I was talking to Andrew Hyde over at the Boulder.me Job Fair and a few of the folks I ran into busted my chops (in a good way) about my publicly declared jihad on my weight.  For those of you that have commented – thanks – the encouragement, support, and suggestions have been great.

I’ve started a group competition on Gyminee called Overweight Boys In Boulder.  The competition is to lose the most % body weight before 1/31/09.  The losers buy the winner a super healthy meal at Leaf (and we all have a party together).  Micah has suggested he’s going to kick my ass, but I think his odds were better in the sushi eating contest that occurred recently.

While I was talking to Andrew, he mentioned an idea I hadn’t heard before called anti-charity that appears to have some fans on the web.  The idea is brilliant – you make a public commitment to a goal along with a contribution to a charity you are opposed to if you don’t achieve your goal.

For example, if I don’t get below 200 pounds by 1/31/09, I’m going to donate $100 in my name to ProLife.com.  It’s a cynical, but awesome motivational tool.

With a nod to a line given to me from a recent television show that I enjoy, I’m declaring a jihad on my weight.

I’ve struggled with my weight for the past 15 years.  I was a skinny person until I hit 28.  At that point, something happened and I gained about 60 pounds.  At my peak, some of my friends referred to me as fat.  Eek.

I started running about seven years ago.  I lost about 20 of the pounds.  Some them went into muscle, some of them went away.  But a bunch of them hung around – mostly my belly and my ass.

In 2003, when I was training for the Chicago marathon, I dropped another 30 pounds.  None of my clothes fit; that was very satisfying.  I ran my fastest marathon by a wide margin.  I’m sure my cholesterol was a lot lower.  No one called me fat anymore.

Five years later, I feel semi-fat again.  I’m still running marathons, but those 30 pounds are back.  I’m 20 pounds off my peak, but no where near where I want to be.

Enough.  Starting today the weight comes off.  If you are having a meal with me, help me help myself.  Send the bread back.  Ask me if I’m sure I want another drink (one is plenty).  Remind me that I only have to eat half my food.  Notice all the vegetables that I’m eating.  Pat me on the head when I skip dessert.

Weight – you are going away.

My iPhone 3G continues to delight me.  For all of you naysayers out there (e.g. "eh – Feld’s Mac Fetish rears its head again – he’ll be done with it in a week and give it back to Ross), you are wrong this time!

As a heavy Outlook user, the requirement for me to be happy was a seamless experience with Exchange.  In the Apple iPhone 2.0 software, Apple did an excellent job of integrated EAS (Microsoft Exchange Active Sync) that has completely won me over.

But Apple left one thing out – Task management.  There is no app on the iPhone for managing tasks (sorry – notes doesn’t cut it) and as a result there is no way built in way to sync one’s Outlook tasks to the iPhone.  I whined about this in my post My Relationship With Apple Is Like My Relationship With The Republican Party.

As a result of the post, I got some good suggestions for iPhone Task managers and different approaches.  One of them seemed strange to me, but turned out to be the best one by far.  The suggestion was to stop using Microsoft Outlook for Tasks, switch to a web app called Remember The Milk, and use the Todo iPhone app from Appigo.  Ironically, this suggestion was from someone who used to work at Microsoft!

I was skeptical at first but tried all of the suggestions (and paid about $75 for the privilege since I just bought all the paid apps assuming there might be something good in there.)  There was no comparison – RTM + Todo + iPhone was exactly what I wanted.  In addition to a great iPhone UI, it turns out that I can email myself todo items (I get a private email address) which is what I often want to do anyway (since the todo item is in an email that someone else has sent me.)

I’ve been using RTM (the pro / paid version) for over a month and I love it.  I can imagine a scenario where there would be an acceptable iPhone task app that synced properly with Exchange, but it would have to be full featured (categories, date ordering, notes).  And – since I’ve changed my workflow to no longer have tasks in Outlook, I don’t see any reason to go back.

I love it when my wife Amy blogs.  She’s an amazing writer and has a much wider range of intellectual interests than me.  I often refer to her as my personal CD-ROM; whenever I need information on something, I ask her.  I find her to be much more accurate and comprehensive than Wikipedia.

She put up a new Wordle this morning.  This is her tag cloud from delicious.

I love the juxtaposition of some of these topics, including Palin / feminism, ClimateChange / entrepreneurship / education, and ethics / science / corruption.

Yesterday, I got the following question via email: "I was wondering if you think running has had a long-term impact on your professional self? Does it help keep you focused and motivated while you work, or does it reduce the amount of time you could spend reading about business and financial trends?"

This question hit an interesting chord with me – both because of the general nature of the question as well as the "or" part (e.g. the specificity of the "reduce the amount of time you could spend reading about business and financial trends.")

Running has definitely had a long-term impact on my professional life.  I categorize it as a hugely positive long-term impact.  While I’m physically healthier, I’m also mentally healthier as I find running to be my equivalent of meditation.  I need time away from everything on a regular basis to clear my head, and running is my time for this.  While I used to run with headphones, I now run naked (no headphones) so I just let whatever is in my head wander around.  I find that after an hour, the wandering becomes either (a) very interesting or (b) non-existent. 

Those of you that know me know that I am extremely intrinsically motivated.  I’m not motivated by the external scorecard (what other people think of me, what I get public recognition for); I care entirely about the internal scorecard (what I think of myself and what I’ve done.)  Running gives me extra time to ponder my internal scorecard without distractions.

I’ve also written about my split introvert / extrovert personality.  I need time alone.  I don’t get very much of it.  Without it, I eventually start to melt down.  Running gives me regular jolts of alone time that rapidly recharge my extrovert battery.

I could continue for a while on the benefits side.  However, as I puzzled through the cost side ("what does running cost me?") I couldn’t come up with anything substantive.  With regard to the specific question asked by the blog reader, it has no impact on the time I have to read anything as I already read much more than "I need to" for business.  I also substitute other stuff quickly – I watch very little television, I don’t have kids – so running even 10 hours a week barely cuts into the time spent by others on their kids, TV, other stuff. 

There is one area that I’m trying to figure out better, which is "recovery."  This has been in my face this week – I ran a marathon on Sunday and have been on the road continuously since the previous Thursday.  Monday was a tough day – I was tired and sore from the marathon.  The second day after the marathon is always the hardest for me as exhaustion really sets in.  Usually by the third day I’m more or less back to normal.  However, during this trip I’ve been nauseous (ranging from low grade annoying to "oh shit, where’s the bathroom") regularly through the day (and night) all the way through last night.  I feel fine right now, but we’ll see how the day goes.  While this isn’t impacting my professional life (I’ve been fully engaged in all the stuff I’m doing this week), it’s definitely been harshing my calm in my downtime.  Fortunately, I get home tonight from this road trip and have a nice quiet weekend in front of me, so I expect I’ll feel 100% by Monday, but it’s been a little strange (and physically uncomfortable in an unusual way) this time around.

Maine has been conquered by the Feld Marathon Machine.  I finished my 13th marathon on Sunday – the Mount Desert Island Marathon that started at Bar Harbor, Maine.  It was hilly.

Really hilly.  But beautiful, perfect weather (40 to 50 degrees), no wind, blue skies, and wonderful people along the course including the "beer girl" (a girl – probably 12 – with her mom that had a sign that said "Finish = Beer").  Did I mention the course was hilly – check out the insulting, endless, torturous climb from mile 21 to mile 25.

A few days before the marathon, I read the "mile by mile route description" and decided that it was highly unlikely that I’d break my goal of 5 hours given how difficult the course appeared.  So – I just decided to go out slow, stay comfortable, and finish.  I went through the half marathon point right at 2:30, felt great, and picked it up.  Remarkably, I did my first negative split marathon (2nd half faster than the first half) and finished in 4:57:02.  It seems like the extra training in the mountains is starting to pay off.  Yes – I’m really pleased.

This course has chip timers but the stupid chip kept falling off my shoe laces.  The third time it happened I punted and carried the chip.  Of course, I forgot to drag it across the finish line chip mats so I didn’t get an "official time."  Whatever – my Garmin has it all recorded and it’s on the web for anyone to verify.  Oh – and I have one of those snazy finisher medals.

My legs feel better than expected, but everything else is totally messed up today.  I keep reminding myself that the second day after the marathon is the hardest.

Thanks – as always – for everyone’s support and encouragement via email and twitter.  And a special thanks to my anchor sponsors – Return Path and Pixie Mate – as well as everyone else who has sponsored me – for your contributions to Accelerated Cure for each race I finish. 

Next up – the Rocket City Marathon – Huntsville, AL in Huntsville, Alabama on 12/13/08.

Tomorrow is Marathon #13 – the Mount Desert Island Marathon in Bar Harbor, Maine.  As part of my pre-marathon tradition, Amy and I relax at a movie the day before.  Today’s was Flash of Genius at the awesome Reel Pizza Cinerama.

Flash of Genius is the story of Robert Kearns, the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper.  It’s a tragedy in three acts. 

• Act 1: Invention and hopefulness that ends in betrayal.
• Act 2: The hero encounters increasing difficulties, complications, and losses.
• Act 3: Triumph and redemption.

While I’m deeply anti-software-patent, I’m equally pro-inventor.  The Kearns story – at least what I know of it from the great 1993 New Yorker article titled The Flash of Genius – is a complicated and provocative one.  Greg Kinnear is brilliant as Robert Kearns and plays the dedicated and single-minded investor magnificently.

If you are ever in Bar Harbor and like watching movies, definitely have dinner (and a movie) at Reel Pizza Cinerama.  The Manchurian Candidate pizza was a winner.  Now, time to get my head into the marathon.

The "new VC entrants into the blogosphere" has slowed over the past 12 months.  In addition, the decay curve of many of the newest VC bloggers looks very similar to the decay curve of nuclear waste, except for it happens over a six month period instead of having a 24,100 year half life.

In contrast, the gang at RRE Ventures have both launched a new blog titled Five Years Too Late and filled it with great, relevant, and stimulating content, including posts such as:

• What To Do When The Sky Is Falling
• Why Venture Firms Tighten the Purse Strings in a Down Market
• Oy Vey, says Stuart’s Mother
• Why You Might Want a Lower Valuation for your Startup

And – my favorite so far – RRE Bikini Bottom Franchise.  Keep it up guys and don’t ever lose your sense of humor.

And now for something completely different.  No – this isn’t going to be yet another blog post on how you, the entrepreneur, should react to the credit crisis.  That’s later today.  Instead, this is my extreme fanboy blog post for my friends at Harmonix and their amazing new version of Rock Band (very creatively named Rock Band 2).

In addition to being a magnificent video game (and a great example of what we are looking for in our HCI theme), the Harmonix story is a fabulous entrepreneurial tale.  Don Steinberg wrote a long article titled Just Play that’s in this month’s Inc. Magazine.  Yours truly makes a very small appearance in the story which is a testament to both the brilliance of Alex Rigopolus and Eran Egozy as well as their incredible perseverance (the story, not my appearance in it.)  Forget about "macro issues" – these guys show what it’s like to spend a decade where they are weeks (and days) away from going out of business before waking up one day to a blockbuster success.

Now on to the game.  I’ve had the original Xbox 360 Rock Band Special Edition since the day it shipped and have logged plenty of hours on it.  I got Rock Band 2 when it first shipped, but this is the first weekend I’ve been at my Keystone house since it showed up.  We had a full house (six adults) so all we needed was some easily procured food and alcohol to disappear into a Rock Band induced departure from reality.

Five of us had played (a lot of) Rock Band.  We all love the game, but had the same complaint – the UI for creating and managing a band was difficult.  Rock Band 2 fixed this problem – suddenly our band (the name is not work safe – please feel free to guess in the comments) was optimally set up (and modestly dressed – we all looked way hotter in Rock Band than in real life.)  Three hours of touring in Boston, New York, Montreal, and Chicago ensued.

The next morning – when I was alone downstairs – I figured out how to export all the Rock Band songs to Rock Band 2.  I also finally got around to setting up Xbox Live and bought another $200 worth of Rock Band songs (Rush, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Boston anyone?)  Our jam session continued with vigor on Saturday afternoon and into the late evening.

My partner Jason Mendelson – who is a drummer in real life – amazed us all on hard and expert level (where he managed to survive Boston’s Foreplay.)  To reward him, I just bought the Xbox 360 Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set.  I decided I was a bass guitar player and managed to graduate from medium to hard.  Another weekend and I might even be able to play expert on a song here and there.

Alex, Eran, and everyone at Harmonix – you guys are amazing.