The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-410 – Tim Vedder Qualifies (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4410.mp3] Link epi4410.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 4-410 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  It’s been an interesting and, I’ll admit challenging, beginning to the summer.  It’s been a few weeks since the Vermont Cities Marathon race.  I’ve spent that time trying to navigate the inevitable emotional trough and working how and what to do next.  Even as well worn an athlete as myself is not immune to the post-training cycle slump.  And, as is my habit, one of the ways I work through these things is by talking to you about them.  It’s hard to see when you’re in the Sargasso Sea of a slump, but it is a learning opportunity like anything else.  In the spirit of this I’m going to talk about some straight-on, tactical solutions to getting out of the blue doldrums in section one and talk a bit about balance in section two. Our interviewee today is Tim Vedder who goes into what it took in his Boston Marathon quest.  When I started this podcast a dozen or so years ago one of the things I wanted to do was expose every-day, average joe runners to the community, because that’s who we are.  Average Joe and Jill’s who occasionally roll out of bed at 5:00 AM to do hill charges in the freezing rain. What have I been up to?  Basically taking my own advice and letting loose of the tight grip I had on the wheel of life a bit.  I’ve been trail running, Mountain biking and lifting weights.  And I’ve been eating!  I felt a bit out of sorts being too skinny so I’m letting myself put a few pounds on.  Basically, I’m doing what I want to do, while still staying in good enough shape to be within reach of a race.  We’ll talk more about what I’ve got on the race calendar at the end. … I got great feedback on my iPhone tips from episode 4409.  It seems I was not the only one getting annoyingly treated to the first song on my list every time I turned the truck on.  For more detail, the audio I found was a very peaceful and meek morning meditation routine from YouTube.  You can search in YouTube for “Peaceful Morning Meditation” and it will find something to fit the bill.   To get it off of YouTube and onto your computer Google “YouTube to Mp3”.  This will show you on-line apps that will convert the video to an audio and allow you to download it to your computer.  Then rename the Mp3 file aaaaaaaaaaaa.mp3 – this will cause it to be that default first song in your music library.  To get it into your iPhone go into iTunes and do “Add File to Library”.  Then, while your phone is connected to the computer you should be able to select this file to be synched, either by name, genre or artist.  (there’s a icon of your phone in iTunes when it is connected and you click on that to set the sync rules).  Then you sync and the mp3 should be on the phone. There has been a lot of talk recently about digital diets and addiction to the phone apps.  You can track how much time you spend on social media or news and there are ways to set limits. The friends I have who have gone cold-turkey report that they have about a week of withdrawal, but by the second week they feel more in control and have more time.  Failing that I have some middle of the road tips for you around social.  I don’t use Facebook that much, nor Twitter anymore just because I naturally don’t find it all that interesting.  I do like Instagram.  But, here’s my tip.  Only allow social apps to be used when you are connected to WiFi.  This means you can’t use them randomly as you’re out an about.  It removes the knee-jerk reaction to check your feeds.  It’s a setting on your phone.  Go into the app and set it to NOT use mobile data connection.  It will keep you from looking at it in the car.  It’s a good compromise.  Second tip is to turn on t