The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-326 – The Chris Interview

(Audio: link)

[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4326.mp3]

Link epi4326.mp3

MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks – http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/

Hello, my friends. Happy Thanksgiving! I know it’s not a global holiday but I’m sure most of you will know that this week was a national holiday in the US called Thanksgiving. It’s a one day holiday, typically the last Thursday in November. Since it’s a Thursday holiday it pretty much kills a whole week of productivity in the business world.

I will typically not travel on the week, instead I’ll spend the time loosely in my office working on miscellaneous stuff. Many people will take the whole week off, but for me it’s actually easy duty because I don’t need to travel and no one in bothering you.

The schools give their students a brief break and extended families pull together from around the country to spend a day together. This makes it a bit of a travel nightmare for business people with all the students and old people lost in the airports.

In some companies they will schedule internal meetings for the week because there is no client work to be done. I had originally done this but we canceled the meeting so I was home. I took the opportunity to drive up to fetch my youngest at college which is a 12 – 14 hour round trip, but I got good weather, no traffic and no construction so it wasn’t too much of a marathon.

Got to listen through and get caught up on all my podcasts for the week. I’m working my way through Mike Duncan’s ‘Revolutions’ podcast. Those of you who have been members of the RunRunLive community my remember I interviewed Mike for episode 160 in 2011 about his ‘History of Rome’ podcast and his wife’s ½ marathon addiction.

As far as my training…well…there’s been a ‘development’. Let me tell you a story. Last week was a step-back week for me in my training plan. I was feeling strong and I’ve been very intentional in this training cycle to do whatever it takes to not get injured. I’ve been managing the volume and intensity very well.

I’ve been focusing on not giving myself an overuse injury as I try to get some speed back. As my coach tells me “There’s a difference between good intentions and being intentional.”

I had planned out this week so I could get my workouts in and drive to get Teresa and race on Thurday. I planned to do my long run, which was a measly 13 miler, on Saturday. As I worked through my chores on Saturday I figured I needed like 1:45 to run the 13 miles in the road, and set my sites to get out on the road by 3:00 to get back before it got too dark.

3:00 rolls around and I go to get my stuff on. I can’t find my road shoes. Which is a problem because I could grab another pair of road shoes, but those shoes I’m looking for have my road orthotics in them. I’d have to go with a strange pair of shoes with the wrong orthotics and even I’m smart enough to know that’s not a good idea in the middle of a training cycle.

I must have left my shoes either in the gym at work or in my office.

No worries. I’ll just switch to a trail run and grab my trail shoes. I grab Buddy and figure I’ll do two loops of my 6-7miler in the woods behind the house. It’s still only 13 miles, but now it’s getting late and a trail 13 miles is going to take more than 2 hours. No worries. I’ll bring a hat with a light for the second loop. I’m no stranger to running trails in the dark.

Buddy and I get geared up and head out. We do the first loop which is about 7 miles and I swing by the house to drop him off. Now it’s dark. I head back out.

This time of year the leaves are all freshly down from the trees. The footing is a bit dicey with the leaves covering up the trails a couple inches deep in places. I’m usually pretty good at this. When you plant your foot and you feel the rock or root you just unweight that foot and sort of roll through it.

But, circumstance intervened again. It was cold out. I was wiping my nose. Which momentarily changed my balance and I planted 190 pounds on something under the leaves and felt that little click and sharp pain. Classic rolled ankle.

I limped back to the house with only 9 miles. It wasn’t a bad sprain. It wasn’t all swollen and purple like the bad ones. But it was bad enough to keep me off my feet for a couple days. And, that’s how the universe changed my training schedule this week!

I stayed off it until yesterday – Thursday – Thanksgiving – I ran a 5K with my daughter.

The ankle was fine. I pushed fairly hard. 69/885 – Christopher Russell 21:58 7:04 53 61/432 M 9/79 M5059. It felt strange trying to run fast. I’m a bit sore this morning. I was hoping to go under 7 minute miles, but I’m happy to be running. Or should I say “I’m thankful”.

In today’s show we interview, well…me. I have mixed feelings about this, but it is what it is and maybe you can get something out of it. For the running bit I’m going to give you a piece on form. For section two I’ll talk about gratitude.

What are you thankful for? I’m thankful for you. Thank you for letting me do this. Thank you for helping me stay focused and thank you for taking this journey with me.

On with the show!

Section one – Running Tips

Part One – Form – https://runrunlive.com/prepping-for-a-harder-training-cycle-part-one-form

Voices of reason – the conversation

Chris – ?

Section two – Gratitude – https://runrunlive.com/gratitude-2

Outro – Closing comments

MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks – http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/
Well now how are you feeling? All bloated with 8,000 calories of pie and turkey? No worries. Nothing that a couple miles in the woods can’t solve.

Remember – next month I’m going to shut down the extra RunRunLive feed in iTunes. So if you stop getting a show – search for RunRunLive in your favorite podcast directory and re-subscribe to the RunRunLive 4.0 podcast.

While we’re at it you can go leave me a review if you want while you’re in iTunes.

Based on my performance in the 5k this week I’m on track to requalify at some point, but rolling the ankle has set me back a couple weeks in my cycle. I’m not going to go do that Mississippi marathon in January – I just wasn’t feeling it.

I’m going to keep my training going but maybe adjust it to a more gradual ramp to do something in February. I’ve got the Mille Cities Relay on Dec 6^th where I’ll be running the 10mile leg. I can turn that into a long temp run. Then I’m going down to run the JG 13.1 on the 13^th in Atlanta. That will also be a good data point as to my fitness if I treat it as a MP test. Then we’ve got the Groton Marathon on Dec 27^th, which is more of a fun run than anything else, but it’s still 26.2 miles.

Looking at that it’s a full month and I’m probably kidding myself to think I could maintain a high-intensity training cycle through it, but we’ll see. I’ve got plenty of time. I don’t’ want it to turn too much into work. It will be fun.

I’d like to get a qualifying race in before Boston so I can get re-seeded into a better corral. Even if I get my qualifying time I’ll be in back in the 11^th or 12^th corral – but that’s better than 26^th. I also don’t like to put a lot of pressure on Boston because it can be a bitch of a race.

…

I tried to upload my first book of running stories “The Mid-Packer’s Lament” to Audible this week. I had already recorded all the audio myself years ago. But, they rejected it as not meeting the proper quality and formatting expectations.

I was a bit disappointed to get a rejection email from these mercenaries, but after I thought about it a bit I decided to ask a better question. What can I learn from this?

I found a guy to record my new book “MarathonBQ” into an audio book in accordance with Audible’s standards. We’ll see how that goes, but the answer to what I had learned was a) I’m an idiot to try to record these things myself without a studio or any equipment or any real editing software and b) now that I know what the standards are I can do it without screwing it up!

There you go. I’m the silver-lining guy this week. Turning adversity into opportunity! Just like a growth mindset individual should.

Have a great weekend, don’t forget to ask good questions and be thankful for what you have- even if it is only the opportunity to screw up less – I’ll see you out there.