Podcasts about dirtdawg

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-389 – DirtDawg and JustFinish Crewing a 100 miler (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4389.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-389.  This is your friend Chris.  I feel like I need to introduce myself and what we do here in case there might be a new listener or two.  That’s a challenge, for a couple reasons.  First, because we’ve been at this for over a decade.  Over the arc of that decade you an I have been through many seasons of both our lives and our endurance adventures.  I certainly will share with you what adventures I’m pursuing in this season of the brief ride we call life, but it is going to be different from what we were talking about 3 years ago and will be different again, god willing, in 3 years.  Spoiler alert, my current season is one of training for a 100 mile race and today’s episode will topically reflect that.  Today we talk to two guys I met and got to know through the seasons. Mike and Kevin, whose respective ‘noms de enduro-guerre’ are DirtDawg and JustFinish.  (How weirdly cool is it that we get to give ourselves handles?)  I’m talking to them because they have agreed to pace and crew me for my race in 4 weeks.  I’m also going to give you a longish review of my last training week which culminated in 93+ miles and a 50 mile long run.  Since the interview is long and my training update is long, you’re just getting the one article this week.    And – remember up in paragraph one where I said there were two reasons it’ shard to describe who we are here at RunRunLive and what we do?  First, was it depends on what season we’re in.  Second, is because you’re going to get what floats through my brain any particular week. We have different themes but it always circles around the power of endurance sports to teach us, to change us and to give us perspective.  That perspective is transformative in itself, and humbling.  You and I, DirtDawg and JustFinish, we are all crushed by the gravity of change together in a community of endurance. So here we are episode 389.  389 is another good year for classical reference.  In 389 BC The  general, , led a force of  to levy tribute from cities around the  and support , where a democratic government was struggling against Sparta. What’s interesting about this is that on this campaign, Thrasybulus captured , so that he could impose a duty on ships passing through the .  The Hellespont is the narrow opening that connects the Agean Sea to the Black Sea.  Many scientist believe this opening was caused by the ocean catastrophically blasting through this sliver of land as the sea rose after the last ice age and is the historical and cultural source of the great flood myths, like Noah.  Anyhow, Byzantium was a town founded by the Greeks 300 years earlier.  It passed back and forth with the Persians and Greeks and Romans.  In 330 AD Constantine moved the seat of the Roman Empire there and founded what would become Constantinople.  Constantinople held out until 1543, when the Ottoman Turks finally took it over and now it is Istanbul, the heart of Turkey.  See, 389, another suitable number.  … My training is going well.  I’ve got one more big week of miles then I’ll taper into the race at the end of the month.  Nothing is broken, so we’ll see.  It’s all good. Over the last few weeks you probably saw a plague of emails from social media sites and others, many of whom you probably don’t remember signing up for.  This is because of the recently enacted GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation enacted by the European Union.  It’s basically the rules around what you can and can’t do with people’s data and what you have to tell them when you’re doing it. So, in the spirit of the GDPR I’m going to let you know what I’ve been doing with your data. When we first met, your data and I, your data was very shy and didn’t interact much.  But, over time, as we got to know each other, and spend time together, your data and I have formed a bond of mutual respect and affection. There have been many warm summer evenings where your data and I have taken long walks on the beach and shared stories around an open campfire in the twinkling starshine.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a perfect gentleman with your data!  (well there was that one night where we had too much sangria at the Cinco de Mayo party, but, let me not tell tales about the chance encounters of consenting architectures) Mostly we just cuddle. So, yeah, your data is safe with me. 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 … Section one – Ultra Training Update - http://runrunlive.com/ultra-training-and-the-penultimate-big-week Voices of reason – the conversation Mike Croy (DirtDawg) and Kevin Green (JustFinish) Kevin is currently training for the Marquette 50. He finished Burning River in 2010 and the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning in 2011. Kevin is a project manager in the automation industry, is married to Stacy and has two very active daughters, Nora and Leah. He plans to relaunch this fall. … Mike “Dirt Dawg” Croy is a father, husband, runner, yoga teacher working with veterans, homeless shelters and educators, and serves as a high school principal working with at risk high school students. Mike has run up to a 100 miler and pac ed at a few more. He had also run over 20 marathons and organized several fat ass ultras over the years. Mike lives in Metro Detroit with his wife, 2 kids, and border collie Dash. Outro OK my friends, you have staggered through the dark to the end of episode 4-389 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Good for you, because theirs not much cover and it was pretty hot.  Like I said, my training going well and I’ve got nothing to complain about.  My garden in coming in.  Looks like I’m going to get beans, tomatoes and maybe some squash.  I harvested enough lettuce and kale for 3 lunches this week.  And my berries are coming in.  I was just out there and picked a few.  The birds were screaming at me like I was picking their berries! I’m not sure the half pint of berries is an even trade for the half pint of blood I gave top the mosquitoes to get them.  … I notice my thighs are getting bigger.  That’s an ultra thing.  I remember it from 10 years ago.  I will probably try to see if I can use this fitness in the fall for a marathon.  I remember I hade 2 or 3 really good years after the last ultra cycle I trained through, so maybe there’s a correlation.  Maybe that’s the secret.  Go deep every few years and then coast for a few! Certainly, setting bigger goals drives bigger changes.  In life as in the training effect.  Set a big goal and do the work to get there.  It’s not rocket science.  Try it.  You’ll see.  Do something that scares you.  I was a little down after Boston.  I came into this a bit mentally jaded.  I look at all the stuff I’ve done over the last 20 years both personally and endurance sports wise and I get a bit blue.  I think ‘Geez, I’ve done all this stuff, what the heck am I going to do now? And, do I have enough left in me to do anything significant anymore?’  I almost feel like I’m looking at my life in the rearview mirror. But, again, I’m learning that the basic truths are still true.  Set that big goal and you will figure out how to get there.  Doesn’t matter if your 16 or 60.  It’s what you do today.  I get asked in my role by board of directors “What are the results going to be this quarter?”  And the way I answer that is, that I can’t tell you exactly what is going to happen in the short term, but I can tell you that we are absolutely doing the things we need to do today to be where we need to be when that time comes.  Because that is what I can control.  Are you setting goals that scare you?  Are you doing what you need to do today, right now, to be where you want to be 6 months from now?  If not, set the timer for 20 minutes and don’t’ stop working until it goes off.  Then do it again. You do that and I’ll see you out there! MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-387 – Gene Keeps Getting Faster (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4387.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-387.  This is Chris, your endurance partner for today’s workout.  Today we have a chat with Gene Dykes who is currently knocking down most of the over 70 distance records.  He’s found some sort of fountain of youth and just keep s getting faster.  In section one I’ll give you an update on my 100 miler training and what I’ve learned.  In Section two I’ll talk about the aging athlete. Buddy the elderly wonder dog is hanging in there.  He goes the first 2 miles of all my trail runs with me.  He got 5 runs in last week.  Then he sleeps.  I sometimes have to carry him up the stairs when his back hips don’t work.  And I don’t expect him to jump up into my truck anymore.  It’s ok.  He’s done his part.  Now it’s my turn.  I’ve been training consistently.  Typically 6 miles Tuesday, 10 Wednesday and 6 Thursday then back-to-back longs on the weekends.  It’s not a bad cadence.  The trails are drying out.  The mosquitoes are out but those only get me if I stop too long.  As we get into the summer the deer flies will show up and I’ll have to get some of those sticky patches.  They are real pests. I booked my hotel for the ultra.  And I got some wonderful news today.  Dirtdawg and JustFinish aka Mike Croy and Kevin Green are going to crew and pace for me.  Both those guys have run this course.  This is a big bonus.  … I got a haircut this weekend, actually on Memorial Day.  The place I usually go was closed for the holiday.  I went to a lower end clip joint chain that was open.  I was a bit afraid with the guy I got.  I haven’t had high quality experiences with this chain.  But I had a business trip and needed to get it cleaned up.  The kid was wearing a wrinkled white tee-shirt, looked rather slept-in, with a sleeveless black denim vest covered in studs.  Quite disheveled.  He had goth tattoos all over him and piercings.  Showing my age and upbringing I wondered if putting my grey head in his hands was a smart thing to do. I had just finished reading Catra Corbett’s new book about how she was a goth meth addict before she got in to ultra-running.  But, looking at this kid I figured he was a bit overweight to be an addict.  Besides, it’s not hard to cut my hair, what’s left of it that is.  You can’t really screw it up.  He did a very precise job.  Worked me over like I was some important bonsai topiary.  Even worked on my crazy old-man eyebrows.  I really need to work on my assumptions and stop profiling people.  We all turn into our parents at some point, don’t we? 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 … Section one – 100 Miler Training - Voices of reason – the conversation Gene Dykes I’m sure you can make some of the awkward pauses go away, but I suppose trying to figure out what to do when we were talking over each other will be tougher.    I had fun – it’s always fun to talk about running!   I’ve attached a couple recent pictures that were pretty good:   One shows me during a 24-hour track race a couple weeks ago (I only ran for 14 hours of the Dawn To Dusk To Dawn, though) where I set USATF age group track records for 50K, 50 miles, 100K, and 12 hours.   The other shows me at the finish line of the Rotterdam Marathon on April 8, where I ran 2:57:48 to eclipse Ed Whitlock’s 3:00:23 world age 70 record.   Section two – Running into the Sunset – Outro OK my friends you have set an impressive age group record while progressing to the end of episode 4-387, nice work.  Two of my training buddies, from my age group had a good day at the Vermont Cities marathon over the weekend.  They got great weather.  Overcast and cool.  Brian, who ran a 3:35 at Baystate with me in the fall, knocked out a 3:29 change! And Tim powered through to a 3:16.    Now officially the slow guy again! Watched an great documentary on Netflix called Chuck Norris vs Communism about the impact of bootleg videos on Romanians in the 80’s.  It’s been out for a while but I hadn’t seen it yet.  Really well done.  You’ll like it.  Especially if you lived through that era.  I have a big weekend coming up.  If I can pull it off I’m going to run 35 on Saturday and another 20 on Sunday.  Yikes!  I had a good week – got all my runs in.  I had a business trip to Salt Lake and I used that to practice more of this miserable, exhausted running that I’m supposed to be practicing.  Ran 6 miles Tuesday morning.  Flew out late to Salt Lake.  Got about 5 hours sleep. Got up and went exploring Wednesday morning. I was originally aiming for the mountains but I ran by a canal, maybe a river, with a wide path so I turned onto that for the bulk of my run.  I ended up getting around 9 miles in, partly because I was running short on time and partly because I ran into a fence.  The canal trail literally ran into a chain link fence.  I think it was because there was a school nearby and they were trying to keep the kids out.  There was a kid size hole at the bottom.  You know how they bend up the corner of the chain link to get under?  But, I made the decision that I wasn’t going to wriggle under a fence in the suburbs of West Jordan to get that last mile in.  It was a nice run.  The trail was wide and crushed rock and flat.  It ran behind people’s houses.  A whole line of ¼ acre lots.  It’s always interesting to look into people’s backyards in a voyeuristic way.  Some people had gardens, some had chickens and some had angry dogs.  The river or canal itself was what I would call grey water.  I don’t know if that is just the color of the water in Salt Lake or if it is some sort of legacy drainage system.  It didn’t smell bad, but it didn’t make me want to go for a swim either.  Since it’s spring the canal was full of wild ducks and their little gangs of ducklings.  I was subjective to maximum duckling cuteness the whole time as they scurried and paddled away from this strange lumbering thing on the trail in the slanting morning sun.  I even passed a couple ‘joggers’ out there.  On my way back, when I left the trail I had to navigate the now bustling streets of suburbia.  At one point I was coming up to an intersection and saw a crossing guard.  These are the community volunteers who are posted at busy intersections near schools with a reflective vest, a held held stop placard and a righteous attitude.    As I was lumbering up the sidewalk towards the intersection I caught the vigilant woman’s eyes and gave her the conspiratorial nod.  She moved out and stopped traffic for me!  I tipped my hat and said “You’re the best!” The world is a good place filled with good people.   I’ll see you out there!   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-378 – End of Season Contemplation with my Coach  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4378.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -   Hello, and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-378, This is your dear friend Chris.  How is everything going?  I’m trying very hard to get back on my publishing schedule.  To get back in balance.  Not just because I believe consistency is a big part of quality in the product you consume here.  I do appreciate your attention and I’m grossly aware of my duty! I also need to keep writing to keep my own creative furnace fueled – which is why I started doing this in the first place – partly to help people, and myself, become better versions of themselves by sharing some of the tribal knowledge I’ve accumulated over the eons that I’ve been a practicing amateur endurance athlete.  But also to keep my communication skills tuned up – writing as well as reading this copy to you with as much gusto as I can recruit! Well maybe not gusto, but at least enviable sincerity.  Today we catch up with my coach, Jeff.  He and I talk through the ups and downs of my 2017 training season.  I like to use myself as a test subject to see what worked and what didn’t. It’s always important to look back at your training, your successes and your failures, to see if you can learn anything.  You’re never too old to learn.  We talked for a long time.  I’m going to edit it down to a reasonable size, but I’ll post the raw interview on the members feed. In Section One we will talk about over-training.  How to realize when you’re getting over-trained, what the symptoms are and how to avoid it.  In Section Two I’ll tell you 10 things you don’t know about me.  Like one of those Facebook posts.  It’s cold up here in New England now.  We are in full on Winter.  We’ve had some good snow to make everything festive.  It’s below zero Fahrenheit this week.  More importantly how is Buddy the old wonder dog?  Well, he just turned 14 years old.  Which is pretty damn old for a border collie. He’s and old man!  His hips don’t work so well and he’s deaf but he’s still mentally sharp.  He gets skinnier every day.  Skinny old man.  The kids dress him in sweaters this time of year.  They use him as a blanket to stay warm when they’re watching TV.  He is very warm.  He is well loved. He barks a lot.  Just like an old man, he wants to be heard and doesn’t have time for niceties.  He’ll stand in the front yard and bark at the woods at night.  Picture it as a 98 year old man in his underwear yelling at the coyotes to stay off his lawn.  “…when I was a boy… we had real coyotes, not these namby pamby city coyotes they got now…” … I ran out of podcasts to listen to last week.  I’ve been changing phones a lot and have lost some of the regular ones I used to listen to.  Some house cleaning and some pruning.  Podcasts come and go.  It’s an industry now and the old amateurs like myself are the anomaly. I opened the app and was looking around and went to see what Steve was doing over at .  The app sorted with oldest first, and I downloaded a couple of his marathon race reports from 2005.  The BayState Marathon and the Cape Cod Marathon. Steve did a great job with those old podcasts.  Compelling and interesting stuff.  Really well produced.  Entertaining.  You can hear how much in love he is with his training and racing and the newness of the sport and the community.  If you listen to the Baystate race episode you’ll hear my buddy Frank calling out Steve’s name at one of the first water stops, the one with the rock music playing.  That’s the same Frank who ironically qualified at Baystate with me a few weeks ago.  I wasn’t at the water stop in 2005.  I was running the race.  I think I ran both those races and came up short in both.  I think that year I ran a race in Maryland around Thanksgiving to finally get my qualification.  That was a year and a half before I started podcasting but I would have been in the process of publishing my first book of running stories, The Mid-Packer’s Lament, (which is still available on Amazon).  I love that about the podcasting thing.  Being able to capture a moment of time.  Being able to freeze the river of time and that person you were.  It’s a slice of self-awareness.  That Steve didn’t know what the future would hold.  That Chris didn’t know either.  In our hopeful narratives we saw that moment as a waypoint on an upward slope into the future.  I think the one important take away for me is to understand that today, this race, this fitness, this Chris is a unique thing and may very well be as good as it gets.  Think about that.  How would you run your race?  How would you live your life if today was as good as it gets?  Seize the day.  Savor that day.  Today is all you have.  The past is a old movie spinning sepia images across time.  The future is nobody’s business.  Today is your day.  Use it.  Enjoy it. 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.   … 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 … Section one – The Symptoms of over-training - Voices of reason – the conversation Coach Jeff Kline “Coach” as he is referred to by athletes has been training runners and triathletes globally for 20 years. The Coach is the founder and designer of Daily Fit Book. Although he is fully committed to the development and growth of DFB he will take on athletes of all levels that show a commitment and a strong desire to achieve new dreams and goals. @dailyfitbook (twitter) fitbook2 (instagram)   Section two – 10 things about me - Outro Ok my friends you have wound down your training season to the end of 2017 and to the end of episode 4-378 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Well done. What have we got going in the new year?  Actually, big things!  I decided I needed to set myself up with a running goal that was a challenge.  I signed up for the Burning River 100 in July and will chronicle my training for the race.  Yeah, I know I said I’d never do it, but you hear in my conversation with coach that turning point.  Why not?  I’ve done a lot of stuff in my life but I don’t have a belt buckle.  And, there’s a good chance I’ll fail spectacularly either in my training or in the race itself.  If so are going to set BHAGs you have to have a good chance of failure.  That failure is the stuff that teaches you and forces you out of your comfort zone and forces you to grow. So, calling all my ultra friends, I’m going to need advice, support and pacers!  Here’s your chance VeganRunningMom, DirtDawg, Cooker, Leadfoot and all the others.  Once in a lifetime opportunity to watch Chris Maddog Russell cry like a baby and soli himself. In addition to this I’ll be running my 20th Boston marathon.  And, yes, I am qualified.  We’ll have to schedule something fun for that.  Oh, and I committed to finishing my zombie novel.  There are some personal and professional goals that you don’t care about that I’ll be chasing as well.  2018 is going to be epic!  (one way or the other) But, that’s all in the future.  I’ll be wrapping up my 2017 season with the Groton Marathon.  I’ve got 5 folks who said they were running with me.  We’ll see who shows up because it’s going to be single-digit cold.  But, you know my theory…If you do something truly stupid people will show up. On the first of the year I’ll run the Hangover Classic with Teresa and then jump into the Atlantic Ocean, because that’s what you do, right?  And last but not least, I’m kicking off a 30 day Diet reboot on January first with my nutrition coach Rachel.  I’ll be logging my food and stats and blogging about it every day.  I’ll catch up with Rachel each week to review progress.  I’ll probably record those weekly chats and put them up on the podcast feed.  I thought it would be useful for people to hear my/our point of view on clean eating for endurance athletes.  Think that’s enough?  Another one of my theories is when you have too much to do, schedule more stuff and it will sort itself out! … I’ve been listening to a meditation podcast on the train in the morning called the .  Episode 2 is about using meditation to clarify your vision, i.e figure out what you want to do.  This is a great exercise to create goals for the new year.  She walks you into a meditative state.  Then brings you into the future so that you are looking back on your life.  And asks the simple question “What are three things that you wish you had done?”  I found that context very helpful to sort out the things I’m working on and what is important and what will make a difference.  Try it.  Don’t put off your dreams.  Put them down on paper and find a way to get them done in 2018. And I’ll see you out there.     MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-347 – Mike Croy and the One Breath  (Audio: link) [audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4347.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-347 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we are going to reconnect with our old friend Mike the DirtDawg who has been doing a lot of useful work around mindfulness in his life, with his students and in his community.  I chat with him about some practical ways we can use mindfulness in our lives and some basic, easy ways to implement it.  In section one I’m going to zoom in on how meditation or mindfulness can help amateur athletes.  In section two I’m going to do a quick summary of how a 30 day project works and how you can use it to get some traction in your life.  Because, as I write this I’m wrapping up my latest 30 day plan.  I tend to try to do a bunch of things in parallel when I do 30 day projects.  This one I was trying to get up early, clean up my nutrition, avoid alcohol and work on my next book project.  It went very well, except for the last couple days where I was on vacation – that always causes some hiccups in the process.  But I managed to keep the damage minimal while not being bad company.  Up until that point though I had lost a bunch of weight and had mat all my goals and felt fantastic.  I didn’t get as much work done on my book project as I would have liked, but all in all it was a good month for me. I was particularly pleased with this because I took a 2 week break from running at the same time I took on the 30-day project. I kicked off the project on the 1st of August the day after my trail marathon.  The Achilles was hurting so coach gave me a week off.  After a week I ran once and felt awful.  I ended up walking back from that run.  That run was day 7 or 8 of the 30 day project, and as I will explain, that is when the project sucks the most.  I was in a bad place with no energy. My runs have been awful all summer.  I just felt sick, had no energy and was hating my runs.  I got them done but it was a struggle.  That’s one of the reasons I decided to put my foot down and use a 30-day project to clean up.  I decided to clean up my nutrition and with Rachel’s help rebuild my healthy biome. After the day-7 run debacle Coach smelled over-training and gave me another week off.  Not off, but off from running.  That’s when I started to turn the corner.  About 14 days in he finally gave me the green light and told me do an easy 1:15 run.  At this point I was lighter, healthier and well rested. I decided to go out at night after work. The night was cool, around 60, and the humidity had let up. I left everything at home and just wore a pair of racing shorts.  No phone, no bottle, no shirt – just my Garmin and the heart strap.  And - Oh my god! I felt weightless.  I couldn’t control myself and was literally flying.  I didn’t even start to feel any tiredness until the last long climb up to my house.  Coach was a bit peeved when I posted my ‘easy’ run and it turned out to be a 8+ mile marathon pace tempo run. But really, sometimes you just can’t help yourself.  The other thing I’m noticing is that my HR is staying down.  It’s behaving nicely and just the way I would expect it to.  My Achilles is still a little sore but I’m working it.  My runs since then have been fairly fabulous.   Plus, since I’m getting up early anyhow I can knock them out in the morning without much suffering.  It’s all good.  The wave is cresting again.  I’m going to see if I can keep the nutrition going until October.  In 30 days I got down to 175 pounds which is very light for me.  I think with a little focus I could get under 170 and I haven’t been there, ever.  I’m curious to see what that would do for my racing.  By the way, when I say ‘Clean Nutrition’ I mean eating 98% healthy, whole food, nothing packaged, lots of fruit and veg and nuts.  An occasional hit of fish or meat if I feel like I’m not getting enough calories.  I’ve cut out fried food, bread, most dairy and as much sugar as I can find on the food labels – although sometimes the bastards sneak some by me. When I set up the project with Rachel I told her my focus was not to lose weight but to get healthy.  But, as usual, once you focus on eating clean and healthy, the weight just comes off naturally.  It’s not due to a lack of calories per se, just a different mix.  Remember, the first two weeks of this I wasn’t even running.  There are a couple things I’m doing slightly different this time around.  First, I’m trying to get enough healthy fats.  I include olive oil in my salads and other meals as a condiment, and I mix a spoonful of coconut oil into my oatmeal in the morning – because apparently coconut oil is the new superfood. Second, we’ve been experimenting with lots of probiotic foods like KimChi, Sauerkraut, pickles, organic honey and homemade fermented beet juice.  This time of year I’m getting fresh chard and cukes from my garden too and they come with some helpful organisms riding along from the great outdoors.  You can get useful critters from any of the fresh from field produce available this time of year. Check your labels to find certified organic or live culture foods.  To be clear, I don’t mean the well-known yoghurts and other probiotic labeled dairy products which, in my humble opinion, are just another packaged food ploy to stuff more dairy and sugar down your throat. I don’t know if it is good or bad but my innards are a lot happier now after a month or so of working the probiotic, healthy food plan into my life.  It’s amazing how large a change you can make in a short amount of time with a little focus.  … 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 Last week I uploaded two, count ‘em, two, book reviews.  One for the Neal Stephenson SevenEves scifi tome and another for Moonwalking with Einstein, a treatise on memory techniques. Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Exclusive Access to Individual Audio Segments from all Shows Intro’s, Outro’s, Section One running tips, Section Two life hacks and Featured Interviews – all available as stand-alone MP3’s you can download and listen to at any time. For the cost of a pack of Clean and Clear , to, you know, remove that extra shine off your brow, you can be a member of the runrunlive support crew.  There is no shipping charge for membership and I just today fixed the bug in the annual membership signup process! Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … I was reading the New York Times in the airport on my way back from vacation.  There was an article in there about Lucy, the famous Australopithecine.  They found Lucy’s fossilized bones in Kenya in 1974 and it really kicked off the study and understanding of all the different branches of the hominid family tree since. Lucy was a small, juvenile, female Australopithecine that lived in the forested grasslands of Africa a few million years ago.  They weren’t humans in the sense that we think of Homo sapiens - the thinking ape.  They were a side branch or transitional form of hominid that seems to have been moving out of the trees to walk upright on the ground. According to the news, it seems Lucy’s 2M+ year-old fossilized bones were making a tour of the US.  Some scientists took the opportunity to create a thorough CAT scan of them.  In this way they could get detailed digital images that they could analyze without having to have the bones themselves. One of the things that they discovered is a number of compression fractures.  These are the type of fractures you get when you hit something hard, like in car accident or a fall from a great height.  They postulate that poor little Lucy met her demise by falling out of a tall tree.  I question these conclusions.  I don’t think anything so mundane happened.  I see the forensic evidence and I think Lucy was definitely into extreme sports.  She was probably wing-suit flying off the ridge from mount Kilimanjaro or paragliding over the volcanoes.  Maybe she was caught in a sudden gust of wind or was rattled by an ill-timed tremor from imbibing too much Red Bull.  Without fully developed opposable thumbs she couldn’t hang on and she crashed.  I’m no scientist but I have watched many episodes of CSI Las Vegas and that’s where the data leads me.  It was like an Australopithecine version of Point Break.  They had some mad-dog skills and liked to live on the edge those Australopithecines.  Live fast, die young, leave a fossilized pile of bone fragments – that was their motto. On with the show. Section one – Meditation and mindfulness in Sport - Voices of reason – the conversation Mike Croy – “DirtDawg50k” Mike Croy serves as a high school principal for special education students who have been diagnosed with severe emotional impairments. His area of expertise lies in working with at risk students and families for the past 20 years.  Mike is driven to serve by his belief that we are all works in progress and the key is to keep moving forward. Mike began teaching yoga and mindfulness/meditation classes to his students as a result of him obtaining his 200 RYT (Yoga Teacher Training) and has since started to offer it to staff and adults to help others find the space to be mindful and breathe in a hyper connected world.  He is also a 24x marathoner and has completed several ultramarathons including the Burning River 100. Contact information: mike@root2shine.com website: Root 2 Shine:     RSS FEED: Dirt Dawg's Rambling Diatribe: RSS FEED:  Section two Anatomy of a 30-day project - Outro Well my friends you have mindfully sat and watched your body’s breath through the end of episode 4-347 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Ohmm… Ohmm Padni ma… Yeah.  Rock solid.  Good job. I’m rolling off the long weekend and heading down to Atlanta to work.  I was out in Chicgao on holidays for a long weekend.  In my career I’ve been there many times but it was fun to go as a tourist.  I got up every morning and went out to run around the lakefront and Grant Park.  Two out of Three days it poured on me in the morning.  But that was ok.  I just took my shirt off and enjoyed myself.  I did a 2:20 long run Sunday morning and the path was packed with Chicago Marathon aspirants and club runners.  The triathletes were swimming their workouts in the lake. It just so happened that the Chicago Triathlon was also going on over at Grant Park.  There was a constant stream of bicycles on Lakeshore drive the whole time I was out.  We took the architecture tour up the river one night, went to Second City another night and then caught a Cubs game another night.  We walked through the Chicago Institute of Art one day as well.  Like I said it poured rain, but only while I was out running.   I’ll share one image with you.  Monday morning I was running a fartlek run. I got up a 6:00 AM local time, ran down the river trail, crossed over on the Lakeshore Drive bridge, ran out to the end of Navy pier and circled around to head north on the lakeshore path.  It was early, overcast and humid.  It hadn’t started to rain yet.  The lake was calm and the triathletes were cruising in the shallows parallel to the shore making little wave here and there. There are some sections of beach and sections of concrete along here as the path winds along the coves and points.  I passed the remnants of a beach volleyball tournament that was being disassembled.  Not too many runners were out yet.  Bicyclists were making their way inbound to the city.  Early morning maintenance crews were picking up trash and readying the day’s projects. At one point as I ran along the cement wall I could look down and see into the water of Lake Michigan.  It was clear enough for me to see the sandy bottom and I had to stop because there was a 3-5 pound bass going about its business there immune to my strivings.  A few minutes later as I pushed north, throwing in occasional 2 minute surges, the heavens opened up with a warm downpour.  This broke the humidity and washed the sweat from my body.  My shoes squished along as I weaved around the deeper puddles.  Another good morning run in the windy city. “Life Moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop to look around once in a while you could miss it.” Ferris … Next up for me is the Wapack Trail race 18 miler.  I’m just going to try to have fun and enjoy myself.  If I can get in under 4 hours and not hurt myself that will be great! After that I have that Spartan race the next weekend.  I’m going to take Teresa up with me and spend the night.  My Beast race is on Saturday and she’s going to do the sprint version on Sunday.  Coach wanted me to skip it and focus on the Portland Marathon in October.  If I stay on my nutrition plan and manage to squeeze some training in and stay healthy I could do well out there.  I’m not worried about it though.  I think my days of overwrought expectations are over! … Speaking of overwrought expectations, on one of the planes on the way to Chicago a lady next to me was reading “Fast Girl” – Suzy Favor-Hamilton’s book.  I asked if it was any good and she said she was done with it and gave it to me.  I took it and read it over the next couple days.  I’ll see if I can’t write up a full review but I’m still processing it.  Suzy was a contemporary of mine.  We’re about the same age. I remember her on the cover of that running magazine back in the 1990’s.  She was fast and pretty and the media loved her.  She made 3 Olympic teams in the 1500 but mentally imploded in all of them.  It turns out she’s bipolar and has been struggling with mental illness her whole life. The final manifestation of that mental illness was her becoming a high-paid escort in Las Vegas.  Apparently she brought the same enthusiasm to that as she brought to everything else – but that’s a symptom of being bipolar.  I follow Suzy on Facebook and she is a genuinely likable person.  I’m still processing her story because there is so much intertwined here with the competition, the mental illness and yes, the sex.  It’s a complicated mess for her and her family.  I’m glad that these types of illnesses have less of a stigma now than they did, but it’s still a complicated mess.  It makes you wonder, when your mind is capable of such deception and complexity in the extreme, how much of what’s going on in your head is real and how much any of it actually matters?  The human mind is a complex and sometimes deceptive intelligence.  We should all be careful to remember that. I’ll leave you to think on that.  As you ping pong around on the inside of your overly complicated homo sapiens skull bone – how much does any of that noise matter?  Everyone thinks they are the center of the universe.  We worry about what other’s think. We worry about being good enough, rich enough, smart enough, strong enough – we create, or allow that complex human brain to create stories and chaos.  You don’t have to create that chaos.  All that noise is inside your own head and you and I, if we want to we can quiet it. Maybe you think you’re alone in the world with your deamons.  But you’re not. We’re in this together my friend.  Quiet your mind.  Get some help if you need to.  You’re not alone.  You’ve got us.  And I’ll see you out there.   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -

The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-342 – Matt Fitzgerald – How bad do you want it?  (Audio: link) [audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4343.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello my friends and welcome to episode 4-342 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we talk with author Matt Fitzgerald, mostly about his new book   You may know Matt’s name from Runner’s World, Competitor and Men’s Fitness among other publications.  His 2014 book “80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster By Training Slower” made a big splash.  Matt and I geek out about the mental aspects of racing to your limits, both physical and psychological. In section one I’m going to report on my lessons learned from the Boston marathon this year.  (I must be a slow learner because I keep having to learn some lessons over and over!) In Section two I’m going to give you my takeaways from a book I read on conversation tactics. … 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 Member only race reports, essays and other bits just for you! Exclusive Access to Individual Audio Segments from all Shows Intro’s, Outro’s, Section One running tips, Section Two life hacks and Featured Interviews – all available as stand-alone MP3’s you can download and listen to at any time. New on the members feed is a letter I wrote for my Daughter when she graduated that made me cry and an introspective essay on the nature of change. For the cost of a one faux leather bookmark with a bible quote on it about everlasting love you can be a member of the runrunlive support crew. Links are in the show notes and at RunRunLive.com … Well my friends we’ve made it to the summer solstice.  That time that is the official, astronomical beginning of summer.  The longest day up here in the northern hemisphere where the earth wobbles precariously, catches itself and begins the long, drunken careen back to winter.  If you’re in the southern hemisphere you can just switch all the words with their opposites.  For all the pagan sun worshippers out there you need to build some stone circles and do a little dance.  Maybe sacrifice something – like a six pack of lager.  If you don’t believe the earth is round, well there’s no hope for you.  If you want to have some fun ask random people basic astronomy questions, like “Does the earth orbit the sun or does the sun orbit the earth?”  Or “Name the planets?”  Then sit back and be surprised with the answers. It is getting warm up in my neck of the woods.  The deer flies are out. I’m adjusting to it as always.  For everything there is a season – Turn, Turn, Turn.  Mostly I’m just trying to get all my runs in and trying to keep all the balls in the air. I’m doing a lot of trail running and some mountain biking.  It’s all good.  Friday I hit the ski area next to my house and did some reps on my bike up the tubing hill.  It’s just about right for me to get to max effort at the top without blowing up or falling over.  Sunday I did 2 hours in the trails before going to have a father’s Day lunch with my Mom and brother. I’m a bit tired today.  We had one of those summer thunderstorm fronts role through at 3 in the morning.  Thunder and lightning cause Buddy the old wonder dog a lot of personal stress and he needs to share his unhappiness with me.  Sometimes he goes and hides in the bath tub.  Sometimes we’ll open the basement door and let him hide down there.  But usually he just wanders the house being miserable like last night. It’s summer.  What are you going to do?  I don’t mind running in the heat as long as I’m acclimated and kitted out for it.  I love running in a warm summer rain.  … I was down in Atlanta last week all week.  It was a series of all-hands type meetings where the whole company comes in.  I was on stage for some of it.  It’s a tiring week.  There’s the travel, the preparation, getting up to get my workouts in, being engaged all day and then socializing at night.  I did manage to get enough sleep to execute.  I did manage to get some sort of workouts in in the morning.  It was super-hot in Atlanta.  High 90’s with humidity.  Even in the morning I was soaked from running outside.  I told them the only thing keeping me from bursting into flames was the humidity.  We were down near Georgia Tech this time so I got to explore the tech campus on one run – which was fun.  I also got to go to a Braves game one night. Matt and I are going to talk a lot about mental training today in the interview.  Your mental engagement in the training and racing is as important as the physical engagement.  You can’t be successful unless you have both.  It’s that perfect combination of mental engagement and physical capabilities that makes you successful.  I think you can draw a parallel to your career.  If you hate what you’re doing and are not mentally engaged it doesn’t matter how good you are at it, you will still struggle.  The inverse is true as well.  If you are mentally engaged but don’t know what you’re doing it won’t work either.  One of the telltale signs that you aren’t mentally engaged in what you’re doing is whether the doing of it saps your energy or energizes you.  If you are fully, mentally bought in to a job you will have inexhaustible energy to pour into it.  Doing the work will give you energy.  If you’re in a position where doing the work exhausts you while you are doing the work then either the work or the people you’re working with are not for you.  There is a disconnect there.  Pay attention and see which way your energy meter runs when you’re doing the work. When I was jogging around the Tech campus I was listening to DirtDawg talk about the difference between a job, a career and a calling.  One of those differences is in the way your energy flows. On with the show. Section one – Lessons Learned from the Boston Marathon - Voices of reason – the conversation Matt Fitzgerald “The mind is the athlete.” —Bryce Courtenay Matt Fitzgerald is an acclaimed endurance sports writer and authority. His many previous books include the best-selling Racing Weight; RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel; Brain Training for Runners; and Diet Cults. His book Iron War was long-listed for the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. Matt is a regular contributor to Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health, Outside, Runner’s World, Bicycling, Running Times, Women’s Running, and other sports and fitness publications. He lives and trains in California Matt Fitzgerald is an award-winning endurance sports journalist and bestselling author of more than 20 books on running, triathlon, fitness, nutrition, and weight loss, including How Bad Do You Want It? and 80/20 Running. He contributes regularly to magazines and websites such as Women's Running and competitor.com. An experienced running and triathlon coach and certified sports nutritionist, Matt serves as a Training Intelligence Specialist for PEAR Sports and as a coach for Team Iron Cowboy. mattfitzgerald.org teamironcowboy.com pearsports.com racingweight.com Section two Conversation Tactics - Outro Well my friends you were able to stay mentally strong, and I know it was hard, to the end of Episode 4-342 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Happy 9-year anniversary! Happy Father’s Day.  Does everyone have their summer plans?  Are you ready?  Have you filled your kiddie pool in the backyard up with ice? 4th of July in the States is on a Monday this year.  I don’t have any plans.  I guess I’ll have to venture down and see if my Cape house is still standing.  Maybe I’ll recreate Thoreau’s walk up the outer Cape to Provincetown?  That might be epic.  We’re coming into that time where the Europeans take the whole summer off.  Work tends to slow down as people head out to vacation.  I’ll keep it short today because I don’t have a lot to say.  Please consider becoming a member – It’s how I justify the time and money it takes to pull off this podcast.  Also if you are looking at a Fall race you might want to check out my book MarathonBQ.  If you want to get faster, or want to try some speedwork, this is the book where I lay out my speedwork secrets that I used to take 40 minutes off my marathon time and qualify for Boston.  It’s on Amazon Kindle and also in Audio on Audible.  Links in the show notes and on my website. … Coming into last week’s trip to Atlanta I had a couple amusing challenges.  I was out trail running with Ryan, caught a toe and did the classic tuck and roll to keep from face planting.  But when I stopped rolling I was right in the middle of a giant poison ivy patch.  I’m super allergic to poison ivy.  It was a hot day.  We were miles from the trail head.  I had to get on a plane later in the day. When we were coming back we passed a garage where I guy was hosing out school buses with a high-pressure water hose.  So, we went over and got him to hose me down. It was very refreshing!  I scrubbed off as well as I could when I got home before heading for the airport.  Then I’m sitting in the airport and a crown comes loose on one of my molars.  So here I am, getting ready to go to Atlanta to be on stage and engaged.  I’m losing a tooth and there’s a good chance I’m going to swell up into a giant, puss-y rash in front of the whole company! Thankfully the bus wash and quick shower were able to mitigate an uncontrolled dermatological explosion.  I got a couple itchy bits but nothing compared to what could have been.  Dodged a bullet there.  My tooth stayed put until Wednesday when I found it in a piece of pizza at lunch, but it didn’t hurt and I was able to get it patched up when I got back.  See?  Things never turn out as bad as we imagine they will! I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -