Boston Problem - http://runrunlive.com/the-boston-problem   Voices of reason – the conversation Kate Williams, CEO Kate Williams is CEO of 1% for the Planet, a global movement inspiring businesses and individuals to support environmental nonprofit solutions, through annual membership and everyday actions. Last year, the network of 1800 members in more than 40 countries gave $24+million to environmental nonprofits. Kate stepped into her role at 1% for the Planet in May 2015 bringing a strong track record as a leader:  Professionally, Kate served as Executive Director of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail and as founder and owner of the Vermont Yak Company prior to starting at 1% for the Planet. In addition, Kate served on the Board of the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) for eleven years, two as chair. Kate has also served on the boards of the Northern Forest Center and Shelburne Farms (current), and served as an elected member of the Town of Waitsfield Select Board, serving three years a chair of that board. Kate earned a BA at Princeton University where she majored in history, and an MS at the MIT Sloan School of Management where she focused on organizational systems. Kate is a master’s distance runner and kitchen gardener. Kate lives in Waitsfield with her husband and two children. Links would be to our website: (our podcast) MISSION We bring dollars and doers together to accelerate smart environmental giving ORIGIN Ever wonder how 1% for the Planet began? It all started when two businessmen met and bonded over their shared love for the outdoors. Realizing their responsibility to protect our planet, they decided to give 1% of their sales back to the environment—whether or not they were profitable.   In 2002, Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, and Craig Mathews, founder of Blue Ribbon Flies, created 1% for the Planet and started a global movement.    “The intent of 1% for the Planet is to help fund these diverse environmental organizations so that collectively they can be a more powerful source in solving the world’s problems.” — YVON CHOUINARD IN HIS BOOK “LET MY PEOPLE GO SURFING”   Soon after our inception, 1% for the Planet’s mission began to resonate across the globe. The idea was simple: because companies profit from the resources they take from the earth, they should protect those resources. Realizing their responsibility, brands such as Brushfire Records, Klean Kanteen, New Belgium Brewing, Honest Tea, Caudalie and many more followed suit to join the movement.   Our network is global and diverse, proving that anyone can make a difference. From the individual members who give back by donating to and volunteering with local environmental nonprofits to singer-songwriter Jack Johnson, who joined our network in 2004 to protect the shores of his home state of Hawaii—everyone has a 1%.   We connect our members with high-impact nonprofit partners that align with their values and add to their brand story. In doing so, we take the time to get to know what’s really important to our members. Through our partnership advising process, we learned that member, Klean Kanteen cares deeply about a myriad causes, which include connecting young people to the wonder and science of our world through environmental education. Beginning in 2008, Klean Kanteen's support of NatureBridge is one of our longest-standing partnerships.   Today, we have more than 2,000 members, in over 45 countries, coming together to protect the future of our planet.   Section two – The Ruminating Brain– Outro Well, my friends, ruminated to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-415, which is a small miracle.  Two weeks after Leadville I went ahead and ran the Wapack Trail 18 miler.  I couldn’t stop myself.  I had a perfectly reasonable plan.  I would do a couple hard weeks with speedwork and then treat Wapack as a long training run.  This was a wonderful idea on paper, but not so much in execution.  What I had not considered is that going into a technical trail mountain race like Wapack with tired legs result in spending a lot of time with your face in the dirt.  Yeah, If you don’t lift your toes you eat dirt.  I probably fell 7 times. Then I shut it down hoping for a big bounce for the BeanTown Marathon last weekend.  I felt pretty fit and strong for the race but I only had 18 miles in me. I raced hard and hung in as long as I could but I just didn’t have the legs.  Duh.  It was a 6 loop course in a park, by the ocean in southern Mass.  Pretty course with some gravel roads and a little hill in each loop.  That little hill started really getting to me by the 4th loop and I just couldn’t hold the pace. Another classic Chris Russell 15 minute positive split. 18 miles at race pace and 8 more at a stumble.  I’m not terribly upset about it because I felt like I was close.  These last few cycles I haven’t made my time but every one of them felt like they could have gone either way. Next up for me is Baystate.  I’m chilling this week to recover.  I was super beat up after this race. I’ve got a very sore hip and still have that tendonitis in my butt.  If I can get healthy I’ll load up on the long runs for a couple weeks and get some speedwork in.  The challenge is going to be staying healthy. I can tell I’m a bit over trained.  And, now, I’m officially out of qualification.  If I want to run Boston this year I’ll need a waver bib. Oh, and I signed up to pace another half marathon.  I’m going down to Nantucket with Gary two weeks before Baystate to pace the 1:50 group with him.  Should be pretty. And that’s a good two-weeks-out workout for a marathon.  As usual, I’m hopeful and still plugging away, but I’m only in my first year of this age group so I’ve got to qualify 3 more times at this level before I age up 10 minutes. And what about Ollie-dog?  He is growing like a weed.  As I was writing this he was crying to go out.  I just came back in so I figured he was just bored. But, as all good puppies do, he proceeded to march into the living room and show the rug that he did indeed really need to go out.  Good thing we haven’t got around to changing the carpet yet.  He’s a maniac.  When he’s not chewing on you he’s stealing something of yours to chew on.  He like ice cubes and anything he is not supposed to have.  He’s going to be a great dog if I can ever break him.  Right now he’s a wild animal.  It’s nice to have the pitter patter of little hooves in the house again.   And I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

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Leadville, 2019 Call me a schadenfreude asshole but the moment that stands out from this adventure was watching Eric throw up for the first time in his ultra career, just after we left the Hopeless aid station.  That’s the first point where I thought I was actually adding value.  Until that point I felt like a bit of a third wheel, maybe some poorly chosen window dressing for Eric’s 8th LT100.  But, right then as he tried to yawn a toxic combination of noodles and electrolyte drink into the bushes, I felt like I was needed, like there was work to be done. And who doesn’t like to be needed? Chapter One: Anticipation Eric asked me to pace him at the Leadville Trail 100 some time around the beginning of the year, 6 -7 months ago.  He caught me at a low point.  That ebb in activity where the fall race season is behind you and the spring training hasn’t started yet.  A time when summer is as far off as old age used to be. That mid-winter blue period. The doldrums of the year.  A time when I wallow in manic depression without the so much of themania.  He knew I’d be weak.  You may have heard of the Leadville Trail 100 ultra-marathon.  “The race across the sky”.  It was established in the early 1980’s as a secret government program to harness the psychic energy of ex-drug addicts, by making them suffer at altitude for hours on end.  Then the iron curtain rusted, the wall fell, and Vladimir Putin started posing for romance novel covers.  They had to make up a cover story about saving the town of Leadville from imminent demise from the abrupt closure of the Climax mine.  The fun thing about Leadville, and here I use the term ‘fun’ to mean ‘awful’, is that it sits at an altitude approximately 200 meters south of the moon’s orbit.  It’s a place where only a few thimble fulls of oxygen reach and those few thimbles have to be shared among everyone in town and a few dozen shaggy mountain goats.  It’s known for its rough Western setting, it’s panoramic scenic mountain vistas and spontaneous nosebleeds … right before you pass out.  As we came into the summer and the event started getting closer it began to dawn on me that maybe this wasn’t a good idea.  It’s one of those things that seems like a really good idea 6 months in the future where it can’t harm you but starts to get gnarly looking as it comes into focus in time.  Eric casually mentioned that one of his pacers was in Europe for a wedding and the other one was hurt, so, hey, I’m going to need you for 39 miles.  Wait, what?  39 miles, at altitude, in the middle of the night?  That’s terrifying. So I did what I usually do and didn’t train for it.  Well, I mean I was just rolling out of a stout effort at Boston, and in general maintain a pretty solid level of fitness, but 39 miles at altitude is an ultra-marathon.  I live at about 250 feet above sea level.  Hope Pass is 12,600 feet above sea level.  You do the math, unless you’re actually on Hope Pass because you won’t be able to do math at that altitude, but, yeah that’s two miles straight up.  The highest I’ve ever been is Denver and that’s 1 mile up.  Hope Pass is 2 miles up.  Again, math-wise, twice as up.  Here’s the thing they don’t tell you, until you get there and it’s too late, then they tell you because they think it’s funny, the oxygen content in the air is not linear. At sea level, where I (and all the bright people) live, the oxygen content is 20.9%.  Where we were running it was in the 12-13% range.  42% less oxygen.  Just a reminder, humans need oxygen to do things, like breathe, run, and stay alive.  I had visions of me bent over coughing up blood by the side of the trail while Eric ran on.  I read a race report from the Leadville trail Mountain bike 100 held a couple weeks previously from a guy my age.  He had a small stroke at the top of one of the passes and the mean old race officials made him stop racing when he was slurring his words.  He was pretty sure his racing days were over.  On the minus side of the ledger: I had not trained well I had never been at this altitude, let alone run at this altitude My head might explode I might give out on my runner – which is very bad form On the plus side I have a lot of trail running and mountain racing experience I was picking him up at 50 miles so he was already cooked when I got him I’m pretty good at suffering when I need to be This is just the sort of stupid shit that turns my crank, so to speak… Chapter Two: Getting there I flew from Boston to Denver on Thursday afternoon.  The race is on, well it’s one of those stupid ultra things, the runners start on Saturday Morning at 4:00 AM and have to finish by 10:00 Am on Sunday.  It’s a 30 hour cut off.  Which sounds generous but less than 50% of the people who start this race finish.  A majority of those miss the cutoffs at some point on the course.  Flying into Denver is unique.  I’ve done a lot of flying.  When you fly into Orlando it’s all screaming kids with mouse ears.  When you fly into Vegas it’s all drunk people in cowboy hats.  When you fly into LaGuardia it’s all close-talking loud people shouting at cell phones.  On most flights through the Midwest I get squeezed between corn-fed mid westerners who take up most of my personal space with their MAGA hats and over-stretched golf shirts.  Or, perhaps a California flight with that crazy woman that wants to talk to me about her vitamin regime.  Not the flight into Denver.  Everyone on the plane is an endurance athlete of some form.  Even the children.  On the one hand it’s quite spacious with all the skinny people, but on the other hand if I had to resort to cannibalism, they looked a bit gristly.  But, if I did have to resort to cannibalism I’d start with the vegans, because I think that would be ironic.  If we did crash, I’d be all set.  You could not hope for better seat mates.  I’m sure they could carry me out of the plane and up a mountain while devising intricate splints and tourniquets from spare tent pieces and technical fabric scrounged from those North Face backpack carry ons.  Maybe shoot some rapids in a kayak assembled from air sickness bags on the way back to civilization.  Eric and crew fetched me at the airport.  I felt like an adopted child being picked up by the new parents.I have hung out with this crew before and they are a blast to do an event with.  We did the New Orleans marathon in 20014 and it’s one of my favorite race memories.  Eric, his wife, Dan his best friend and other pacer, and Dan’s wife.  We would round up the crew with Eric’s son, Eric’s son’s wife, who was also pacing and one of Eric’s son’s friends, who was the other pacer. To formalize his relationship (sort of an indentured servitude type of relationship) with the Leadville Trail 100 Eric bought a house in Breckenridge, which would be race HQ for the weekend.  I had a room at a Breck hotel a mile away.  Breckinridge is a nice town in a Stepford Wives sort of way.  You sort of feel like you’re on a movie set and it’s all not quite real.  But that could have been the total lack of usable oxygen making it to my cerebral cortex.  At the hotel I was on the 6th floor.  I’ll tell you a Colorado story.  I was walking to the elevator and there was a young dad behind me with a 5 or six year old.  I was going to let that kid press the button in the elevator. But they marched right be me and into the stairwell. I figured they must be on the next floor up or something.  When I was existing the elevator, they were trooping down the hallway in front of me.  Really? It’s Colorado! We don’t need elevators!  We don’t’ need stairs!  Just put in a climbing wall and we’ll belay our luggage up from base camp. Pass me a piton.  Belay on!  Chapter Three: Camp Foreshadow As a walked over to the base camp house early Friday morning I passed a guy out on the sidewalk having a morning smoke.  As we exchanged pleasantries about the beautiful morning, I thought to myself that this guy is going to get mugged by a gang of high-altitude hipsters.  I figured he’d be pilloried on an extra mountain bike frame when I came back by.  If Smokie the Bear didn’t get him first.  I consciously chose to walk the less-then-a-mile through the bad streets of Breckenridge just to see how the altitude felt.  Would I be gasping for breath?  Would my muscles be screaming for oxygen?  Would my head explode? Turns out the answer to all this hyperbole was, “No.”  I felt fine.  Well I felt altitude fine.  Which from my time in Denver feels a bit like a three-beer hangover combined with a bit of an allergy.  We collected the tribe and drove over to Leadville, through Frisco and a valley where the headwaters of the Arkansas River begins, to eventually empty into the Mississippi.  The whole place is drop dead scenic.  The Rocky Mountains rise up on all sides with their 13,000 and 14.000 peaks.  There was still snow in places.  With the thin air the mountains pop out at you like some ultra-real Instagram filter, their crags and points crisp and sharp in the lasering sun.  It’s just an interesting place, Leadville.  There was an apocalyptic novel written in 2008 where Leadville becomes the new capital of the United States called “Plague Years”. It’s got a ton of history and character.  You take all that and pour several hundred near-psychotic ultra-runners on top and you’ve got a party.  It turns out that, after his 7 straight Leadville finishes Eric is pretty much the Mayor of Leadville.  Everywhere we went he would be embraced by emaciated trail ghosts.  There was much back slapping, handshaking and hugging.  I think he has a good chance in the upcoming election. We attended the pre-race briefing which is a bit of theatre.  The long-time race directors all standup and give inspirational talks.  It’s a wonderful, feel-good, almost family reunion feel.  The Ultra-running community is very close.  Almost everyone has a backstory.  There are recovering addicts and abuse victims.  All those lost souls who can only find peace deep in the dark place out on the trails.  Made me wonder what dark secrets Eric was harboring to drive him into this carnival of lost souls.  I’m going to go with dressing up in women’s underwear and dancing around, just because the visual cracks me up. From the briefing we wandered over to the expo, which was a small, open-air affair. They had everything you would expect at an event like Leadville; commemorative shirts, extra nutrition, handmade backpacks crafted from organically harvested Koala foreskins.  And as much CBD as you could carry.  Eric and his son grabbed their stuff, more hugs, more selfies and we commuted back to the ranch.  Wonderful news for me was that Dan’s knee was feeling better and he’d pick up Eric a bit earlier on the course. Instead of 39 miles, I’d only have to survive 27. Piece of cake.  We had a nice dinner, a couple beers and everyone got an early bedtime.  They would be getting up early to be there for the 4:00 AM start.  The rest of us would sleep in and head over to catch them as they came through Twin Lakes in the early afternoon, then pop over to the turnaround, 50-mile mark at Winfield. Chapter Four: Wait for it. Much of Friday was spent by the runners running the Leadville course.  Much of the day for us was spent waiting. Waiting for them to come through Twin Lakes.  Waiting in line for the buses over to Winfield.  Then lying around in the sun at Winfield waiting some more.  The weather was wonderful for waiting.  A little warm for running.  I ended up with a bit of a sunburn before the day was over.  While I was getting ready, I realized my water pack had sprung a leak and had to do a quick tape-job on my bladder to fix it. I’ve had that pack for a long time and it’s starting to show. I would pick him up at the Winfield aid station which is the turnaround point for the out and back, about 50 miles in.  Dan, Eric’s best friend and long-time pacer had the last 7 of Eric’s races in a big spreadsheet.  We partially knew what to expect.  Eric has a history of falling down early in this race. Last year he broke his nose.  He decided this year to go out slower in the early sections to avoid rolling in the dirt so much and keep the blood inside his body. Because of this go out slower strategy and the warmer day he was late coming into Winfield.  Now Eric is as calm as a cucumber on a cool day.  A real machine.  The whole time I was with him he was lucid, forming whole sentences and moving well.  Which is not an easy thing to do after 60-70 miles at altitude.  I on the other hand was still a bit terrified.  I still didn’t know if I’d be able to perform at altitude.  I knew we were close to the cutoffs.  And my equipment was acting up.  But, on the plus side I had my runner and the game was on.  I had a job.  Eric knew what he was doing but I was there to make sure he stayed on track and drag him through any rough spots. Chapter Five: Up and Over. And so, it began.  At 5:25 PM Eric and I fast walked out of the Winfield Aid station and made our way towards Hope pass.  This is a mountain pass, which is a saddle between two mountains, that tops out at 12,600 feet.  Eric had already been up and over once.  Now we were going back. This is a tough climb at a tough point in the race.  The runners are already 50+ miles in and they already know what they are up against, having just done it.  It’s a psychologically hard place for the runners.  On the bright side, they get to pick up a pacer for the return trip.  Eric had me.  My plan was to just try to keep up.  Keep him engaged as much as possible.  Keep an eye on him.  And periodically remind him to eat and drink.  I bit like a mother hen or a border collie. Our approach out of Winfield towards the pass was a beautiful single path through an Aspen grove.  Not easy running, but nothing out of the ordinary.  We passed through places where avalanches had cleared the slopes of trees and piled things up.  The single path hugged the side of the mountain with precipitous drops off the side of the trail.  It was a delightful afternoon.  The whole time we were climbing towards the pass runners were passing us coming in the other direction.  We would tell them “Good Work!” and such but we knew they were ‘dead men (and women) walking’.  We were tight on the cutoff there was not much chance these stragglers were going to see the finish line.   I believe the race intentionally makes the cutoffs tight early to sort people out before they get hurt.  There is a lot of attrition after the first trip over Hope Pass and even more on the way back.  It doesn’t seem hard on paper.  You’re only trying to hit 3 miles an hour, but the pass and the altitude mess with people.  It get’s into their heads.  Especially the second trip up and over.  As we began to climb, I pulled my phone and turned on some Grateful Dead to pass the time.  I had this fantasy vision that my music would attract a van-load of old hippies who had been hiding in the woods since the 60’s.  They’d come out smoking joints and dancing and they’d joined us on the trail.  That didn’t happen.  When we got to a flat or a down, we’d run a few strides, but for most of that climb Eric was just grinding away trying to hike as best he could. I was feeling good.  The altitude scare passed, and I was able to keep up and even get out front and pace a bit.  We were grinding out maybe 2 miles an hour.  It was single path, rocky trail at 15 – 20 % grade.  Just putting your head down and pushing those quads up one step at a time. I remembered from the Burning River last year when Kevin was pacing me, and I was pretty shot at the end.  He would stay ahead of me like a carrot on a stick and make me keep up.  I tried to do that with Eric.  I could hear his hiking sticks clacking on the rocks behind me so I knew where he was and tried to stay just out of reach.  It took us awhile to clear the tree line.  Then we could see the pass.  And all around us the mountains rose like gods.  It was stunningly gorgeous in the late afternoon sun.  As we got into the switch backs on the final push the temperature started to drop.  I had been super comfortable in the 65-degree, dry sunny afternoon, but now the wind kicked up above the tree line and we stopped to fish out some gear. I remember saying to Eric as we climbed the pass “It had better get cold because I’m going to be pissed if I had to carry all this winter gear and don’t use it.” I got my gloves on and a fleece beanie for the summit.  I was wearing my Brooks baggie shorts with a pair of Zensa Calf sleeves for added protection and a tech T shirt with my water backpack.  I brought with me a running jacket.  As we approached the summit, I got Eric’s video camera and scrambled ahead to take some video of him crossing the pass.  I felt the altitude.  Not so much in my legs and lungs, but in my head.  My red blood cells were holding an emergency impeachment meeting to vote my brain out of office.  The whole time at altitude for me is like a combination of a 3-4 beer hangover and a spring pollen allergy.  A fuzzy head, dry sinuses, a little cough.  I brought a bit of an airplane cough with me but the dry altitude seemed to dry it up.  One thing I loved was no chaffing.  With the lack of humidity I never got sticky enough to lose any skin.  And just like after about a couple hours of climbing we were up and over.  Eric went blowing by me not pausing long at the pass.  I had my pack off putting on my jacket and finding my lights.  No time to waste.  I’d have to catch up.  He was on a mission.  In the same way that having the pass in front of you messes with your mind, having it behind you give you wings. Eric was a machine. That’s why he’s finished this race 8 times now.  He just keeps moving. This was to be his modus operandi. It didn’t matter what was going on around him he kept moving.  At one point we passed a guy who was down and out on the trail with people gathered around tending to him.  Eric didn’t even pause we just went chugging by like this poor bastard roadkill was a rock or branch.  I think they ended up helicoptering that guy out.  While I was on the pass struggling into my jacket the sun was setting.  It was even worse now because we were on the other side of the mountain from the sun.  It got dark in a hurry.  As I was fishing out my headlamp and flashlight in the dusk there a guy asked me if I had an extra light?  I said, well I have my runner’s extra light but that’s for my runner…  He says, “I’ll give you $100 for it.”  I don’t think he actually had $100 on him; I think he just wanted me to understand the urgency of the situation.  I relented and gave him Eric’s extra headlamp. He put Eric’s bib number into his phone.  Far as I know that headlamp hasn’t shown up again.  Now I had to catch Eric who had taken off running down the mountain.  I put some coal in the boiler and started making way, happy to be done with the whole Hope Pass thing without incident.  We actually had to run through a patch of snow, left over from the previous winter.  No kidding.  Slipping and sliding through the snow at 12,000 feet in the feeble, failing dusk, trying not to superman as I was trying to catch Eric.  One thing you have to know about Eric.  He’s very tall.  Probably 8 inches taller than me with legs to match. He eats up a lot of ground.  When we were hiking, I’d have to run a little to keep up with him. 70 miles in he’s walking faster than I can walk.  He thought I was trying to get him to run.  I was just trying to keep up.  Chapter Six: All Night Long. Coming out of the pass the first landmark is the Hopeless aid station.  We paused there to refill our tanks.  I was wearing a pack and carrying a bottle.  We’d shoot Gu’s every so often on the trail and then browse what was on offer at the aid stations.  I made sure to be aggressive with the Enduroyltes under the unsupported theory that the electrolytes would help my head in the thin air.  We grabbed some hot broth and noodles.  Eric remixed his backpack with the Sword energy stuff he was using.  We pressed on.  Next thing I know he’s retching off the trail behind me.  I guess the Sword didn’t mix well and he got a super strong mouthful of it on top of the noodles, and, 15 hours of running, and it wanted to come back up.  I told him keep moving.  If you’re going to throw up, throw up and we’ll keep moving.  You’re going to feel shitty either way, so keep moving.  He managed to get the offending admixture up and out and we forged on.  We had the downhill now and could make some time.  We had to be back into Twin Lakes by 10:00 PM and it was tight. We were good time on the back side of the pass.  By this time, with the dry air and the hundreds of runners the trail was super dusty.  You could see the dust in your headlamp and taste the grit in your mouth.  I was coughing a lot and losing my voice. Which did not keep me from singing.  We were see-sawing with another runner and his pacer. I started singing West Texas Cowboys (because of the one line about dusty dirt) and the other pacer knew the words and was belting out the song with me. I felt great.  We were having fun and Eric was keeping up.  I don’t know if it was my imagination but I felt like there was palpably more oxygen as we descended that dusty trail, dancing through the occasional rock garden. I’d try to hold my flashlight beam on anything that looked treacherous so Eric could get a good fix on it coming down behind me.  I’ll call out the obstacles when I could, “Toe Grabbers!”, “Rock Garden”. At one point off the side of the trail the moon was rising over the lakes and it was blood red.  An awesome sight.  Dripping that blood red reflection into the lake between the mountains.  This is also where we passed Eric’s son Zach and his wife.  Zach was having some sort of stomach issue and had stopped running.  We tried to get him to come with us, but his head wasn’t in it, so we forged on.  Coming into Twin Lakes there were 5 – 7 open water crossings. They had a wet year so there was more water. We splashed through these.  Some were cold and knee-deep. Some were disturbingly warmer and muddy and knee deep.  I only had one pair of shoes with me, but they were trail shoes and I was pretty sure they’d drain out and be ok. Eric knew where we were and could smell the barn, so to speak.  He started to hammer through the water obstacles and was running hard through the fields to the Aid Station.  I pulled in behind him and let him drag me in.  As we got close there was a lot of foot traffic. It was a bit confusing and crowded and dark.  Dan met us as we were coming in and told us to hustle to the timing mat because we were tight on time.  The three of us pushed through the crowd in the dark. I was accidently body slamming people in the trail because, they were wandering in crowding the course, I was trying to keep one eye on Eric, it was dark and I was trying to figure out where the finish line was with some urgency.  We made the cutoff by 8 minutes.  Which was a good thing, but also got me to worrying about the next cutoff and making up some time with my athlete being 60+ miles in. The crew got Eric into a chair took care of his needs while I tried to clean all the sand and gravel out of my shoes from the water crossings.  We topped off our tanks and got back on the trail.  We had work to do.  It was just after 10:00PM local time and midnight on Boston clock.  Eric had been going for 17 hours and I had had him for 5 of those.  We had to get to the next cutoff at Half Pipe by 1:15 AM.  Less than 10 miles but on this course you never know. There was lot of fire road and a lot of climbing up out of twin lakes.  Everyone talks about Hope Pass but not so much about how there is another mountain to climb out of Twin Lakes. We worked it.  We were making time and catching runners.  Eric continued to be a machine.  It was all work now.  Deep into the night. This was where I decided Eric was a robot.  He kept telling details about the course as we were coming up on them. “There’s a little hill here, then a downhill switch backs with rocks.” We’re coming up on 70 miles for him and he knows exactly where he is, he’s lucid, and he’s moving well. Definitely a robot. We got into a nice rhythm on the downhills and flats.  I stayed out in front and set the cadence.  It’s an old ultra-running trick.  You count out 12 strides at a run, then count out 12 strides at a hike.  It keeps you focused on moving without over working anything.  I kept just far enough ahead to keep him engaged and moving.  We made it into Half Pipe with time to spare. Frankly I wasn’t looking at my watch much anymore, we were just focused on moving and letting the course take care of itself.  We had 3hours and 15 minutes to get there, we did it in 2:42 and picked up 20 minutes on the cutoff. I was getting tired coming into Half Pipe.  I had some waves of Nausea on the trail and was totally disappointed that it was only gas.  I thought for sure I was going to get dropped.  I figured I should it the porta john at Half Pipe just to be sure.  They had them helpfully rigged with lights inside and not so helpfully absent any toilet paper, but we make do.  When I took my pack off I realized that I had worked up a good sweat coming down the mountain and the cold air on my wet body sent me quickly into chills.  It was cold!  I got some hot broth in the tent and cuddled up to the gas heater for a few minutes. Eric was ready to go again and told him we’d have to keep moving because I was on the edge of hypothermia. With only 8 ½ more miles to Outbound where I would hand him off to Dan I figured I could tough it out.  I was suffering a bit, nothing awful, but with the altitude and the cold I was at the edge of my training. The course was relatively easy in this section and we just kept up a good cadence and kept moving.  We were still passing a lot of runners. Eric was asking for the time. I didn’t want to roll up my sleeve to look at my watch because I didn’t want to lose the heat so I just told him to never mind and keep moving. We got that good, steady run-hike cadence going again and were making good time.  I had to drop him by 3:00 AM local time, which would be 5:00 AM my time. All good. With about 5K left we were cutting through a farm field and were treated to a wonderful visual, a bit of true performance art.  A runner was reliving himself in a great golden arc by the spotlight of his head lamp. It was like a water feature you’d expect to see in a Venetian fountain. We congratulated and applauded. And that was it for me.  We pushed down a section of open road and across a field that seemed to go on forever.  My lights were dying and I was having trouble staying on the trail on the field.  We pushed into the outbound aid station and I tagged off to Dan. I gave him the update.  Eric was doing great.  He was eating and drinking and performing other bodily functions with reassuring regularity.  Duty done I collapsed into a chair with my teeth chattering from the cold and tried to disappear into a space blanket.  We had picked up some more time and Eric and Dan had a good 40+ minute cushion to work with.  My watch said I had run almost exactly 27 miles in almost exactly 9 hours for almost exactly 3 miles an hour.  Eric’s crew bundled me into the car with the heat on to give me ride back to the hotel for a hot shower couple hours of napping.  Eric and Dan pressed on into the morning. Chapter Seven: Aftermath. I got a couple hours sleep and then headed back over to base camp to join the rest of the crew.  We drove over to Leadville trying to figure out from Dan’s text messages how close Eric was to the 30-hour cut off.  It looked like it was going to be close and we prepared for the worst. I got some hot coffee and oatmeal and we waited by the road on a warm, sunny Leadville morning watching the happy parade of exhausted runners come up the street wit their crews in celebration. And sure enough, with 20 minutes left on the clock Eric and Dan came up the street and there was much rejoicing. We all ran him in.  He was like a happy drunk.  He just finished his 8th Leadville Trail 100 Race on his 59th birthday on a day where only 42% of the people who started made it home.  It’s a beautiful, terrible race that gives back to its runners more than it takes in the end.  It fills them with a satisfaction of having faced this terrible, beautiful course across the sky and walked away, sometimes with a belt buckle, always with a bucket of memories.  Thank you, Eric.  That was something to be part of.  If memories and experiences are the currency of our lives then I am a very rich man.

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The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-414 – Matt Part 2 – The Ironman (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4414.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-414 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   I’m trying to get this one out early this week because this weekend is the Leadville 100 Trial race – “The race across the sky”.  I’ll be flying out Thursday night to pace Eric over the weekend.  Truly, this has all the earmarks of an adventure (with a capital A).  This is the thing I really dig about longer endurance events.  Whether a marathon, multi-day relay or and ultra, you really have no idea what’s going to happen when you toe the line.  There os that middle road, the one you are planning for, or more appropriately guessing at, that travels a clean but relatively uninteresting path, where everything stays within expectations.  That middle road where nothing weird or memorable happens.   You just run your miles and bask in the warm glow of an expected job well done.  You trained.  You showed up.  You ran.  You finished.  You wipe your hands, note the effort in your log, check the box and move on.  That is the less interesting path without much adventure.  But there is always a chance, I’d say better than 50/50 that something goes sideways.  There are those glowing, multi-colored traces that arc off of the main path at crazy angles into the unknown.  This is where the good stuff happens. Adventure is when you show up for a 12-person relay and there are only 8 runners.  Adventure is when you start throwing up 75 miles in.  Adventure is when you roll that ankle or crash your bike in the early miles.  Adventure is when that storm blows in with its driving wind and hail.  Adventure steps in and tears up your well-made plans. Adventure wipes the slate and resets the score. It strips you of your smug comfort and your middle of the road expectations.  But, my friends, adventure is not catastrophe.  Adventure is not some evil, beady-eyed thug stepping out of a side alley to blacken your eyes and steal your money. No, my friends, adventure is an opportunity.  Adventure strips away our silly human thoughts of predetermination and let’s us draw on deeper pools of resource and strength that we didn’t know we had.  Adventure, you see, leads to fulfillment.  Adventure is where the “Epic” lies.  Adventure to the shores of new worlds, and to the walls of Troy. Adventure is a tool to flush out the human spirit.  We, endurance athletes, we hardy few, we celebrate Adventure. “You are better than you think you are, and can do more than you think you can.” – Ken Chlouber On with the show! … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills.   … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Section one – Form series Chapter Three -   Voices of reason – the conversation Matt Schorer Matt is father, husband and triathlete from upstate NY who recently made the successful move to reclaim his health.  Matt is currently training for the Lake Placid IronMan in Late June of this year.     Section two – Thoughts on Seneca’s Letters– Outro Well, my friends, you fixed your form and fixed your sites on the new horizon, which, by the way, was the name of a NASA probe that made a flyby of poor old demoted king of the kuiper belt but no longer a planet Pluto, and then, even more astoundingly cool, Ultima Thule which turned out to be two big chunks of accreted dust bunnies from the birth of the solar system 4 billion years ago, to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-414, which is in some small way astounding in itself. For me the weirdness that is my life continues.  I try to not struggle against the current so much.  I try the choose, as much as I cah the rocks to bump against on the way.  I will be pacing Eric this weekend at Leadville.  And, don’t anyone tell him, but I’m terrified.  My training has been shyte (it’s not really bad language if I use a non-U.S. dialect).  I’ve still got that damn rattle in my lungs from whatever that airplane cold was, I’m thinking consumption, or maybe grippe, or apoplexy – but I’m no doctor.  And I have the great personal responsibility to guide a dear friend through 38 miles of dusty Colorado trail, at night, over a pass that tops out at 12,600 feet.  I may die.  I would rather die than not support a friend who needs me.  People often over estimate my ability, but, thankfully they also underestimate my insanity – so it balances out.  Assuming I survive this adventure I am actually registered for a series of hard races, that I’m also not prepared for.  Screw it. Why change my approach now and do the smart thing?  That might work but it’s a boring narrative.  I’m going to call this a training run.  A nice long hike in the woods.  Good for building strength and base aerobic fitness, right?  Then in a couple weeks I’ll run the Wapack trail race and that’s another nice strength builder.   Which is stupid because a week after that I’m signed up for a marathon to see if I can’t get a qualification time before the Boston registration window closes.  Ya never know.  It’s happened before.  Remember when I rolled out of that 6-hour Spartan race in 2017 and requalified at Portland?  Or when I turned my training for an Olympic tri into a qualifier at Baystate in 2018?  It happens.  I have a history of doing better when I’m not focused. I’m also signed up for the Baystate Marathon in October which would give me 6-7 weeks of training to make another good show.  I still have some tendonitis in my ass.  My knee is still crunchy from crashing in June.  The machete injury healed fully, so at least I have that going for me.  Maybe the $1,000 emergency room visit was worth it.  Although my wife is of the opinion that I should have gone to the Redi-clinic or stitched it up myself.  And I may be patient zero for some new form of zombie plague that starts as a juicy night cough you can’t shake.  So – everything is status quo over here at the RunRunLive HQ.  And honestly I’m happy to be alive.  But, I can hear you scream, “Chris, no one cares a wit about your constant stream of whinging about running.  What about the puppy?” As we speak Ollie the border collie is what? 10-11 weeks old?  He’s growing like a weed.  He bites everything and everybody.  If it exists it goes in the mouth.  He’s sleeping through the night mostly in his crate, but usually sleep in the couch in the vicinity and that calms him down.  He’s a random poop and pee machine, but we’re working on it.  He is teaching us patience.  I’ve realized how much older I am since I last had a puppy or a baby in the house.  They have two speeds – all ahead full and sleep.  He likes to destroy Yvonne’s perennials. He like to chew on rocks.  He likes to steal my socks.  The other day I walked out to my garden with him.  I picked a pile of produce.  Tomatoes, peppers, squash and cucumbers.  He stole one of my cucumbers and gleefully kept it away from me as I grumbled and fumed and chased.  He capered away with a sparkle in his eye. I ended up freezing that cucumber so he could use it as a chew toy.  He’s probably a month ahead of where Buddy was at this age.  Buddy was the runt of the litter, a sad little dog that grew into his wonder.  Ollie is the class clown, full of energy, bravado and clever impishness. Does he run? Yes, he does.  He’s traversed the mile-ish trail with me at a trot a couple times now.  He’s not quite sure what we’re doing but he hangs with me and has plenty of juice left over at the end.  At the end of the day I’m happy to have this little, warm ball of fur weaving around my legs and trying to knock me down so he can bite my face.  I need that.  I miss that. And I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->

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