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 the Do Not Disturb while driving.  There’s no reason to be checking you phone while you’re driving.  Turning this on adds a barrier to phone use in the car.  Might save your life.  Third tip is to turn on a generous quiet time at night.  There is a Do-Not-Disturb setting that you can set your phone to silent between the hours of X and Y.  I set mine to 9:00PM to 6:00AM.  This keeps me from hearing or seeing anything you text to me at 10:00PM when I’ve nodded off.  Psychologists will always talk about setting boundaries.  The real risk with the technology is that it takes our boundaries away, and that is not good for your mental health.  You have the ability to take some of those personal boundaries back.  So, take them back.  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.   … 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 – Practical Slump Advice Voices of reason – the conversation Tim Vedder Bio: Timm Vedder is a neonatologist in St. Cloud, Minnesota who also serves as a physician in the National Guard. He is married, with two awesome kids. His other athletic pursuits include trail running, triathlon, tennis, and CrossFit. Section two – Balance -   Outro Well, my friends you Successfully trained and qualified for the end of the RunRunLive Podcast episode 4-410, see you in Boston.  On the calendar I’ve got the ½ marathon pacing duty at the end of July. Then I’ve got Pacing duties at Leadville in mid-August.  I also signed up for a local “last chance to qualify” type marathon for September 8th.  We’ll have to see if I run Wapack on Labor Day.  Then BayState in October.  I don’t think with the weird assortment of races and training this summer I’ll be fit to qualify, but I’m starting to doubt whether I have a clue about my own fitness.  The first 14 days of June I ran 5 miles a day as one of those slump-busting tactics.  My plantar fasciitis was acting up so I pivoted to bike riding, weight lifting and trail running.  My club had an ice-cream social over in Groton yesterday so I rode Fuji-san over, had a bowl of ice cream, chatted for a bit and rode back. 26 or so miles of road riding separated by ice cream eating.  You won’t find that on your coaches training plan.  Then I rolled out early this morning for a 15 mile run with my buddies.  My theory is that I for Leadville I have to run on tired legs, so I bike ride on Saturday and long run Sunday.  I’m trying to get 3-4 longish trail runs in a week with a couple rides.  I’m toying with organizing an overnight run out in July.  This would be a 10 hour trail run where we start at 10:00 PM and run through to 8:00 AM for me that’s probably 50K or more.  This falls under the category of if you do something stupid enough people will join you.  I did a similar 12 hour run last year as part of my 100 training and it was cool.  It’s quite surrealistic.  Time goes by weirdly fast.  Enough random training talk.  I hope you are doing well as we move into official summer.  Thanks for bearing with me as some of these episodes come in a couple days late.  I do enjoy the writing, but I am in a place where balance has been hard to find.  … I watched my way through the Netflix original zombie series “Black Summer”.  As much as I appreciate a good zombie show, being a professional zombie hunter myself, this one had a lot of holes in it. They used every zombie trope and seemed to have a very small budget.  So remember, cardio and double tap and… I’ll see you out there.   MarathonBQ – How to Qualify for the Boston Marathon in 14 Weeks - Rachel -> Coach Jeff ->