It wasn’t pretty, but I got it done. Marathon #16 was the Cincinnati Flying Pig and was the first marathon I’ve done in over a year. My march toward a marathon in every state continues. I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing in the photo below, but the medal proves I finished the marathon.

I’ve had a good month of training and expected I’d break five hours. My goal was to do 11:30′s for the first half and then pick it up for the second half and come in between 4:50 and 5:00.

Things started off pretty crummy. There was a light rain and I had trouble getting warmed up during the first few miles. I had a fierce headache and seriously considered dropping out around mile 5. I took my hat off to wipe my hair back and my headache miraculously disappeared. I looked inside the hat and realized the fabric had bunched up from the rain (it was a new baseball cap) and was pressing on my right temple. I ditched the hat and immediately felt better.

Miles 6 to 9 were a solid uphill climb. I like hills so it didn’t bother me much but at some point I felt like I was in an Escher print. I sped up a little in mile 10 but forced myself to slow down to stay on plan.

My plan worked fine for the first 13 miles and I went through the half way point at 2:33. I tried to pick it up a gear but had nothing in my legs. Aerobically I was fine – my heart rate never got above 160 – but my legs were just dead. Miles 14 to 20 basically sucked. I just slogged through them at a 12 to 13:30 pace. I had input / output problems by this point – I ended up with seven pee breaks along the course. I don’t really remember much of the last six miles, although by 24 I knew I had it in the bag and somehow managed to speed up a little.

I finished in 5:24:45 – a very slow marathon for me. But I crossed the finish line which is all I was really focused on.

Amy and I had a fun weekend in Cincinnati. The Flying Pig is a big festival so there was plenty of great marathon energy around town. My coach Gary Ditsch came up to see me run and we had dinner the night before with him and his wife Nikki. I had ice cream at Graeter’s every night, stayed in the classic Hilton Netherland, had Skyline Chili, and watched Atlas Shrugged in the old style Empire Theater. While the marathon was a struggle and I eventually got tired of the pig puns, our adventure across America continued with a satisfying and successful weekend in Cincinnati.

If you are a fan of Californication, you’ll recognize my homage to Hank Moody. As a marathon runner, I regularly encounter one of the mildly unpleasant aspects of long distance running. When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. And it’s not always straightforward.

This morning I had a great 80 minute run in Boulder starting on the Boulder Creek Path downtown. Wednesday night I had a sushi orgy with Dave Jilk, CEO of Standing Cloud. We’ve been overeating sushi for 27 years together going back to when we were in school in Boston when sushi was referred to as “Japanese food.” We spent a couple of hours together talking about Standing Cloud while consuming a lot of sushi and saki. Yum.

This morning I got up at 4:45 hoping that after a couple of cups of coffee I’d be moved to do something useful in addition to responding to all of my email. At 6:30 I’d waited as long as I could (I had an 8:30 phone call and a board meeting starting at 9) so I hit the road.

At around 29 minutes into the run, the deeply uncomfortable feeling that every runner knows of “I have to go – and right now” predictably came over me. I had just crossed under the bridge at Foothills and had turned left. I spotted the CU Foundation building and figured it would be open at 7 and anyone inside would be friendly. As I approached the entrance, a person was going inside so I grabbed the door after them, went in, and starting hunting for a bathroom. As any runner knows, once you shift from running in the cold to walking in a warm building, the time you have to find the bathroom decreases even further.

I couldn’t find the fucking bathroom. I wandered around on the first floor, found the weight room, found some showers, found the cafeteria, found some locked doors, but couldn’t find the bathroom. In a mild state of panic, I found a person sitting at a desk and meekly asked “can you point me at a bathroom.” She looked at me like I was a terrorist – granted, I was in running clothes and a blue knit hat – but I can’t imagine I looked like anything other than a runner who desperately needed to take a dump.

Her: “Do you work here?”
Me: “No – I’m just on a run and I need to use the bathroom”
Her: “That’s not allowed here”
Me: “C’mon, your not serious, pretty please?” (followed by my best hurt puppy dog look)
(Silence for about five seconds as we stare at each other and I hop from foot to foot)
Her: “Ok, but if we let anyone use the bathroom here, hundreds of people would come and trash our bathrooms”
Me: “Thanks so much – I really appreciate it”

Of course, the bathroom was 10 feet from the front door – I had walked right past it in my desperation. I did my thing and felt 1,427,523x better. As I exited the bathroom, I saw my new friend standing by the front door with another person.

Me: “Thanks – I really appreciate you letting me use the bathroom”
Her: “How did you get into the building”
Me: “The front door was open – I just followed someone in”
(She fiddled with the door and looked perplexed)
Me: “By the way, I’m a donor to the CU Foundation and have a bathroom named after me in the ATLAS Building“
Her: “Well thank you!” (I could swear I saw her roll her eyes)

The rest of the run was uneventful. Fun, but uneventful.

I have a simple request for all humans out there. If a runner asks to use your bathroom, let him (or her). If I’m on a trail run in the middle of nowhere, I reluctantly have an effective “shit in the woods” method. But if I’m in a city, while I can pee in 30 seconds anywhere by just pretending I’m a dog, it’s not so easy to jettison the alien in the middle of the street.

I had a new experience today.  At 7am I had my first MRI at the Boulder Community Hospital.  I was a little nervous, although I’m not entirely sure why.  I was in and out in 45 minutes – it was fascinating.

I hurt my lower back about five months ago (actually, exactly on March 13th at about 1pm at my parents house in Dallas).  I went for a two hour run and then took my dad to Fry’s for his birthday to buy him a new color printer.  As I unloaded the printer from the car, I lifted correctly, but then twisted left and immediately knew I’d screwed myself.  I rested a week and started running again in advance of a marathon in mid-April in St. Louis.  I had a great three hour run in Charlotte the first week of April and thought I was ready to roll.  Amy and I drove to Santa Fe the following weekend; when I got out of the car when we got back to Boulder I had enormous lower back pain.  I got a massage the next day (big mistake) and when I woke up Tuesday morning in a hotel room in Seattle I couldn’t get up off the toilet, nor could I completely straighten up.  Four weeks of rest and three months of intermittent running with regular recurrence of back pain in the same spot after a few days caused me to finally decide that I’m hurt and need to figure out what’s going on.

Boulder is fortunate that it has a great community hospital system.  There are plenty of new facilities and the people are very nice.  I checked in and got my paperwork.  It was already completed via my doctor’s referral.  The charge for the MRI was $3,696, my insurance plan allowed $1,078, and there was $0 co-pay or money owed by me.  I was completely stunned by this – I expected to at least have to pay a $20 co-pay.  The entire billing / checkin thing took about as long as it takes to checkin on FourSquare.  I pondered where the difference between the $3,696 and the $1,078 was coming from, or whether it simply vanished into the ether.

I went to the Imaging Center with my Dark Side of the Moon CD, ready to chill out in a tube.  I changed into hospital scrubs and was escorted to the MRI machine by a lovely nurse who talked me through everything.  The machine I was in didn’t have a CD (it had an MP3 player) but my head was in a cradle that wouldn’t fit the earphones so I punted on the music.  I got a little “panic thing” to squeeze if I freaked out and then went into the tube.

I basically had a noisy 20 minute shivasana.  They did six scans, most between three and five minutes.  The noise was loud, but rhythmic.  I had earplugs so it was more like a weird electronica thing.  I did my share of isolation tanks in college (I went through an isolation tank phase) – this was much shorter, much more comfortable, but much noisier.  As is my practice with shivasana, I dozed off near the end.

They pulled me out, I walked down the hall, and picked up a CD with my scan on it.  The software is pretty ancient, doesn’t run on my Mac, but worked fine on a PC.  I have no idea what I’m looking at – well – other than my lower back and pelvis region with all the ensuing pieces – but it’s pretty amazing to look at and ponder.

It’s fun to be a human, even when you are hurt.

Well – the 2010 marathon season is upon us.  As I prepare to head out for a three hour run, I decided to finalize my 2010 calendar. 

2009 sucked for me – I didn’t complete any marathons on my way to doing a marathon in every state by the time I’m 50.  Mild injuries, several colds, fatigue from work and travel, and general lack of rhythm are my excuses while a temporary failing of my iron will is the real reason. 

Out with the 2009 lameness – it’s a new year and we’ll try again.  My best year was 2008 when I did five marathons so let’s up that by one and do six this year.  Here are the one’s I’m currently planning to do.

1. 02/28/10 – New Orleans, LA: Rock ‘n’ Roll Mardi Gras Marathon
2. 04/11/10 – St Louis, MO: GO! St. Louis Marathon
3. 06/12/10 – Marathon, IA: Marathon to Marathon
4. 08/21/10 – Rachel, NV: E.T. Full Moon Midnight Marathon
5. 10/17/10 – Detroit, MI: Detroit Free Press / Flagstar Marathon
6. 12/11/10 – Kiawah, SC: Kiawah Island Golf Resort Marathon

I’m always game to have friends tag along and run with me so feel free to reach out if you are so inclined.  And – I’m trying to figure out what kind of new special 2010 charity thing to add on to my existing sponsors Return Path and Pixie Mate so I’m open to suggestions.  And – as always – a super huge thanks to my amazing coach Gary Ditsch at Endurance Base Camp for putting up with me.

See you in a few weeks New Orleans!

In 2006 I ran the Boston Marathon as a Charity Runner for The Michael Lisnow Respite Center.  I had a tremendous Experience At The Boston Marathon even though I got a nasty email from someone a few days before that was a Major Emotional Bummer for me.  I learned plenty from processing the entire experience (good and bad) and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

A year ago I adopted Accelerated Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis as one of my official 50×50 marathon sponsors.  They are a great nonprofit based in Boston that is working to cure MS by determining its causes. It turns out that they have some extra Boston Marathon charity passes this year.  They asked me if I wanted to run Boston again but since I’m still focused on one marathon in each state, I passed on this year’s race. 

To qualify for the number, you don’t have to be located near their office or have an MS connection. You just have to be able to physically finish the marathon within 6 hours, and there is a required fundraising component (that ACP will help you to achieve).

If interested in running one of the *most* prestigious marathons and supporting a high impact, highly efficient nonprofit, please email Jane at or call her at 781-487-0010.  I can’t recommend ACP highly enough – they are just great folks.  Thanks Jane and crew for supporting the Boston Marathon Charity program!