The RunRunLive Podcast Episode 147 – Sasquatch and BostonWannabee

[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/Epi147.mp3|titles=Episode 147 – Sasquatch and BostonWannabee]

epi147.mp3

Show intro by:

Glen Snider – http://beachbodycoach.com/esuite/home/gsnider

Transformation Story

I am a runner. I am also over 50 years old! I love to run and have done so for so long that my body has adapted to it. So, even though I log many miles, I also have to watch what I eat and watch the scale. By cross training and adding muscle confusion to my exercise routine, my body will be more responsive to my activity.

It’s a joke Glen –  sorry, I couldn’t resist the Billy Mays rap.  Glen has been an enthusiastic friend of the podcast since we started.  He has recently fallen in love with working out and transformed into a hard body – you can hear his enthusiasm.  Proving that even for old guys like us – the body is a miraculous thing that is capable of surprising us.

Intro:

Hello and welcome to the old-runner podcast for those of us who can’t find out keys when they are in our hand, can’t find our glasses when they are on our head and write down podcast intro ideas that make no sense when it comes time to write the script.  Seriously, I look at my notes for this show intro and you know what it says? One word “Green”. What the hell was I thinking?  A color?  A golf anecdote? I’m losing it.

This is Chris your host and this is the RunRunLive podcast your oasis of running wisdom from the font of my partially functional cranium and three decades of running, I think, but I could be wrong.  This could all be an illusion.  The part we have to work out is whether I’m the hallucination or you are, my friends.

But, since perception is reality – I’m going with it.  When everyone else is scared and confused they’ll follow anyone who pretends to know which direction to go in.  So, let’s line up like sheep and lemmings and follow me!

We’ve got a great show for you today! A couple weeks back when everyone was in the throws of their fall marathons a topic came up that I thought was interesting.  That topic is what do you do when you run your target race and fail?  Do you take the training you have and double down.  Well today we are going to run through that exact case study with our good friend of the show Dave and his coach Speedy Sasquatch.

We also will keep up our beginner series with some helpful stuff.  Remember to pay it forward.  There is strength in numbers.

I had some killer work outs this week.  I did a 10 mile race pace run on Saturday morning and a 15 mile progression run yesterday – both of which were failures and successes at the same time.  “How can that be so Chris, you ask?”  Well I ran each of them like a race and ran each to failure – meaning I couldn’t quite finish, but I gave it 100%.   I’m very close to peaking.  I can tell.  I’m super sore today from that race pace progression run yesterday and I’m eating ibuprofen like candy – those are all good signs – now all I need is for someone (usually my mother-in-law) to say “Chris, you don’t look well.”  That will seal it for me.

This is the key thing that I get out of having a coach.  They run me ‘til I fail.  I wouldn’t do that on my own.  They keep me on that razor’s edge of pushing hard but not hurting myself.  These challenging workouts will pay off in the weeks ahead.

I have also managed to lose some weight.  I weighed in at 180 yesterday and out a 176. Meaning I lost 4 pounds of water in my work out.  But I actually lost 6 pounds of water because I drank about 2 pints during the work out.  From this we can see that a) I was working very hard and b) what my sweat rate is at race pace.  About 3 pounds an hour or 3 pints – somewhere close to a liter and a half.  Which is about right – in a marathon I’ll lose 8-10 pounds.

But , that’s neither here nor there. Everyone’s sweat rate is different.  It depends how you’re designed.

I managed to lose 10 pounds in the last couple weeks with two strategies.  First I just cut out the pasta, bread and dairy. Second, instead of eating a big dinner late at night I drink a big glass of chocolate soy milk with a bog scoop of protein powder.  With the amount of calories I burn in my workouts the first 10 pounds is pretty easy for me.  I have to be careful on the low carb stuff – I don’t want to sap my energy.

So – 2-3 weeks out from my target race. It would be ok for you non-atheists to start praying for me now.

On with the show!

Audio clips in this episode:

Dave Michaud – Post marathon comments.

Skits, commercials and parodies in this episode:

“Should I Stop and Try to Go” – Song Parody by Colin The Resurrected Runner – resurrectedrunner.bogspot.com

Story time:

Text here

Equipment Check:

Running Form:  I’m probably the wrong person to speak to this but I will tell you what I know.  I had someone ask to get some information on running form for beginning runners.

Before I give you my answer I feel compelled to remind you that I’m just some odd dolt with a penchant for distance running, not a doctor, a lawyer or a candlestick maker – so do your own research and take what I say with a grain of salt!

If you are just starting to run then there are really two answers.  The first answer is that you are just starting so spend your available energy establishing a routine and a habit.  You can fine tune your form later, don’t stress about it.   The second is that as a beginner you are probably in a better position to learn good form because you won’t have to un-learn any bad habits.

There are lots of good runners with less than perfect form.  I’m one of them.  There are many famous runners who had famously flawed mechanics, but were champions none the less.  Don’t stress about it.  Everyone has their own form.

But – that being said one of the cool things about doing what we do is that we get to constantly tinker with our form and mechanics.  We are all always trying to become more efficient runners.

Let me give you some general guidelines.

You want to try to run lightly.  Do not pound or slap the ground.  Your objective is to move forward with as little shock and energy expenditure as possible.  One of my favorite mantras is “Run Lightly”.

You want to run upright and tall with you back straight.  Don’t slouch or hunch over. Run tall. Practice looking forward instead of at the ground in front of you.  Don’t grimace or clench your jaw.  Try to smile and let everything hang loosely.  Push your hips forward – this will keep you upright.

Lean at the ankles.  This means you are constantly in the process of falling forward and your feet are catching you.  You want your foot strike to be mid to fore foot.  The way you accomplish this is by not reaching out stiff-legged with your heel striking first.  Instead lean forward at the ankles with your foot strike close to under you – not in front of you.

It takes practice and it is a never ending pursuit.  Do what is comfortable for you.

Video yourself running and get an experienced runner or coach to give you some pointers.

Places to research are Chi-Running, The Pose Method, and Newton running.  In my archives I have interviewed Danny Dreyer of Chi Running and Danny Abshire of Newton running – give those a listen. I know Coach Jeff at PRSFit is a big proponent of natural running – if you send him a video of you running he can help you.

There also are now instructional videos on youtube.  You can also just run some video of any elite marathoner and keep that mental image of what it means to run lightly – so you can access it when you need it.

But, again, if you’re just starting out, don’t get too wrapped up in form.  It’s not a panacea.  It’s just another element of learning in the journey that is the joy of running.

Featured Interview:

David Michuad – @bostonwannabe and Speedy Sasquatch speedysasquatch.blogspot.com

Quick Tip:

For you beginners I wrote a blog post on how we semi-serious endurance athletes find the time to do what we do this week.  I reviewed some strategies on how it’s really a prioritization issue.  You have to not do something else for 20 minutes 3 times a week if you are going to start running 3 times a week for 20 minutes.

But, that is strategy, let me give you some tactics.

Running in the morning is the best time to do it.  The probability of success is higher because chances are nothing is going to ‘pop up’ on your schedule first thing in the morning to screw you up. If you wait until later in the day, the probability of something screwing up your plans greatly increases.  Until you get into the rhythm of it is better to give yourself the lower risk morning solution.

If you are going to get up and go get everything ready the night before.  Lay out your shoes, socks, gear.  Lay out alternatives for various weather conditions.  You want to be into your gear before your brain has a chance to make excuses.  Some people will even sleep in their running clothes.  Make it easy on yourself. Just agree to get out the door and start walking.  Don’t worry about the run.  Your success will entirely depend on whether you can get out the door.

At the beginning of the week schedule in your workouts.  Plan them ahead of time and put them in your calendar.  Be ready.

Someone in your life may feel jealous of your initiative.  Change is scary and you are rocking the boat.  Your partners in relationships may try to sabotage your efforts.   I heard it this weekend “you had time to go run for 3 hours…” you have to be a little selfish.  They are testing you.  Be ready and be strong.  It is your right to live better.  They will benefit as well.  Stick to your guns.

If you only have time for half a work out, do it anyhow.  10 minutes is better than no workout at all.  It keeps the rhythm going.  You can miss a work out.  If you miss 2 workouts in a row your are in the danger zone.  If you miss 3 in a row you are code red close to giving up all together.  Consistency is more important when you start than quality or time.

Focus on building the habit.  Ask your running friends how they do it.  Get into the rhythm and then you will find you can’t live without it.

Outro:

Ok, That’s it you have flapped your wings to the misty mountain top eyrie where eagles nest that is the RunRunLive podcast.  Huh – spellchecker doesn’t like the word eyrie.  It’s a real word, Google it. Should I be disturbed or pleased that my vocabulary constantly outstrips the spell checker of the largest consumer software maker in the world? Well, Episode 147 – on the wings of eagles – is in the can.

Coming up we have Frayed Laces from Hawaii and some other good stuff.  I’m racing this week.  I’m going to go out and race Slattery’s 5 miler on Sunday and then the Ayer Fire Department 5K on Thursday morning – which is Thanksgiving here in the states.

Took Buddy for a run in the woods tonight.  With the time change it is getting dark at 4:30 PM now in New England.  But Buddy and I are ok in the dark.  I got a report from a friend that they ran a human-dog 5K locally here last weekend and a guy won it in 17 or so minutes with a 2-year-old German Shepherd, that’s moving!

Congratulations to Gordon the ex-disney-runner who ran a 3:48 in his third marathon.  Over an hour off his second and two hours faster than his first.  More congratulations to Kevin at the Extra-mile who successfully ran a marathon in Indianapolis after having to drop out of Chicago.  More proof of our doubling down theory.

A quickie tip for you folks who trained for marathons and want to maintain some of that fitness.  Try to run some tempo 1600’s at least once a week and mix in some long runs every other week of at least 13-14 miles or 2 hours.  That will extend your fitness for a couple months so you don’t have to start from scratch in the spring.

One of the things I always tell people is that this endurance sports thing is all mental.  And people who have not had success will disagree with me.  They’ll say they put in the work and did not see results.  They will say that they have physical limitations that cannot be overcome.

But those same people, like our friends David or Gordon, after they have some success will be the first ones to tell you that what was holding them back was the mental part.

You cannot achieve a new state unless you can visualize yourself in that state.  Unless you can truly believe, without a doubt, that the state is attainable for you.  And even when people say they believe, sometimes they really have deep doubts and it causes that big brain to sabotage our actions.

Part of it is to keep trying.  Don’t give up.  Because for one thing, even if you don’t achieve the goal, if you get close to it that goal becomes more real in your mind.  The barrier becomes smaller.  Gordon was downright derisive of a Boston qualifying time when he ran a 6+ hour marathon, but now that he is 20 odd minutes away from it, it’s not so unbelievable.

And if you keep trying you have the power of momentum on your side.  You are in motion.  You’re moving towards that goal and that momentum pulls people and strength to you.  That positive motion towards the goal becomes you attractor factor and help and solutions and solace materialize.

I had a good friend who I worked for once who told me a story.  He said he was sitting in his kitchen listening to his teenage daughter complain about not being able to do something.  He reached into the cupboard and pulled out a can of Campbell’s Soup and put it on the table.  He said, “There is your solution” And of course she was baffled.  He said, “That’s a can.  There are two kinds of people in this world, those who think they can and those who think they can’t…and they’re both right.”

I think you can.  I know I can. And I’ll see you out there.

Music tonight is weird because I’m tired. And I like to hear women singing in French.  I think it’s sexy.

kellylee_evans-ne_me_quitte_pas

Music:

kellylee_evans-ne_me_quitte_pas

kristine_w-feel_what_you_want

kyle_dine-cest_la_vie

Audio Sampled in this episode:

Fiddler on the roof

Billy Mays remix.

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http://Grotonroadrace.com

http://SQRR.org

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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

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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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