The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-349 – Chrissy Runs a BQ  (Audio: link) [audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4349.mp3] Link epi4349.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 episode 4-349 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Today we chat with Chrissy Simmons who made the grave mistake of tell me on facebook that she ran a qualifying marathon using my MarathonBQ training plan.  Of course I coerced her into an interview.  The audio quality is a bit off because we were using the telephone to record.  Most of the time I can use a skype plugin to record digital audio but we couldn’t swing it this time.  Think of it as quaint trip down technology memory lane when we used to pick up the phone and call each other over twisted pair, copper wire, plain old telephones.  I like to talk to folks who have used the plan successfully because when I was writing it down I never really knew if it would work for other people or if it was just some strange manifestation of my own personal demons.  I thoroughly tickles me to hear it working and to hear people learning the things I learned by going through it.  When you boil it down it’s really about speed.  I’ve heard a couple interviews of Shalane and the other marathoners since the Olympics.  They train up to 100 – 120 miles a week.  Most of it varying forms of long tempo which is very specific to the marathon distance.  In essence their training is specific practice for the race they are looking to run.  They are training to find and stay on that edge of the pace where they maximize their results without crashing.  They don’t do a lot of speed work.  Why?  Because they are already fast.  They are coming up from the track or the shorter distances.  They already know how to run fast.  The amateur mid-packer marathoner is different.  We may have never run track in school.  We don’t know how to run fast. Even those of us who may have run 20-30 marathons.  We know how to run, we just need to get faster if we want to qualify for Boston or any other race.  The key light bulb idea for you is this.  Everyone is capable of running fast.  They just have never practiced running fast. They don’t know how.  That’s the main question I addressed in MarathonBQ; “How do I take 20 – 40 minutes off my marathon finishing time?”  The answer logically is to run faster.  But how?  The answer is to practice, rigorously running faster.  Simple.  Not all simple ideas are powerful, but most powerful ideas are simple.  In section one I’ll chat a bit about how to experiment with speed.  Not just for the marathon, but in general as a component of your tool kit. In section two I’m going to talk a bit about your personal finances.  Why?  Because I just went through a long avoided financial planning process and I think I’ve got it figured out and thought I’d do you the service of telling you what I learned.  So how’s my training going?  As it turns out, fairly well.  The big part of it is that I’ve stayed on the nutrition plan that I began as a 30-day project in August.  I dipped under 170 pounds last week which is as light as I’ve been since the 1980’s and that really has had a positive effect on my training.  It has a dual impact.  The healthy, lean diet has my body reacting better to workouts and the weight loss has put a pop back into my pace.  The net result is I’m able to train at a pace that is a lot more familiar and comfortable to me and I’m guessing that I’ll benefit from that.  I raced the Spartan Beast last weekend and you should get a nice long race report on the podcast feed if everything works out.  I followed up with a nice 3-hour, 21ish mile long run the weekend after.  I still don’t have a lot of volume but I’m going to continue on this nutrition plan through the Portland Oregon marathon in October and see what happens.  … The RunRunLive podcast is Ad Free and listener su