RunRunLive

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-405 – Julia and the Path Taken (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4405.mp3] Link epi4405.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 and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-405.  Today we are going to talk to Julia.  Here’s the funny story.  About a year ago my friend introduced me to Julia and I interviewed her here in episode 4-368.  Then recently he introduced us again and I interviewed her again for this show.  But here’s the thing.  None of us remembered the fact that we had already done it less than a year ago! It’s ok – she’s got a great story.  This stands alone.   And what I want you to take away from this is how she chose a special path for her life.  It involved a lot of marathons and twists and turns but it also involves a lot of love and fulfillment.  We all make choices and those choices determine our paths.  Don’t assume you can’t choose a different path.  Don’t be afraid to try.  So we’ve got the interview with Julia.  Also, in this episode I’m going to talk about one of my favorite topics, speed work.   Then I’m going to preach a bit about a new work I’m digesting by Eckhart Tolle. My training is going great.  I’m super lean.  I’m strong.  I have no injuries.  I’ve got a couple more big weeks left before I taper in to Boston.  I knocked out a 20 miler with 18 of those at race pace on the treadmill last weekend.  I’ve been hitting all my workouts well.  I’ve got a 20+ outing tomorrow.  The thing that really has me optimistic is that I feel a good ‘pop’ in my legs.  That feeling of strength and energy that I haven’t felt in a long time.  That last few cycles for Boston I’ve just been grinding through, hoping for a marathon miracle when I get to the race.  But this cycle feels different.  I’ve got pop.  ... And Spring is here in New England! I had my shorts on yesterday.  You can feel the Earth awakening.  You can hear the birds and smell the fecundity in the ground.  And as the snow melts, let me share with you my favorite old-English word of the week.  Because it has to do with snow.  At some point I’ll tell the whole story of why English is such a greatly diverse language, but for now, the original Old-English brought over by the Anglo Saxons was a Germanic variety.  In the old Germanic languages, they had ‘strong’ verbs.  About 300 of those strong verbs came into English and about 70 of them survived into modern English.  A strong verb is when the vowel sound changes to indicate the tense of the verb.  For example, a surviving strong verb is Sing, Sang, Sung.   So instead of adding an -ed or -s ending like ‘walked’ or ‘walks’ we change the vowel sound to indicate tense.  With me so far?  Here’s the punchline.  The verb ‘to snow’ was originally a strong verb.  So my favorite Old-English word of the week is the strong verb past tense of snow.  Snew.  Isn’t that great?  Instead of ‘it snowed’ you can say ‘it snew’.  On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills. M … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com Become a member … Section one – My current nutrition - http://runrunlive.com/my-current-diet-and-meal-planning Voices of reason – the conversation Colin – Run Romsdal Run Romsdal is a guided trail and mountain running company set up by Colin Thornton & Hélène Hubert. Through our love of running in wild, remote and spectacular places we discovered the Romsdal region in Norway and decided we could not think of a better place to bring like minded people to come and enjoy the outstanding beauty of the place in the safe hands of people who know it the best. www.runromsdal.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/runromsdal/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/romsdalrun Facebook - runromsdal I have attached a few photos as I can never decide what to use!  Section two – Feel the Fear (and do it anyway) - http://runrunlive.com/a-short-review-of-a-short-book-on-fear Outro Well, my friends you have chosen a path through this world even though it may have rained and snew along the way, you’re still going to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-405.  Things are getting busy for me now for a few weeks.  I have some travel and some more big weeks in the lead up to Boston.  But I’m already looking beyond Boston.  I’ve signed up to pace Eric at Leadville late in the summer so it looks like another trail-running ultra summer for me.  I’m ok with that.  Very peaceful.  I’ll probably look to work in a 100K race somewhere because it’s a distance I haven’t run.  Or maybe a 24 hour race or some other event that gets gives me a point on the horizon to point my coracle towards and steadies my hand on the tiller. I’ve found a few new podcasts that I can recommend to you.  By the way, have you seen all the venture capital that is being poured into podcast content?  Hundreds of millions of dollars.  Maybe my ship is coming in after a dozen years of doing this?  The first podcast is called “The Dropout” by ABC News.  It’s an investigative journalism piece about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.  This was big news for awhile.  She was a 19 year old Stanford dropout that had a billion-dollar startup, but turns out there wasn’t an actual product that worked and the whole thing was a bit of Ponzi scheme. It’s a great window on, and indictment of, the whole Silicon Valley zeitgeist and how it can go horribly wrong.  It’s only 6 episodes and you can power right through the narrative in a week.  The second is and NPR podcast called “Throughline” that explores historical events that you may not have known about.  Like how Sam Adams was the original conspiracy theorist, the almost impeachment of Andrew Johnson after the civil war and how we engineered the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1955.  Good stuff.  Fun, but also food for thought.  Finally, another NPR show called “Invisibilia” that “explores the unseen forces that shape how we act and who we are”.   Very interesting.  I listened to a show last night titled “how to be Batman” about how the way we treat blind people prevents them from ‘seeing’.  They talk to a man who uses echolocation to see.  He can ride a bike and hike in the mountains.  He believes that it is because no one ever told him he couldn’t.  When they tested his brain to see what was going on, sure enough the same place that sighted people use lights up the same way when he echolocates.   The images he sees are the same images I see. The input mechanism is just a little different. The links for all of these are in the post and in the show notes. What are your beliefs keeping you from seeing?  Maybe your thinker is too busy thinking for you to be able to see?  Maybe there is another path? When you find it… And I’ll see you out there.   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/ Http://www.marathonbq.com http://runrunlive.com/my-books Rachel -> http://www.nextlevelnutrition.fitness/contact-appointment/ Coach Jeff -> https://dailyfitbook.com/  

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-404 – Fjords and Mountains – Run Romsdal (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4404.mp3] Link epi4404.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 and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-404.  This is the point where I frantically try to remember all those great stories, amusing anecdotes and funny things that I had ready to go when I was running but now retreat into the fog of my memory like scared children confronted by the full, blank whiteness of the empty page and blinking cursor. Bam! Right out of the gate a 54-word sentence!  Yeah! Homeric in its epicness.  I am a prose god! (Editor’s note: Word wants to change ‘epicness’ to epicenes, which is an entirely different thing. That is a Greek word meaning containing both sexes – so androgynous or hermaphroditic and if I wanted to use either of those words I would!  So, get out of my hair Bill Gates!)  Now I am picturing the poor, confused new listener who though they were tuning into a running podcast and instead are getting a crazed etymology tantrum.  Welcome to the inside of the RunRunLive hive mind my friends – sometimes it’s a bit fractal in here. But yes, we do talk about endurance sports.  I have been easing myself back into Twitter after a couple years off and there is a group called #RunChat that is nice.  That’s where I found today’s guest.  I like cool places to run and explore and these folks have gone off to the edge of the map in Scandinavia to set up a running adventure company in the Fjords and mountains.  The photos are spectacular.  Real Viking land stuff. Which causes me to remember one of those amusing anecdotes.  Have you ever heard of Ragnar Lodbrok?  The infamous Viking chieftain who plundered around Frankia and Anglo-Saxon Britain in the late 700’s?  Lodbrok is a compound of two Germanic words.  And literally translated means “Hairy Breaches” or “Hairy Pants”.  You can kind of see some English words in there think ‘Locks” as in ‘flowing locks of hair’ and ‘Breach’ – so Lod-Brok.  Because Old English and Old Norse both came from a common Indo-European root language.  In section one I’ll talk about what my nutrition and diet looks like this cycle that is getting me lean and in section two I’ll talk about a little book I read about fear.  And yes, as we speak I’m about 6 weeks away from the Boston marathon, which in runner-speak means 4 weeks of big miles and 2 weeks of taper.  My training is going really well.  I’m still quite lean and have been sticking to my diet plan for the most part.  I am battling the weather though.  Every time I have a hard workout it seems like it’s snowing or raining or in a deep freeze.  I’ve been spending a ton of time on the treadmill.  Which is good and bad.  It’s good because I can cleanly set the paces I want and hold them.  It’s bad because the treadmill does not translate 100% to road training.  For instance, I knocked off 18 miles on the treadmill last Sunday with the middle 14 at target race pace minus 7.  If I did that outside in the freezing rain storm we were having my pace would be all over the place and I’m not sure I’d get the benefits of the workout.  I need the confidence of knowing I can hold those paces.  Now over the next 4 weeks we’ll throw in some 20 milers and some race specific stuff.  But, all else being equal I feel great.  Light, fast, strong and healthy.  …. One of my habit changes that has been successful in this nutrition cycle is how I’m making my suppers now.  In an ideal world I would eat anything late in the evening, but when I get home from work I’m starving.  What I’ve been doing is using my cast-iron skillet to sauté up some vegetables when I come through the door.  This gives me something to do and takes maybe 20-30 minutes to prepare.  The resulting dinners are healthy and fill me up.  They are nutrition dense and calorie reasonable. Take your big cast iron skillet.  Put it over medium heat.  Pour a glug of olive oil in.  Dice up a garlic clove or two.  Dice up a small onion.  Dice up a teaspoon-sized chunk of ginger.  Put all this into the pan and stir it around in the oil until the onions are clear.  2-3 minutes. While that’s cooking cut up your veg.  It can be mushrooms, cabbage, squash, broccoli – whatever you have.  Fill up the skillet because the veg shrinks as it cooks.  Sauté that while mixing it so it doesn’t burn. Maybe another 5 minutes.  Pour in a half a cup of stock to get the steaming going.  You can cover it and it will cook faster but will get soggy.  Alternately you have to keep mixing it so it cooks evenly.  Serve over rice or anything else you have.  The key ingredient is the ginger.  The ginger makes it taste like restaurant food.  That will fill you up and while you’re waiting for it to cook you can clean the kitchen up a bit and kill two birds with one stone.  Actually, PETA doesn’t want us to use those animal threatening phrases anymore.  They want us to modify our speech to be animal friendly. So – instead I’ll say – you can feed two birds with one scone. Birds like scones. On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills. M … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com Become a member … Section one – My current nutrition - http://runrunlive.com/my-current-diet-and-meal-planning Voices of reason – the conversation Colin – Run Romsdal Run Romsdal is a guided trail and mountain running company set up by Colin Thornton & Hélène Hubert. Through our love of running in wild, remote and spectacular places we discovered the Romsdal region in Norway and decided we could not think of a better place to bring like minded people to come and enjoy the outstanding beauty of the place in the safe hands of people who know it the best. www.runromsdal.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/runromsdal/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/romsdalrun Facebook - runromsdal I have attached a few photos as I can never decide what to use!  Section two – Feel the Fear (and do it anyway) - http://runrunlive.com/a-short-review-of-a-short-book-on-fear Outro Well, my friends you have traversed the dangerous, naked spine of a rocky mountain to the Fjord at the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-404.  Careful you don’t twist an ankle. Next time we are going to talk with Julia who has a great story and a passion for telling it.  I hope you noticed I’m trying to re-energize the podcast.  Baby steps!  I am working on a lot of projects and life gets weird sometimes, but it’s all good.  I’m thankful for your company and the opportunity for us to connect. So – Thank you. My training is hard, but boringly predictable.  I’m getting in 50ish miles on 5 days of hard work on my big weeks.  I’m typically doing 3 hard workouts a week.  I have been doing more speed work this cycle which I really feel like I needed.  I have knocked off 10 Yasso 800’s at my target race time which supposedly is a positive predictor! I had a great workout on Tuesday this week.  On the treadmill again (because the weather was awful) It was a 1 hour step up run, which is actually an ‘easy’ tempo session for me because this is a step back week.  On a build week that would be a 1:30 step up run or even more. For an hour step up you warm up for 20 minutes.  Run at tempo pace for 30 minutes then cool down for 10.  At first I was struggling a little, breathing hard, battling the workout.  But at 20 minutes into the tempo (40 minutes into the workout) it was like a switch flipped and I felt great.  I dropped the pace to 30 seconds per mile faster than my goal marathon pace and held that for the last 10 minutes of the step.  I somehow got into flow state and was just flying and feeling great.  It was effortless.  It was great.  That’s why we do it right?  Every once in a while, it feels effortless and that’s a beautiful thing. … I’m going to leave you with more word play from my current fascination with the history of English.  My favorite Old English word so far is ‘Gongawiver’ which translates to “Going Weaver”, Gongawiver.  That’s the old English word for spider.  Isn’t’ that great? You can use it in a sentence… Like, “The epicene server at Starbucks was frightened by a scary gongawiver. And I’ll see you out there.   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/ Http://www.marathonbq.com http://runrunlive.com/my-books Rachel -> http://www.nextlevelnutrition.fitness/contact-appointment/ Coach Jeff -> https://dailyfitbook.com/  

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-403 – Marnie’s Art Adventures (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4403.mp3] Link epi4403.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 and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-403.  How is everyone doing?  Reinvigorated for this new year?  No?  Feeling the cold winter doldrums?  Well snap out of it!  Put on your big pants! Suck it up Buttercup!  There are roads to be run, there are adventures to be had, there are people to see, people like Marnie, who we talk to today, who did what we all want to do – she took two of her passions – running and art and mixed them together with community to form a little tribe, a little business.  And that was a 56-word long sentence! Vladmir Nabokov would be proud.  Who needs grammar?  It just slows the creative flow.  The first written languages had no grammar.  They were just strings of words. That’s why you need priests to read them and interpret them.  I suppose not unlike our current internet… Anyhow – back to our story.  And what a story it is! I am neck deep and two months out from my 21st Boston Marathon.  My training is going as well as can be expected.  I’m getting all the workouts in.  I’m light and strong.  Weighed in at 172.8 pounds this morning with 9.9% body fat.  Those are random numbers without some context.   What’s the baseline here?  When I raced my PR’s Decades ago the lightest I ever got was the low 180’s.  But as you get old you lose muscle mass.  Just looking at my body composition now at 173 versus then at 185 – they are close to equivalent.  Meaning I’ve lost about 10 pounds of body mass over 20 years.  Some is muscle mass, some is fat storage, some is the shrinking of my brain.  Because we all know that people start losing their minds as they get older, right?  Kurt Vonnegut referred to the 6 pounds of brain in the human skull dismissively as nothing more than “A dog’s Breakfast”.  As for body fat %, a healthy male is not going to get much leaner than 3-6%.  5% is often quoted as the apex of physical, lean, fitness, - the gold standard - for men.  6-10% is considered ‘athletic’ for men.  Women are designed differently and normally (key word there ladies) ‘normally’ are 7-9% higher in fat percentage across the board on all these numbers. In section one I will talk about listening to your bodies.  And in section two I’ll talk about a book I read called “The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*CK”  … What I love about Marnie’s story is that she took a personal adventure, running around her neighborhood, and turned it into a ‘thing’.  You don’t have to get on an aeroplane or cross an ocean to have a fulfilling adventure.  Adventures are all around you.  You just have to reach out and grab them.  You might even say; the adventure is inside you.  On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills. M … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com Become a member … Section one – Listening to your body - http://runrunlive.com/listening-to-your-body Voices of reason – the conversation Marnie Thank you so much for the interview! I am excited about this. To answer your questions:   A short bio for the notes: Marnie Kunz is a running coach, writer, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Runstreet Art Runs, which fuse running and street art to bring people together to learn about art in their communities while getting in a fun workout.   a good picture for the episode art - Please see attached. Photo by Filles Garcons Photography. Any links you want to include. Sure!   Runstreet Art Runs https://www.runstreet.com/events/ Runstreet Instagram https://www.instagram.com/runstreet/ Runstreet Twitter  https://www.twitter.com/runstreet Runstreet Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Runstreet1/ Marnie's writing on Runstreet and on Medium   Let me know if you need anything else. Thank you!!   Cheers,   Marnie Section two – Life sucks, then you die… - http://runrunlive.com/life-scks-then-you-die Outro Well, my friends you have taken a small adventure to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-403.  It’s a rough stretch for me.  I’ve got Valentines Day, my wife’s birthday and our wedding anniversary all in the same 3 week period.  It is a dark time where the alpha male must stick to the shadows and hunt carefully. A time fraught with peril.  Like I said we are 2 months out from Boston.  I’ve been doing some daily blogging of my workouts and other tidbits on my website runrunlive.com if anyone is interested.  The challenge I have is that I’m usually writing those posts at night, after my workout, when I’m half asleep and brain dead.  I do a lot of monosyllabic grunting – and that doesn’t translate into prose well.  I’ve been challenged to keep up with the podcast for a few reasons.  Primarily I don’t have a good place to record.  I used to work from home on Fridays and that was  good, but my wife has decided to take Fridays off – so she’s podcast-blocking all of you.  I’m actually in a conference room right now in the building I work at.  The space that the company has is designed into an old manufacturing space.  I don’t have a real office with a door and the acoustics are terrible.  So, we’ll test this out and see how it works.  I may have to build a studio somewhere.  Another podcast prohibitor is that coach has been scheduling big workouts for me on Fridays.  I came in early this morning to hit the treadmill. He gave me a 7 by 7 minutes at 5K pace. Which is not an easy workout.  With the warm up and cool down and shower you are at over an hour and a half, close to two hours.  Having these long, hard workouts hanging over my head on a Friday screws up my schedule and my head.  I had a video shoot in the office today so I had to get cleaned up.  Of course, no matter how much time you spend wandering around the house preparing stuff for work and the gym you always forget something.  This morning was a belt, which was a problem because I’m so lean my pants are falling off me.  I had to have my wife run a belt over.  Good thing it was her day off!  With Sunday’s 2:30 long run this will give me another 50ish mile week.  So far, so good.  … You may have thought the message of the don’t give a F book was a bit depressing.  But the power of that message is a reset to reality and critical thinking.  When you are forced to confront the fact that life is suffering, you’re not all that special and none of it is going to matter in 100 years anyway it frees you.  It frees you to not take yourself so damn seriously.  It frees you to choose what makes you happy. It frees you to execute with detachment and that enables you to get stuff done, important stuff, that will, at the end of the day make a difference and ease your own and other peoples’ suffering.  So – detaching, helps you to find and to own your own journey.  At least that’s what my dog’s breakfast is telling me.  I’ll see you out there, MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/ Http://www.marathonbq.com http://runrunlive.com/my-books Rachel -> http://www.nextlevelnutrition.fitness/contact-appointment/ Coach Jeff -> https://dailyfitbook.com/  

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-402 – A Narcissistic Interviewee (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4402.mp3] Link epi4402.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 and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-402.  First of all let me apologize for causing so much mid-workout vision issues last week for many of you.  I got multiple letters that many of you had some dust in your eyes when I talked about the passing of my friend Buddy.  Or as my sister put it, “Thanks for making me ugly-cry in the gym!” Twas no my intention.  I just wrote what came to me in that moment on that day when I knew we were going to have to make that last trip to the vet and my old friend would need to bring some change to pay the ferryman.  Let’s not be all sack cloth and ashes here, rolling in the mud, tearing at our hair and wailing.  Let’s celebrate today, this moment and the friends we have to share it with.  If a dog teaches you anything it is how to live in and enjoy the moment.  The sun came up today.  The reaper hasn’t caught us yet and we, you and I, are going to fight that asshole all the way down.  We are not going to sit around and wait to be caught. We are going to get out there and live and love and have adventures and make that sonnabitch work hard to catch us.  Right? Sorry for the shows being a bit less predictable in cadence recently.  Life happens.  Even to me! Today we interview some narcissistic knucklehead about pretty much nothing.  In section one I’ll talk about committing, really committing to this marathon cycle.  And in section two I’ll give you the draft introduction to a new book I’m writing on startup sales.  I’ll give you a couple useful tips for the season.  First, this time of year we end up having to hit the gym a lot.  One of the things I do during my warm up, because whether you’re running or lifting or whatever you should do a little 5 minute warm up, what I do is get on the treadmill in my socks for 5 minutes.  I set it at a slow pace, (for me), like 12-15 min miles and just let my feet relax and spread out a bit.  Really helps get everything warm and relaxed.  Second tip is about consistency.  One of the things I’ve been challenged with over the last couple cycles, especially since the 100 miler, is my legs are super tight.  What I’ve done is to work a simple 5-6 minute stretching routine into every day regardless of what my workout is.  It’s not the stretching per se but the consistency of doing it every day that makes a difference. It has really helped my running this cycle.  Small things done consistently have a huge impact. I’ve got a new podcast for you.  The History of The English Language.  If you love words and language like me, you will find this fascinating.  This is for all you closet Philologists and Lexicologists.  If you don’t like these things it’s going to be like a freshman English lecture.  For example, I learned that there is a root language known as Indo-European that influenced Latin, Greek and Germanic.  Those languages borrowed from each other, but were all decedents of the Indo European.  And, today I learned that the original Indo-European word for ‘host’ had a dual meaning of both the host and the guest.  Same word.  This root word gives us both ‘host’ and ‘guest’ as well as house, hospital, hospitality, etc.  It also means that the word Ghost is literally a guest in your house. … Ok.  Get your hankies out. One last Buddy story from last week.  I stayed home with him Thursday and even though we had a rough night he rallied during the day and was up tottering around the house.  At some point in the afternoon my wife came home so I took the opportunity to jump out the door for a run in the woods.  As I’m standing in the open doorway in my running kit talking to me wife the old dog stumbles over and sticks his head between me and the door.  The dog can barely stand but he’s decided he’s ready to head out into the woods with me on a run.  A gamer and a wonder dog to the very end. On with the show. … I’ll remind you that the RunRunLive podcast is ad free and listener supported.  What does that mean? It means you don’t have to listen to me trying to sound sincere about Stamps.com or Audible.. (although, fyi, my MarathonBQ book is on audible) We do have a membership option where you can become a member and as a special thank you, you will get access to member’s only audio. There are book reviews, odd philosophical thoughts, zombie stories and I curate old episodes for you to listen to.  I recently added that guy who cut off is foot so he could keep training and my first call with Geoff Galloway.   “Curated” means I add some introductory comments and edit them up a bit.  So anyhow – become a member so I can keep paying my bills. M … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener supported.  We do this by offering a membership option where members get Access to Exclusive Members Only audio and articles. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com Become a member … Section one – A new training cycle- http://runrunlive.com/hitting-the-training-again Voices of reason – the conversation Chris Russell Chris is the product of suburban entitlement and over-education.  I promise I’ll find real guests in the future.  😊 Section two – Startup Sales - http://runrunlive.com/startup-sales Outro Well, my friends you have looked at your reflection and fallen in love through to the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-402.  Wake up.  We’ve got work to do.  And miles to go before we sleep.  My training is going very well.  My strategy of losing weight and eating clean is paying off with some great workouts.  I feel lean and strong.  At least this week.  I’ve been holding steady at around 173 pounds, which is somewhere around 10 pounds lighter than I normally would be at this point.  The first 10 are easy.  I want to see if I can get down to 165ish and go into Boston at 170ish.  My paces ae better and my staying power in my legs is better.  We’ll see how it goes.  I don’t have any races planned for the spring besides Boston.  This is good and bad.  It’s good because I won’t waste energy and risk over-training by racing too hard.  It’s bad because I like to use those races as practice runs to give me confidence.  So much of racing well is confidence. I’m in the midst of thinking thorough what I want to do with the podcast going forward.  I think this current format has run its course.  I like the format but I want to bring the quality up and be more consistent on the cadence and the themes. … Went out into the trails today.  It was Sunny and just below the freezing mark.  We had a deep freeze, followed by a heavy rain, followed by another freeze.  The trails are nice and firm but there is a lot of ice.  It’s slow going.  Buddy would not have liked it.  He didn’t like the ice.  I ran into a guy ‘walking’ some sort of cattle dog cross that was wildly exuberant, running in circles and giving me friendly full-body hip checks.  Fun times.  Nice to see the people using those trails.  Buddy and I made those trails.  It’s good for the soul.  Getting out in the woods.  Wending your way through the ice and snow.  Splitting the horizon where winter sun meets frozen ground.  That’s life. I’ll see you out there, MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - http://www.marathonbq.com/qualify-for-the-boston-marathon-in-14-weeks/ Http://www.marathonbq.com http://runrunlive.com/my-books Rachel -> http://www.nextlevelnutrition.fitness/contact-appointment/ Coach Jeff -> https://dailyfitbook.com/  

A life Well Lived (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/ buddy-Eulogy.output.mp3] Link buddy-Eulogy.output.mp3 A life well lived. I’m standing in the front yard in my pajamas.  It’s 18 degrees and everything is frozen hard with that late January freeze that penetrates deep into the earth.  I’m holding Buddy’s emaciated body up to see if maybe he wants to pee.  He’s warm as he leans against me.  He hangs his head and collapses on weak legs.  I pick him up.  So light now.  Just a warm bag of bones.  Nothing left of that strong dog that would sprint laps in this yard or launch himself 10 feet in the air to grab a frisbee in this yard or steal the soccer ball off my foot in our yard.  His yard.  I have a photograph that I gifted to my wife one year, many years ago.  It’s an aerial photograph of the yard some outfit was peddling in our neighborhood.  The photo is late summer.  There in the green of the grass sits Buddy, ever watchful, surveying the land from his perch on the hill.  Always at the ready. I stayed home with him yesterday.  I slept in the chair next to his bed the night before.  It was a long night.  I was woken every hour or so by the grinding of his teeth and the spasming of his body from long, violent seizures.  I put my hands on him and tell him it’s ok as he rides them out.  Oddly it was a comfort to me.  To be able to spend this time close with him.  I stayed home from work and built a fire in the fireplace.  I sat on the couch and read while he stumbled around or slept.  It brought back memories of a parallel time when my oldest daughter Katie was born.  I was in transition between jobs and took a couple weeks off to stay home with the newborn.  I quickly discovered that all I could do was hold that warm infant on my chest and read.  And we spent that time together.  And I was grateful for it.  After this long night I thought this was the day, but he perked up.  He was stumbling around the house.  He was eating some treats.  I figured I’d give him another night.  He earned it.  But today is that day.  He was doing fine a month ago on his 16th birthday, but something happened.  Some sort of system failure.  He lost 15 pounds in less than a month.  The seizures.  This morning he could not stand.  It happens quickly.  He’s exhausted.  It’s a difficult puzzle to unravel with a pet.  How much of this is me trying to avoid my own pain and how much of it for them?  How do you make that decision or more importantly, when do you make that decision?  We can’t fathom their thoughts and emotions. As close as they are to us, they are still an alien mind.  Most of the narrative our own egomaniacal anthropomorphizing. It’s a weighty thing to have to decide the time of death for a friend.  These last couple days he hasn’t been eating his food, but he has been more than willing to eat our food.  As sick and weak as he is, even when we have to hold him up, he’ll inhale that hamburger and chicken and chees with a pepperoni chaser.  Good for him.  Getting the last laugh. Most people have many pets in their lives, but there is always that one.  The one that grew up with your kids.  That one that was your best friend.  Buddy was that pet for us.  He was not without neuroses.  He was irrationally afraid of thunder and fireworks.  He was hard-wired to chase anything that moved, no matter what your opinion on the appropriateness of that chasing was. But he was the best dog I have ever known.  He was my running partner.  He shared thousands of miles of road a trail at my side, stride for stride.  He was incredibly smart, incredibly athletic and the kindest, gentlest guileless soul to his pack.  How many spiritual moments did we share in the trails?  Hundreds.  Thousands.  Uncountable.  Truly shared, because he an I had this resonance in the woods, this shared joy of the joyous bounty of nature beneath our feet and around us.  We celebrated together.  We were a pack of two, brothers, and single-minded on the hunt.  As men and dogs have been for eons.  Filled and vibrating with the perfectness of the forest.  Permeated with that primeval joy.  I’ll miss that.  But, I’ll also celebrate it.  Because how lucky am I to have intersected with this soul in this time and place?  How much fuller am I?  He gave me more than I can ever give.  He was an example of kindness and joy.  He was my friend and his passing will leave a big hole in all our lives.  It was a life well lived.