RunRunLive Episode 51 – YakTrax interview
Intro:
Hello my friends and welcome to the runrunlive podcast. This is where I, your humble host, amateur runner and mediocre endurance athlete, Chris, Your personal Mister Magoo of the midpack -gets the share with you, my friends and fellow midpackers – One might say movers and shakers of the midpack -you denizens and citizens of the midpack -about various and sundry running topics that I find interesting. (Evidently in long-winded run-on sentences) And since I have enough trouble keeping my own attention, I find for you some interesting and informed persona from our running world to talk to.
Today is the YakTrax episode. I’ll give you my personal review and interview Steve the VP sales at YakTrax. This is a product I just started using last week and I liked it a lot. They won’t end war or cure cancer but they will keep you from slipping on the ice and falling on your posterior. It’s a good talk with Steve; I think you’ll get something out of it. I’m also going to put a written review on my website for you at www.runrunlive.com
BTW – I don’t get paid anything by the folks I talk to. I’m a non-commercial enterprise, if I like a products I’ll speak well of it. I’m typically interfacing with the PR people from these companies so it may sound salesey sometimes – but you guys are smart enough to sort out the good bits from the pitches.
If you’ve been watching the news you’ll know that we are in the grips of a mid-winter cold snap. It was -5 F this morning. Buddy the wonder dog and I have not ventured outside all week. I don’t’ want to hurt him. I got most of my runs in on the treadmill. I missed one on Wednesday because I was just too busy. But that’s ok – I’m not whining – I’m pretty psyched about my training.
I’m right on track for my marathon training. I got 47 miles in last week and felt pretty good. I’m going to talk to you a little bit at the end in the quick tip about what to expect when you get to this point in a training campaign – how to deal with your perception of your conditioning. Hopefully help you prevent the mistakes that the rest of us have had to learn from experience. What I mean is how do you separate how you feel from the reality of what kind of shape you are actually in? How not to get tricked by your perception of your conditioning.
You may have seen my tweets on twitter that I signed up for two spring marathons this week. I signed up for the Georgia ING marathon in Atlanta on Mar. 28th (Jason, Shawn I’m going to jog beside you and hurl insults at you for 26 miles like a drill sergeant! Also I signed up for The Boston Marathon on the 20th of April, my 11th, believe it or not! If you are planning to run either of those races let me know and we’ll meet up. I’ll be the old, husky, hairy guy annoying all the people around me by being too chatted while they’re trying to run.
This weekend I’m going to do an easy 15 and next weekend I’ll run the fabulous Derry 16 miler. Then we start getting into some real miles. The old body is holding together pretty well – so I got that going for me.
I’m heading into another heavy travel period. All my clients have woken up from their holiday naps and now everybody wants everything next week – so bear with me!
Hey – If I’ve forgotten to mention it, thank you for listening – I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you and would love to connect with you directly. Search Facebook for Chris Russell in Massachusetts and send me an invite with a kind personal message and we will become BFF’s.
Folks – If you have time tell some friends about the podcast and if you are feeling charitable leave me a review on iTunes. If you have questions I’ll take a shot at giving you the wrong answer!
That’s it, enjoy the episode. On with the show…
Equipment check:
YakTrax
Interview
Steve from Yaktrax
Quick tip:
I wanted to give you some Understanding how to keep your perceived fitness level and the corresponding emotions from wrecking your training plans. Typically you start into your training plan and initially you’re filled with the adrenaline of a new adventure. Then typically – the next phase for me is a week or two of struggle as it starts to get hard and I’m not getting any faster or stronger and I start getting little aches and pains and I’m tired and achy and feel fat and old…you get the picture. This is the first danger point in terms of perception versus reality.
At this point your perception is that something is wrong and your big brain tells you to make a change in response. If you’re an alpha-dude like me your big brain says “OK butthead your obviously not working hard enough” and you start making plans to do more miles, more speed work more hills etc. Or if you’re a beginner or have some other challenges in your life your big brain may just tell you to give up. Both of these solutions are typically a mistake. Your conditioning naturally comes in waves. You get tired so you can get stronger…If you increase the pressure you’ll hurt yourself, if you give up you are going to give up right before you start to turn the corner.
So – yeah it is supposed to hurt sometimes and you will get tired but if you have the right plan you should stick with it. Don’t change horses mid-stream. Because the next phase is when you feel great. The last week the training effect has kicked in and I feel pretty good. And once again my bog brain jumps in with incredibly dumb conclusions based on this perception, like – “Gee if 12 miles in the snow felt easy, you should do 20 next weekend!” I’ve see too many people lose their race dreams right there in the 3rd or 4th week of their training plans because they felt great and decided to take their new race car for a drive. Next thing you know you’re sitting on the couch with a bag of frozen peas ductaped to your ankle.
So – the moral of the story – if you’ve built a good plan – stick to it. If you have serious doubts ask an experienced veteran for advice.
I’ll tell you a funny story. This week I did a Yasso 800 work out on the treadmill. I guess I’m a little distracted from work stress because I was really struggling to finish my intervals. It felt really hard. I didn’t realize it until I was done, but I messed up the pacing math by being stressed – I meant to do 3:20 halfs and instead was pacing for a 3:05 half. I was kinda bummed out until I figured it out.
But amazingly enough it turned out to be like one of those stress tests that they give you for heart failure. While I was struggling I was trying to figure out what was wrong. By running essentially to failure I learned that my legs were giving out before my lungs and that my stride was too tight – so in the end, I didn’t get the work out I wanted, but I got a great workout and a bit of a diagnostic on what I need to work on.
Personal Stuff:
I noticed that the most popular running podcasts are the ones where the podcaster shares a bunch of personal information – so I’ll give you some tidbits…. My name is Chris…and I’m a Scorpio…and yeah I do come here often. I’m a 46 year old, married, father of two beautiful and smart teenage girls and one compulsive 6 year old Border collie named Buddy the Wonder Dog. I have a Clark Kent job where I’m an executive in a technology company – you can find me in LinkedIn for that history.
Inspiration
When I first started running I noticed that I’d have good days and bad days. And I could never tell when I’d get one or the other. I guess life is like that. So I’d find myself struggling out on a workout or in the middle of a run. What I learned to do when I noticed myself starting to feel whiny, was to stop, take a deep breath and reset myself. The fact that I’m out here, I’m doing it, it doesn’t matter how I feel. There are people who would dream of being able to do what I can do. Once I reset to the fact that any run is a good run – that’s when I can resume my struggles with a smile on my face.
Oh – here’s a free extra credit tip for you – I know you won’t believe me, but you should try it and see that it works. When you’re struggling at the end of a long run, force yourself to smile. Physically smile. The act of smiling will improve your form and release happy chemicals – you’ll feel better – you’ll feel empowered.
Outro
Ok folks – that’s it episode 51 in the can. All lights are green and everything is going to be ok!. Hey I got a email from Jodi from Confessions of a runner and I won’t spoil it, but down load her next episode for some great positive affirmation and drama.
Next week I have scheduled the guys from Zappos shoes – great success story – those guys are a used as a internet business case study – so we should be able to learn something. I’m talking with Kevin from JustFinish.com as well and we’re going to do something cool once he gets his site cooking. Rumor has it that it’s time for me to hook up with Karno – I don’t know if I can get back in touch with him – but it’ll be cool if I can. And I won’t ask him “Gee Dean, why do you do it?”
And speaking of things I haven’t done, here’s a quick list…I didn’t make you suffer through an olympics episode where, I didn’t do the new year’s resolution show, I didn’t do the “my favorite podcasts show”, I haven’t made you listen to me running a race, I didn’t do the Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas show, although I am planning something for the dragon boat festival and the lunar new year! Hey, we’re keeping it real over here at RunRunLive.
Music
left_arm-love_blast.mp3
I know it’s cold but I’m sure I’ll still see you hard core endorphin addicts out there.
Ciao Baby