pace group and chill out.  This is typically a pretty big pace group, at least for the first half, so I can stay out of the wind.  Just try to idle until we hit that final stretch across the river and see how I feel – either hang on or drive it home.  … I seems old-hat to say that we all get the same number of hours in the day.  But, focus is how you find the leverage in what you have to achieve a goal.  Think of a magnifying glass.  Maybe when you were a kid you held that magnifying glass in your hand and noticed that the convex lens focused the light.  At a certain height and angle you found that focal point (or for our purposes ‘focus point’).  This focus point collected all the power of 3-4 inches of sun and condensed it to a point, that dot of light. Then you discovered that this dot of light had the intensity to start fires in the dry leaves or fry unsuspecting insect life.  Through focus you were able to take the same patch of sunlight that might warm your face and create overwhelming energy at one point. That’s the power of focus.  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 – Big Chunks! http://runrunlive.com/big-chunks   Voices of reason – the conversation Jonathan Lieberman Just that I’ve reached low 180s lbs and will be attempting to BQ for 2020 on October 21 in Atlantic City! Thanks man! Here’s a pic from Philly RnR Half last week: The (much) shorter answer to your question of “How do I do it” re: training is my mantra “This Is My Olympics” (which I of course forgot to mention🙄, if you want to include that in the show notes and/or title.   Section two – Focus - http://runrunlive.com/focus Outro Thank you my friends for joining me for Episode 4-396 of the RunRunLive Podcast.  Hopefully you wetre able to find the focus to stay with me. The Baystate marathon is on Sunday.  I didn’t manage to get as light as I wanted, but I’m healthy and had a reasonable training cycle.  I did more speed work than coach normally gives me to get some leg speed to go with that aerobic fitness.  That’s my challenge.  I’m fit enough to go the distance, but my legs are the constraint.  It looks like the weather is going to be a bit chilly for the race, which is good for me.  I’d rather have the cold than the hot.  Like I said in the intro, my plan is to hang on to the back of the 3:30 pace group and see what I have in the high miles.  I bought a month’s worth of meal planning from Rachel and coach.  The training site we use is called DailyFitBook.  That’s how I get my workouts.  For the last month I’ve gotten 3 recipes a day in my workouts which was cool.  The meals are a lot more paleo type than I’m used to. But I have successfully learned to make frittata, and turkey burgers and I make a nice coleslaw now.  Real men make coleslaw, yeah?  These protein-heavy meals fill you up more and the rest of my family doesn’t hate them.  … One last though for you.  Do you ever suffer from imposter syndrome?  You know, you find yourself in a meeting or a situation and wonder “Holy cow, everyone is looking at me, counting on me, and who am I? I’m not good enough, smart enough, etc for this!  I’m a fake! What can I do so they don’t find me out?!” I mean, obviously not me, I’m speaking for a friend… A consequence of this kind of thought process is your inner turmoil, your inner noise, your inner insane dialogue gets so loud it crowds out everything else and you are immobilized just when you need to be a better version of yourself.  Your inner insane dialog (which, by the way no one else is thinking except you), prevents you form rising to the very occasion that you are stressed about to begin with.  Here’s what you can try.  Here are a couple tricks.  Before the next interaction do some prep.  Find a quiet place.  Relax.  Put yourself in a meditative state.  Quiet yourself.  Shush those voices.  Picture your head as a big circle, like a pie chart.  Picture that pie chart as having two slices.  The first slice is red-orange and it is all the insane, negative, self-talk.  The other slice is your clear-thinking normal self.  When you go into these stressful interactions the red-orange side of the pie chart grows until it crowds out the nice, blue-green, smart, well spoken slice.  And instead of paying attention and focusing on what you are delivering or what the other humans are saying, all your sanity gets crowded out and you don’t hear anything anyone else has to say.  It leaves you with only a tiny slice of your effective thinking to use.  This response basically disables you, and keeps you from being your best self in that situation.  Instead, visualize the circle filling with tat blue-green rational thought.  Picture that red-orange dissolving.  If you can get good at this ‘in the moment’ you can catch yourself and refocus.  No one else cares about the noise in your head.  Practice clearing that out and being present. And I’ll see you out there. MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks -