The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-426 – Steve Pero and the Rim to Rim to Rim  (Audio: link) audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4426.mp3] Link MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Hello and welcome to episode 4-426 of the RunRunLive Podcast.   Here we are celebrating a leap year February.  That means you and I get an extra day to do the things we love!  Good stuff, right? Today we have a good show for you.  I corralled one of my local ultra-running friends Steve to give me some coaching on running the Rim-to-Rim in the Grand Canyon.   Coincidently, if you want some more around the history of running the Grand Canyon, you can check out a series that Davey Crockett did on the and the Rim to Rim runners of the last 100 years.  I went to the Grand Canyon for the first time int 2015 and I was so impressed that I returned in 2016 and ran down to Phantom Ranch and back with my daughter.  I’m planning on going back in September of this year and doing a 2-day Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim.  Meaning, we are going to run south to north on day one, stay over on the north side then come back on day 2.  If that sounds like fun to you, you are more than welcome to join.  You’ll have to manage your own logistics.  Effort-wise it’s the equivalent of a hilly 50K I’d say, unless the weather goes sideways.  In section one we will try to answer the question of at what age do the wheels fall off your athletic pursuits?  In section two we’ll talk about sticks.  On the topic of aging there are a number of people trying to figure out why we can’t all live to 150 or even 200 years old.  Of course there have probably always been these people, but the modern ones are trying to leverage science.  I was listening to one of these and it turns out they are very big on cold therapy, i.e. plunging yourself into cold water as a way to shock your body into a positive stress response.  Meaning, these things that stress us shake our genomes out of their comfortable slumber and get them awake and cracking, pushing out good youthful stuff that makes us stronger.  And you laughed at me with my ice baths.  Since we last talked I have transitioned into some more intense, race specific training for Boston.  Last weekend coach started me on some hill repeats.   I was pretty proud of myself getting up Friday morning with the sunrise and 10 degrees and knocking them out!  The sun is coming up early enough now to run in the morning.  This is another one of those old-guy tricks.  Instead of doing speedwork on the track you do tempo on the hill.  It has the same positive effect on your footspeed, turnover, form and strength without as much pounding.  Last Sunday I did a 2:30 with surges and a fast finish.  Tomorrow I’ll do 2:45. This will get me close to 30k.   Well into the mid 40’s of miles per week.  I still get out with Ollie the Collie in the woods for some of my mid-week runs.  He is still a maniac.  He has added to his annoying habit of lying in wait on the trail and pouncing on me.  He likes to chose good ground to do this from.  Like when I’m struggling up a muddy knoll or trying to navigate a slippery rock bridge over a stream. He’ll lie in a crouch and spring at me.  If I’m not paying attention I may receive essentially a 45 pound punch to the family jewels.  His new trick is right after this assault he’ll look around for the nearest stick to grab and run with it, growling.  The challenge with this is sometimes he grabs small sticks and sometimes he grabs 6-foot long branches. He then runs in and around me with his payload, joyously growling and swinging his bit of tree.  Try as I may, inevitable he trips me and I get familiar with the frozen or muddy ground.  On time last week he literally stuck a branch between my legs as I was running, like when the Italian rider stuck the rod into the spokes of Dave’s bike in the movie ‘.  What am I talking about?  Well it’s this coming of age movie from 1979 about a townie kid in Indiana w