The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-395 – Karen - From the Brink to Boston (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4395.mp3] Link epi4395.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 and welcome to the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-395.  Today’s show is about endurance. Hopefully it will be available for you folks who are stepping into the Chicago marathon this weekend. Not that you would need a podcast to listen to at Chicago.  I mean, you’ve got 45,000 other runners to talk to.  You probably won’t catch Galen Rupp or Mo Farah.  You might be able to catch Joan Benoit Samuelsson, she’s going for the age group record as a 61 year old, but that’s doubtful as well.  Amy Cragg is out there with the elites as well.  I hear the weather is going to be bad.  High winds and maybe some rain.  I remember joking after Boston this year that if they had that kind of weather in Chicago it would be the apocalypse.  Hopefully it won’t be too bad and it will give everyone something epic to talk about.  Endurance is the theme today.  I talk with Karen who is a prime example of not giving up.  This is the second person this year who I have talked to with one of these incredible stories of rebirth.  In section one I’ll give you a primer on Achilles tendinitis (I made a video for this one as well because the stretches are hard to explain without a visual) and in section two I’ll wax poetically about endurance.  Since we last talked my training has run the gamut between horrible and wonderful.  Right after our last show I had to walk away from a long tempo run because I was just shot.   I was pretty down about it.  I don’t like giving up on workouts.  But I couldn’t hold the paces and my form was shot so I walked away 2 hours into a 3-hour workout.  But since then I have had a couple really good workouts.  I’ve been doing a lot of speed work and my tempo paces have come down to encouraging levels.  I have been consistently holding paces in the 7:30’s on my long tempo and that bodes well for the upcoming marathon. Some of you may have heard that you would have needed to beat your qualifying time by over 4 minutes this year to get into Boston.  As registration closed the BAA announced that for the 2020 race they are lowering all the standards by another 5 minutes.  For me that means I now need to run a 3:35 to make the standard, which is a hair over 8-minute miles.  … You may have gotten used to hearing my dog Buddy the border collie in the background of these recordings.  I had him into the vet last week for a check up.  He’s doing fine. He’ll be 15 in December. With the cooler fall weather he comes back to life and gets agitated.  He can’t really run anymore.  His hips are pretty shot. He can still move well and isn’t in any discomfort.  He’s in great shape for his age, but, like me, he doesn’t realize how old he is.  Living an active life has probably given him an extra 2 years with us to enjoy.  When I was walking down the sidewalk with him on the leash towards the vet a guy was unloading an old standard collie.  He had a ramp that he unfolded so the old collie could totter down out of his van.  This poor old thing could barely move. When he got the collie into the vet’s office he said ‘Don’t let him lie down or he won’t be able to get up.’ I asked the guy ‘How old?’.  Thinking this museum piece of a collie must be really old compared to Buddy.  The answer was 12.  Buddy was 2 years older than this poor old collie and trotting around like he owned the place, ready to go.  So – there ya go – lead an active life and you’ll have a much higher quality of life in the later innings. 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