The RunRunLive Podcast Episode 171 – Jim Parry – Teaching through Inspiration
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”–William Arthur Ward
[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi171.mp3|titles=epi171 – Jim Parry Teacher and Inspiration]Show intro by:
John Roberts
@ManagerJohn
http://www.gagthemanager.libsyn.com/
Gag the Manager Podcast
Intro:
Hello and welcome, birds are twittering, the sun is shining and a warm rain falls. Bushes and trees pregnant with spring blossoms explode across the landscape and young lover gaze wistfully into the late evening sunset… Then an old guy with a dog runs by and ruins everything – Yup, It’s the RunrunLive podcast, this is Chris your host and we have an excellent show for you today!
I interview teacher and runner Jim Parry who is passionate about using his gifts to do what he can to make the world a better place – I think you’ll like it.
We are going to wrap up our injury series. Thanks to our friend Colin for reading that blog post and setting the tone. He is the Resurrected Runner and is responsible for our intro and new outro music and many wonderful parody songs that you can get over at resurrectedrunner.com. Colin has been off with a serious injury for months and has been learning one of the great lessons of our sport – how to appreciate it.
I’ll throw in some other tips and tricks. Frankly I’ve got a ton of stuff to share with you now that we are past the busy spring racing season.
I have been swimming, biking and trail running away in my new training cycle for the summer and Gosh-Darnit I love it! So, for our next series I think I’ll talk about trail running and then maybe we’ll do an introductory swimming series too.
I’d like to say I struggle with swimming, but I don’t. I was a kid brought up swimming and have always been comfortable in the water. I would think nothing of swimming across a lake if the mood struck me. I was a certified open water SCUBA diver at 17 years old. But with all that I never raced in the water. I never had that swim-team stroke, I never did laps and flip turns.
Before you and I met, maybe 4 – 5 years ago, a series of injuries chased me from the road and I dabbled in Triathlon. Now I’m training for triathlon again. The first season I just swam a lot. But I realized that in swimming, because of the water resistance, form is very, very important. My second Tri season I reworked my stroke in line with the “Total Immersion” method. But I ran out of time and moved on to mountain racing, ultra-running and Mountain bike. Now I’m back and I’m going to pick up where I left off and get a good efficient stroke.
So back to the statement I struggle with swimming. Apparently I have balance problems because when I’m supposed to roll and breathe many times my head is still underwater and that makes breathing difficult – . It also fills my sinuses with pool water which then decides to cause little ecosystems up there and drain at inopportune moments – but I’m working on it.
I ran the Poco-Loco social running event in Boston on Saturday and it was a blast. I didn’t get in from Houston Friday night until late and had to exercise my frequent flyer ninja skills to get back at all. I took the train in Saturday morning. I miss-heard the hotel lady and ended up getting off at the wrong station. Me being me, I just put on my shoes and ran the extra couple miles to the meetup.
It was a blast and I met some cool new friends and got cuddly with some old ones as well. You can check out my video at cyktrussell @youtube. Also – I met the Ninja Runner Neil who has a great new music podcast you should check out called the ghost of radio – search for it on itunes or Google it.
Ok – enough about my frenetic existence, how about you? How are you doing? Need anything? Let me know, but for now, for heaven’s sake, let’s get the heck on with the show!
Audio clips in this episode:
@resurrectedrunner blog reading on injury. www.resurrectedrunner.com
Skits, commercials and parodies in this episode:
Story time:
Guest Blog Reading
Equipment Check:
Ok my friends I’ve got three quick tips for you:
The first one I heard this week and I’m not even sure if it’s true, but it makes sense. If you have ever seen my heart rate on a workout in the winter it’s totally wonky until I get warmed up. My first mile or so is just red-lined. I always thought this was just the cold, but I heard last week that it may be static electricity from the combination of the cold, dry air and the tech shirt – and that a little squirt of StaticGuard would take care of it. Remind me next October and I’ll test it out.
Second tip: Ok, I’ll try to be as discrete as possible here, but I’ve heard more than one person talking about getting caught short on a run and having to…”go”. When I’m going on long trail runs I’ll take 9 sheets of toilet paper, fold them up into a tiny wad, like the size of a coin, then you put them into a plastic sandwich baggie, you roll up the baggie tightly and wrap it with a rubber band.
This creates a single use serving of TP that is about the size of a cigarette butt that will survive total immersion in water and still come out dry and usable. You then slip this into the small key pocket of your shorts. In this way you are ready if you get surprised and you won’t have to guess which of the local leaves are poisonous or sacrifice a sock. Better to be prepared and not need it…
Last tip is some cool food I’ve found recently. There is a new-age grocery store chain in the US called Trader Joes. They have awesome dried fruit and bulk nuts. My favorite is this dried sliced Papaya. It is delicious like sweet candy but doesn’t have any extra sugar added. My other favorite is the big bags of raw almonds… Good travel food.
There ya go – if you takle advantage of tip number 3 you may want to consider tip number 2, so to speak…
Featured Interview:
Jim Parry – http://mrparrysendurancechallenge.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html
Quick Tip:
Mastering injuries series – part 10
Today I will share with you the greatest thing that you can learn from an injury. In a weird way injuries are gifts, because they force us to reassess, to question and if we ask the right questions to come up with answers that lead us to fulfillment in our running lives.
Here are my main points and you should take notes. Stop running right now and scratch them in the dust? No, make mental notes. Strap yourself in, we are about to go deep.
One: For those of us who are mildly addicted to running, who let our running define our lives, injuries force you to look yourself in the eye without the masking haze of exercise. What you will discover is that running does not define you. You are YOU, at your core with or without any of the physical collateral of life, including running. A good injury forces you to stop, and come to grips with who this YOU is, to accept yourself, good and bad.
For to consider a future without the balm of your daily run is very scary. How would you live without your fix? This thought forces you to define yourself and be comfortable in your own skin. It forces you to get to a point where you can say “No matter what the doctor tells me, I’ll be ok, because I know who I am and what my purpose is.”
Once you get to this point then everything else is easy. Then your running life begins to make sense and fit congruently into your life purpose. It is at this point that running ceases to define you. It is at this point that you can accept your running for the gift it is. At this point, grasshopper, you have transcended to that next level of understanding.
As awful as an injury is, it is a gift because it can facilitate this understanding if you ask the right questions and let it.
Two: Having an injury allows you to embrace the perspective of the long view. Needing to take time off allows you to think about the future. It allows you to ask questions like “What does my running look like when I’m 70?” “Can I run my whole life?” “How do I align my goals with my long-term aspirations for this sport in my life?”
6 Months off your feet seems like forever when you only have a 6 month horizon. That same 6 months is a tiny blip when measured against a lifetime of running.
The long view, this lifetime perspective allow you to do things like take time off, build strength and back away from stupid goals and back away from the short-term self-immolating rituals that characterize so much of our sport. Injuries help us find the perspective of the long view.
Three: Injuries allow us to find balance. How many of us start off in this sport like bottle rockets? We go harder, faster, longer – as if there are no physical barriers? Injuries allow you the breathing room and time to reassess and balance running, reintegrate it in a healthy way into your life.
Everyone finds their own balance. Mine is different than yours, and it will change over time. Everyone draws their own line, but injury can draw this line for us.
I could probably still run a sub-three hour marathon, but I’d have to double my mileage, my time commitment and my risk. I’d be out of balance with my life, with my purpose at this point in my life. I have drawn that line. You need to draw yours.
Fourth and finally, injuries help you grow. Injuries are like that big red emergency stop button that brings all the machinery to a screeching halt. And then we all stand around puzzled and wondering what caused it all to go wrong.
Injuries force us to ask questions that we otherwise would not have had to. In this way you will sometimes hear me referring to injury time as “a great gathering of strength”. If you can ask and answer the hard questions you will limp that much closer to fulfillment.
Injuries, though you won’t know it at the time, are a gift and if dealt with correctly make you a physically, and mentally stronger runner and human.
With that my friends, I will end my discussion of injuries. I hope you found it helpful and thought provoking. I have spent many days sitting on the sidelines in contemplation to get to this point. As non sequitur as it sounds, stay healthy my friends.
Outro:
Ok my friends, That is it, You have strolled through the blossoming spring landscape of another RunRunLive podcast – episode 171 in the can.
I’ve got some cool content coming your way. I chatted with Steve the head of the USATFNE this week and also Jeremy from AltraRunning. I’ve also queued up a nice lady from the UK who organizes Canicross – which is trail racing tethered to dogs and I’m playing phone call tag with Molly the founder of Girls on the Run. So – don’t go anywhere.
Send me your thoughts on what you want me to do the next series on, trail running or swimming or whatever – let me know and I’ll do very little research and hack something together. Just kidding, I’m sure it will be valuable and thoughtful, because if we’re not adding value then what’s the point? It’s all just air.
Want to hear a travel story? This struck me today as I was helping a young man in our office who took a new job – I was helping him carry his boxes to his car and I thought to myself, what was I doing at his age?
Well – here’s one thing, I was working in Bangalore India and we had a long weekend, so we decided to load up the car and drive across the country to Madras, which is on the Bay of Bengal on the East coast. We rented rooms at a local vacation spot called Fisherman’s Cove.
I spent the weekend drinking beer and body-surfing in the waves. We visited the famous shore temple at Mahavalapurum.
I flew out of Madras and had to stay at a hotel there. When I was going to my room there were a bunch of soldiers in the halls with automatic rifles. It turns out the ex-prime minister of Sri Lanka was saying with me.
I had been in India for a few trips and hadn’t gotten sick yet. I basically stayed away from the water and tried to eat smart and I have a pretty strong constitution from all the travel I’ve done. But that last day, when I got on the British Airways flight I asked for some water. And sure enough I was holding the bag all the way back.
Which was a problem because I wasn’t going home. I was going to Toronto to play in a hockey Tournament! And I did, Jet lag, food poisoning and all I skated all weekend. Crazy stuff huh? Who was that kid?
I’ve got a ton of domestic travel scheduled for the foreseeable future, but I’ll try to keep my balance. I’m also working on a couple projects for you. I remastered the “ten secrets to a successful running life” series and made it into a audio and e-book that should be available in my store at RunRunLive.com if I can find the time to set it up and get the software to work with WordPress! I’m going to keep trying to productize these schniblets for you folks.
…
It’s that time of year when we all get really busy and a little stressed out. I’ve been in situations over the past few weeks, directly and indirectly where there has been a fair amount of negativity and stress. People’s first reactions are to get mad and to find someone to blame. Then they get mad and run away. People say things like, “If we can’t fix this I’m going to quit!” or “ This school is in trouble I’m going to move my kids!”
Let me remind you that these are opportunities for positive leadership. When you hear these words, when you see these symptoms I want you to smile a knowing smile. Because, as I have had to remind many people recently, events do not define you. You define you. You get to choose differently when everyone else is running around screaming. You have the free will to decide to be a leader, to be positive.
Don’t fall into the trap of acting like a victim. You’re not helping yourself or anyone else by giving away your power.
I’m going to ask you to use your gift. Because everyone of us has a gift. Use your gift to act with and attitude of abundance when the scared people come at you with heir raging horror stories of scarcity.
You don’t have to go there. You are strong and you have a gift. Be a leader. Trust me. The results are way better than joining in with the lemmings and their keening rout.
New-Outro
Folks I’m rewriting the outro. The old one was stale. I’m going to do it ad hoc from now on as part of the script.
Please reach out to me to say hi, or if you have some content or an interview idea. I have a fertile imagination but I need your help to produce a useful show. I know you write great blogs that blow people’s minds so why not read one for us?
You can reach me at Twitter, Facebook, DailyMile, YouTube as cyktrussell that’s chris yellow king tom Russell with two esses and two ells.
Please program my dial in number 206-339-7804into your phone. If you leave a message there it sends me an audio file and I can use it as part of the show. This is also a great way for you to read the show intro. You will find a script and instructions for reading the show intro and all the content I have ever produced on my website www.runrunlive.com – have a look.
I’m trying to talk the NinjaRunner into being my show music consultant and send me some bands to feature, but until that happens I’ll have to fend for myself. All of the music tonight is from Teresa james and the rhythm tramps and is a beautiful, haunting bluesy band. This song is “Easier said than Done” – it’s more than 4 minutes long so relax, breathe and enjoy…
Ciao.
Music:
From Podsafe
teresa_james_and_the_rhythm_tramps-easier_said_than_done
teresa_james_and_the_rhythm_tramps-i_want_it_all
teresa_james_and_the_rhythm_tramps-when_the_winds_die_down
About the RunRunLive Podcast
Each Podcast we’re going to have a full agenda. We’ve got some inspiration and tips to keep you moving forward. And In our featured segment we will be speaking with interesting members of our sport to share their accumulated knowledge with us.
We know that you like to listen to your iPod while you work out, so…We’ve planned the Run-Run-Live Podcast to last about 40 minutes – perfect for your daily jog or your commute to work.
There are millions of normal, everyday folks like us who use running as a way to lead a balanced, happy and challenging lifestyle. Would you like to learn from them?
I have had the privilege to have kicked around the mid-pack of the sport for some time. I’ve learned a ton about myself and running. I’ve met a whole bunch of incredible, and sometimes odd, always interesting people. We’re going to share all this with you.
Listen to the RunRunLive podcast and learn from experts and regular Joe’s – get that inspiration and affirmation you need. All you have to do is go to the Itunes store – search on “Running” and subscribe to the RunRunLive Podcast – it’s free and it will be autmagically loaded onto your iPod as new episodes become available.
Also visit the RunRunLive website (at runrunlive.com) to get back episodes and show notes, check out the Runnerati blog and other interesting, cool and compelling bits of stuff!
Standard Links:
www.midpackerslament.com
Cyktrussell At gmail and twitter and facebook and youtube
Chris’ book on Amazon – > http://www.amazon.com/Mid-Packers-Lament-collection-running-stories/dp/141961584X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228687012&sr=8-1
Mid-Packer’s Lament E-book
Mid-Packer’s Guide to the Galaxy E-Book
Dial in number for RunRunLive is – 206-339-7804
Chris Russell lives and trains in suburban Massachusetts with his family and Border collie Buddy. Chris is the author of “The Mid-Packer’s Lament”, and “The Mid-Packer’s Guide to the Galaxy”, short stories on running, racing, and the human comedy of the mid-pack. Chris writes the Runnerati Blog at www.runnerati.com. Chris’ Podcast, RunRunLive is available on iTunes and at www.runrunlive.com. Chris also writes for CoolRunning.com (Active.com) and is a member of the Squannacook River Runners and the Goon Squad.
Email me at cyktrussell at Gmail dot com
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