Expisode 300 – Coach Andrew Kastor and much frivolity…
(Audio: link)
[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4300.mp3]
Link epi4300.mp3
Intro:
Hello my friends and welcome to episode 300 of the RunRunLive podcast. For those of you who have been friends for a bit you’ll realize that this is a necessary departure from our standard format to celebrate our Tri-centennial. For those of you who may be new to our little endurance sports journal, well you’ll just have to figure it out by listening to some of the other shows.
Thanks you to Tony for the marathon prayer intro. Tony does a regular segment called Tony’s Trials on the Marathon Talk UK Podcast (link). One of our executive editors, Alex form the UK got permission from them for us to use it.
Tony Audenshaw – Tony’s Trials
I’m guessing we are going to go long today, so you’d better schedule a long run or ride or whatever for this one. I’ve invited some of my friends to submit audios and I’m going to be completely frivolous and indiscrete with too many musical interludes. Just sit back and let it wash over you like a wave of warm molasses. Chill out. No rules for this one.
It’s going to be a long show and the format is going to be different than usual, but you want to hang around until the end because the ASICS team has asked me to give some shoes away and I’ll set up the contest in the show outro. Everybody likes free shoes.
It’s been a long run, huh? We’ve seen births and deaths and marriages and divorces. The cycle of life. For everything there is a season and you’ve certainly ornamented my life for the better through these many seasons.
In today’s 300th official episode I’m going to talk about community at some point and this strange and wonderful long distance relationship we all share wrapped around our sports. I may tell a zombie story, for the Halloween season, just for fun.
I’ve gathered up some guest commentary for you to enjoy, if for no other reason than to quiet the voices in your head.
But, Fear not! We are going to wrap all the frivolity around a great interview with coach Andrew Kastor who I met through the ASICS NYC marathon Editor’s Choice boondoggle, I mean ‘program’. I really enjoyed talking to Andrew about altitude training and geeking out on training topics in general.
It’s a great running-content-rich interview and I feel I’m doing it a disservice by sandwiching it into all this 300th episode frooforal.
Nothing significantly new in my training. I’m feeling fairly strong. I got a nice 2:30 long run in over the weekend that was significant in that I was able to maintain my HR and pace consistently throughout without power failure. Too many of my long runs over the summer ended with a death march – so I think that’s progress.
I’m still trying to find my racing speed. Maybe it’s gone for good. I appear to be healthy, so maybe I’m just entering a new phase of slowness. It really doesn’t matter because either way I’m going to get up every day and throw myself at my workouts as part of my balance.
With the MCM and NYC coming up in couple weeks on back to back weekends my plan is not to race them but instead try to walk away healthy. Then we can throw in a targeted cycle for either a mid-winter race or a spring race. I’m looking at some shorter stuff too to fill the gaps.
Looking forward to some grand adventures with new and old friends alike.
So…my friends, bear with me as we take off our shirts and dance on the tables today, throwing all rigor and caution to the wind, because, hey, we’re among friends, and friends take the time to celebrate their accomplishments.
On with the show!
Steve Runner
What can you say about Steve that hasn’t been said? He’s the five-star General of running podcasts – a landmark – a fixture – a guiding light for all of us. And, even though I know he doesn’t listen to my show he caught on to the zombie theme and submitted a slickly produced mini-episode. Brilliant as always.
Katy Thereux
It always warms my heart when I hear from women who listen to the show and get something out of it. Katy sent me this very nice missive. Apparently we resonate in some way through the universal mastermind. That’s one of the dynamics of the digital world – your ideas can slip free of the physical and resonate with like minds in the ether.
Section One
The Sleepless in Seattle Effect – https://runrunlive.com/sleepless-in-seattle-effect
Music -> Bombskare –“I’m so Happy!”
Carlos
I’ve been listening to Carlos and watching him run through his beloved Pacific Northwest Mountains and forest for many years. I would have never had the opportunity to know Carlos if it wasn’t for being part of the online running community. He’s always got the Grateful Dead playing in the background. It seems like an idyllic life to me, running in the forest and listening to the dead. How could it get any better?
Ann Brennan
So sometimes in the digital world you get to meet actual crazy people. I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting Ann and her husband and kids and I’ve learned a lot from her trials and resiliency and openness. If everything goes right I’ll get to eat dinner at her place with the Miles to end Prostate cancer team before the Marine Corp Marathon. The world is a better place with Ann’s life force.
Steve Chopper
Steve was one of the original running podcasters with his high quality show “A mile with me” I always aspired to be as professional as Steve. His first shows were works of art, like BBC documentaries. I’ve met Steve in the flesh and broken bread with him. When we met we immediately bonded and of course we ran and raced each other like kids in the schoolyard.
Featured Interview
Coach Andrew Kastor
http://www.coachkastor.com/about/
About The Coach
Andrew started his running career in the early 1990’s, at the young age of 14, when he competed in cross county, track and road racing while attending Fountain Valley High School in Southern California.
He then went on to pursue a degree in Exercise Physiology (B.S. 2000) from Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. While in college, Andrew’s commitment to the sport of running continued to grow, as he competed in cross-country and track, specializing in the middle-distance events.
Post-graduation, Andrew moved to Mammoth Lakes, California, where he created and coached a non-profit running club called the High Sierra Striders. He is now the head coach for the ASICS Mammoth Track Club and the LA Road Runners.
Andrew currently resides in Mammoth Lakes with his wife Deena (Olympic Marathon bronze medalist and American Record holder in the marathon and half-marathon) and their daughter, Piper Bloom.
Music Big D and the Kid’s Table – “Myself”
Duane Hespell Comment:
Obviously I caught Duane on a good day. I think he was just waiting for a chance to bust out with some creative audio. He went all extra-mile on me. That’s another fun thing about our community – you discover people’s hidden talents! Thanks Duane.
Maryro Mendez comment
I’ve been having conversations with this young lady for a long time but I seldom hear her voice! Wow! What an amazing voice! I can die happy now. We made a bet one time when we both had marathons on the same weekend. I happened to have a decent race so I won! I don’t care so much about the lobster dinner but I am happy to have made a friend that I’m grateful for.
Section Two:
Zombie Apocalypse – https://runrunlive.com/zombie-apocalypse-300-act-one
Peter Herridge
I first got to know Peter through Phedipidations as he and Steve traded philosophical arguments. Peter is a thoughtful man and I enjoy listening to him turn big thoughts over in his head and look at them in a fresh, learned and interesting way. I’d never get that chance if it wasn’t for joining this community and my life would be poorer for it.
Eddie and Adam:
What does it sound like when two long lost friends get together after a long absence and start drinking craft beer? I guess this bit from Eddie and Adam answers that question. I’ve spent time with both these guys and can confirm that when they’re not addled on homebrew they’re both way smarter than I am. I’m hoping someday my association with them rubs off and I graduate to a better person because of it.
Outro:
Drag your tired body out of the mud. Push back the ravenous hoards. Celebrate! We’ve come to a milestone. We’ve survived. We’ve grown. We’ve run, we’ve run some more and maybe we’ve even lived a little. I hope to keep that streak alive.
Frankly, I’m not sure what the show format is going to be going forward but I will do what I can to fill the void, to light a candle, to shine my feeble light into the dark and murky corners and find forgotten or unnoticed treasures, to weave into the tapestry of our mutual, digital experience.
ASICS Gel Kayano 21 NYC Shoe Give Away!
Go here & post a comment to win some shoes -> https://runrunlive.com/asics-gel-kayano-21-nyc-shoe-give-away
My friends at ASICS America want me to give away a pair of NYC GEL-Kayano 21. These are $160 shoes.
I’ve never run in them (although I’m up to 5 different pairs of shoes that I’m testing to run NYC in ). They are decribed on the ASICS website as follow.
The new GEL-Kayano® 21 NYC special edition was made for the 2014 TCS New York City Marathon and is updated with nothing but the best in ASICS technical innovation, featuring the next generation of FluidRide™ and an Ortholite X-40 sockliner for the lightest and most luxuriously stable ride yet. Mild to moderate overpronators will run the streets of New York City in secure comfort, thanks to the new uniquely designed FluidFit™ upper and Heel Clutching System™.
So, it sounds like a light stability shoe. If that sounds like something you want I’ve set up a post on my website at RunRunLive.com and all you have to do is go register. We’ll pick a winner on NYC race weekend. Just make sure you give a real email address when you’re posting or we won’t be able to find you!
So my friends, as hard as it is to find the time to slap a show together every couple weeks, I really do enjoy it. If it wasn’t for the RunRunLive Podcast to keep me occupied I clearly would have written a best-selling novel by now, and then I would have sold the rights to Hollywood, gone out there, hooked up with the drugs, the alcohol and starlets with questionable morals. I would have gotten divorced, and I’d be sleeping in my own filth in a West Hollywood gutter right now…so you’ve saved me from all that.
I am almost done with my MarathonBQ book. 15 chapters in. I had a couple people raise their hands for editing and I sent them drafts, but never heard from them again… It took longer than a month but I wouldn’t have gotten it done at all if I hadn’t challenged myself. I’ll edit and polish it up and do a launch in the next couple months.
Here’s an actual value added tip that I heard a couple weeks ago. When you work on a creative process the emotional energy and momentum is shaped like a ‘U’. When you first start you are all excited and full of energy and you make progress quickly, like the straight side of the ‘U’.
Then when you get part way through you start to realize all the things that need to be worked out and you get mired down. You start going sideways into distracting offshoot. You lose your momentum and your excitement for the project. This is the bent part at the bottom of the ‘U’.
It is here that many people give up on their creative projects. It becomes work and the light at the end of the tunnel seems so far away. This is where experience helps. You might say this phase of the creative project is similar to ‘the dark place’ that I talk about in training cycles.
You have to put your head down, soldier on and push through.
Then as you approach the end of the creative project everything start to coalesce. It all starts coming together. Everything becomes clear and it is joyous again as you wrap things up and birth the finished product. This is the other straight side of the ‘U’.
Remember the ‘U’ process and it will help you stick to your path when things get hard.
It’s been close to 2 years since we rolled out version 3.0 of the RunRunLive podcast.
As always you can find me on Gmail or most social networks as CYKTRussell. All of my slightly bent U-shaped projects are available at my website RunRunLive.com.
And you know what?
I’ll see you out there.
Music: Tim Armstrong – “Hold on”
Music in this show (All from Music Alley and Podsafe!)
The High Fidelics – “Spy_Smasher”
The High Fidelics – “Mondo Rondo”
The Vibro-tones – “Nova Express”
The Vanes – “Bad Mea or Good Cheese”
Benuts – Turn off your radio”
The Fighting Cocks – “No Candy”
The Fashionistas – Keep it underground”
Big D and the Kid’s Table – “Myself”
20 Riverside – “Throwin it down beside the sea”
Unsteady – “Tokyo”
Bombskare –“I’m so Happy!”
Tim Armstrong – “Hold on”