The RunRunLive 3.0 Podcast Episode 3-298 – Grace Kim – LeanGirlsClub
(Audio: link)
[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi3298.mp3]
Link epi3298.mp3
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Introductory Comments:
Hello and welcome to the RunRunLive podcast. This is Chris your host. This is, as near as I can figure, episode3-298. Today we talk to my new BFF Grace Kim from the Big Apple. When I approached Grace I figured she would be one of those hyper New Yorker types, you know, loud and aggressive and all elbows. But she was just the opposite. Super nice person. You can see why people are attracted to her message. She is calm, and self-effacing but still brings a positive image and story to her audience.
I’m in the middle of a whirlwind travel binge. If everything goes right I’ll be dropping this episode from a hotel room in Texas Friday night.
Right now I’m trying to types this on my new Samsung Droid tablet that I bought specifically for this purpose. Unfortunately the Bluetooth keyboard I bought is strangely configured. The shift key is tiny like a UK keyboard and the page up arrow is where the rest of the shift key is supposed to be. I keep missing the shift key and moving the cursor up to the middle of a sentience above. Very strange. And the lock screen button is where the backspace key should be and that makes for some not so interesting breaks in my train of thought.
My reasoning is that because I spend so much time on air planes the tablet will allow me to get more work done. The seats are too close together to use a laptop these days and you can’t take the laptop out until you get to cruising altitude. The tablet will allow me to keep writing during takeoff and landing – as soon as I learn how to type on it without everything looking like the output of an Enigma machine.
It’s been a weird couple weeks for me. I’ve been trying desperately to figure out where my fitness is. I met Eric in Grand Rapids last weekend to see if I could potentially use the fitness I have built up training for Pocatello to pick up a good time and qualify.
It wasn’t to be. I was sucking wind from the start and DNF’ed at the 1/2. I’m still trying to figure out where I am and I may talk about that more in one of the sections today. I’ve written up a long piece on my thoughts around this summer’s training cycle and my subsequent poor racing – but it’s super long and I’ll probably just launch it as a separate piece.
The short story is I’m dropping back; going back to basics, figuring out where I am and working on my base for a while; because you need your base to race well, and I just don’t feel as fit as I’d like to. I feel Like I skipped steps and did too much too fast.
The weather is turning – up where I live in New England. It’s getting down into the 40’s and 50’s at night. Buddy loves it. This time of year he comes back to life and wants to get out and hit the trails. He’s bouncing around the house barking at everyone. He’s nuts. Of all the dogs in the neighborhood from Buddy’s generation there are only 3 still alive and of the other two one’s a stone deaf sheltie and the other is my neighbor’s black lab, who can barely move. Buddy is clearly in the best shape of all his class. He’s old but he still loves to run. Just goes to show you – exercise and an active life are good for you.
My garden is pretty much used up. I had a nice final crop of beautiful heirloom tomatoes when the weather started to turn. They were wonderful. I’m still getting some rainbow chard – and apparently I’m the only critter in the food chain that will eat rainbow chard. It makes great salads. The worms got to my kale. Everything else is dead and the weeds are taking over.
It’s surprising how quickly the days get shorter. You need to check for sunrise and sunset before scheduling your runs and plan accordingly. Every year I get caught out in the dark by misreading the sunset.
I’m working on a project that I’ve called “a book a month” because it involves writing a book a month. The reason I’m doing it is to force me to organize and publish all of the content that I have lying around. I need to produce. The first one I’m doing for September outlines the 1600’s based speed work program I used to qualify for Boston when I was a puppy. I’ve got so much material. I just have to fous on getting it written up.
I’m super busy in all phases of my life right now – but I’m trying to be disciplined and keep all the balls in the air and do a good job and add value.
I’ve been struggling with my Garmin310XT. First the heart rate data has been in the science fiction neighborhood – it’s all over the place. I’ve been getting readings that seem to suggest that I need a bypass. I’ve been ignoring them and running by feel and effort level instead, but it still bothers me.
Today I was out doing a long zone 2 run and I couldn’t get my heart rate down out of zone 5-6 –which is basically close to 90% effort level. But, it didn’t make sense. It hasn’t made sense since I bought the new watch and came back from the injury. The heart rate is showing as red-lined but I was not breathing hard at all and basically jogging a 10+ minute mile. Very discouraging.
When I got to the turnaround point, 45 minutes in, I pulled up my shirt and tightened up and adjusted the chest strap. All of a sudden, now everything is cool, I’m solidly in zone2, running easy, even up the hills. Here I am ready to go see a cardiologist and it turns out my strap is poorly adjusted.
I think that watch is trying to kill me.
Anyhow, it’s a stressful time of year for me, and for you as well I’m sure. Just try to relax and not do so much. It’s not worth making yourself unhealthy or unhappy by trying to juggle too many things. Look at all that stuff and decide what the important bits are. Focus on those. Don’t worry about the rest.
That’s why I’ve decided to change jobs. I have been gainfully employed as a hit man for the mafia for many years, and it’s been a good gig. There’s a lot of travel, but, the perks are good and when I’m home I get spend time on my Yak farm. Which is very relaxing. I decided that I need a job that is more active, like landscaping, or mercenary …but settled on professional pole dancer as it requires both strength and flexibility.
On with the show…
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On with the show!
Section one:
Non-Negotiable – https://runrunlive.com/non-negotiable
Featured Interview:
Grace Kim
Hi! My name is Grace aka gracekelle. When I started in the music business years ago, one of my supervisors hollered “Grace Kelly” every time I walked by. It was the one nickname that I didn’t mind.
I’m a 30 year old New Yorker by ways of (Northern – there’s a difference!) Virginia. I’m the director of marketing for a major record label and also blog about all things health and fitness.
Today, the new me is proudly an athlete. I’m a 2x NYC marathoner and Guiness World Record Setter.
I LOVE <3
*Running.
*Trying the new “it” workout.
*Work Out Clothes – I own more workout clothes than regular clothes.
*Brunch – it’s the best post-workout meal.
I started Lean Girls Club in 2010 as an outlet for me to connect with other healthy, fit and lean women. Exercise and fitness helped me lose 75 pounds and helped me find new life. I hope to inspire you to live a leaner, fitter, and healthier life.
You are a Lean Girl if you strive for being…
Everyday Healthy. Everyday Fit.
If you are someone who is wants to live a healthy, active, and balanced lifestyle, then you are a Lean Girl. Perfection is not expected. If you are perfect at working out and eating clean, please go away.
I’d love to hear from you. For media inquiries and more, please feel free to reach me at grace (at) leangirlsclub (dot) com.
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Section two:
The Training Pyramid – https://runrunlive.com/the-training-pyramid
Outro:
Ok my friends – that is it. Through the miracle of beer and sleep deprivation we have come to the end of episode 3-298!
I have to tell you, I do this because I love the opportunity to write free-form out into the universe. It’s my form of art – and like most of us old-timer running podcasters we do it, as Nabokov said ‘for the trash can’ – we do it and we get so much pleasure out of the creative act that we could care less if anyone ends up listening.
I don’t say that to diminish you, my friends, because every once in a while I’ll get one of those ‘you changed my life!’ emails and it gets me high. I’ve never made any money off of this or gotten laid but I do have an all-expense paid junket to the NYC marathon from ASICS that I’m pretty happy about.
I’ll get to see Grace and all my other new BFF’s. I also interviewed The ASICS coach Andrew Kastor (yes you may recognize the last name – he is indeed Deena’s husband). We totally geeked out about marathon training and altitude training that’s going to be a great show!
I also have 3, count ‘em 1,2,3, episodes that were guest inteviews from friends of the show – remember I’m going to refresh the format in the next few shows and have as much user generated content as I can extort from y’all – so if you have a good blog post or someone you think would shine a light on our world – give me a shout – don’t be shy.
I’ve got a story for you. I’m in Austin today and it’s Friday. I was up at 5:00 but it was monsooning rain so I decided to push my run until after my morning client meetings. I got out onto the road after lunch. It started out overcast and sprinkly. Which was good. But – then the sun came out half way through my run and it was like being in pressure cooker – incredibly hot and humid.
My heart rate went through the roof and I was soaked with sweat just trying to move. When I’m out running in strange environs I look for trails, parks and railroad tracks – anything to get some quiet and some trees. I passed by a park entrance and went in.
They have been having unseasonably high rainfall over the past couple weeks and in this part of the country it doesn’t soak in – it runs off. As I’m running through the park some of the path is under a couple inches of flowing water from the run off. I look down and there’s a fish flopping across the trail in front of me! That’s a first. I’ve never had a fish cross a trail in front of me.
We had our first Groton Road Race meeting tonight and we’re gearing up for another good year. We’ve got a great team. Next year will be our 25th anniversary and then I’m stepping aside for a new race director. It’s been a privilege and I’ve got another couple years to make the event even better for our customers. This way I’ll be able to spend more time pole dancing, prepping for the zombie apocalypse and comforting the yaks.
Jeff is still making his way across the country in his miles to end prostate cancer program. It sucks that my coach is dying from cancer. It sucks that anyone has to die from cancer. I reached in the pocket of my suit this week and found a card from my father’s funeral. Cancer is bad and takes people from us before they need to go.
I’ve gotten a few more contributions for my Marine Corps prostate cancer fund. I got one from John Vaughn and he won the Pocatello race bag and a t-shirt. First person to donate $100 after this podcast drops will get a Grand Rapids bag and a men’s large Grand Rapids – Last chance to BQ tech shirt. This is an awesome shirt that is a long sleeve tech shirt modeled on the Boston race shirts – Boston Blue and Yellow.
To take you out here’s a haiku by Toshie Nohara
Inspiration (Haiku)
My mind so muddled
Birds singing merrily
Back to work with smile.
Cheers,
I am accepting donations for the race if you want to throw some coin at me but only if you’re sick of losing friends to cancer and you can afford a couple bucks. The link is on my website and right here in the show notes.
http://www.m2epc.com/chris-russell.html
Thank you for listening.
Cheers,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/46620307582/ or just search FaceBook for “RunRunLive”.
Outro Bumper
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Thanks for listening folks I appreciate your support. RunRunLive is a free service for you because I like writing and telling stories.
I also love to meet folks so feel free to reach out to me at Gmail or any of the other social networking sites. I’m CYKTRussell. And as you know that’s Chris-Yellow-King-Tom-Russell with two Esses and two Ell’s.
My Website is http://www.runrunlive.com and most if not all of this content is posted out there. If you want the show notes to magically show up in your inbox when I publish a show in a beautiful HTML wrapper you can subscribe to the mailing list at my site. It’s a useful thing if you are moved by something I say and would like to see if what I wrote is the same thing! It also has all the links to everything and everyone I talk to and about.
Other than that, thank you for your attention, do epic stuff and let me know if I can help.
Ciao
Happy Song – Super Hero – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Superhero
Other products from Chris Russell you may be interested in
The Mid-Packer’s Lament
On Audio (Read by the author) – http://www.runrunlive.com
The Mid-Packer’s Guide to the Galaxy
Standard Links:
www.midpackerslament.com
Contact:
Cyktrussell At gmail and twitter and facebook and youtube
Bio
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.
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