Thanks to my buddy Alex Iskold at Adaptive Blue for my new t-shirt.

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That describes my marathon and life philosophy perfectly.

I haven’t shopped at J.C. Penney – well – ever.  I imagine my mom bought me some clothes from there since I grew up in Dallas (J.C. Penney’s headquarters).  If you’ve missed it, the best J.C. Penney Ad ever is making the rounds on the Internet.

I heard about it this morning on my drive in on NPR (right before, or right after something about Dow Chemical raising all prices 25% this month due to inflation).  I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard that "executives at J.C. Penney are furious about the ad" and are trying to get it removed from the Internet.  Good luck with that.  Oh – by the way – great ad – especially in a family values election year.

I spent the weekend in Duluth, Minnesota with Amy knocking off Marathon #11 in my quest to run a marathon in all 50 states.  #11 was Grandma’s Marathon, consistently one of the best regarded marathons in the US.

After a couple of frustrating marathons, including a steadily escalating personal worst, I put some effort into training for Grandma’s.  My goal was modest – break 5 hours.  Since my PR is currently 4:05, this felt achievable. 

I started off strong.  Too strong.  Rule #1 of the marathon is to hold plenty back at the beginning so you have it left at the end.  I went through the halfway point (13.1m) at 2:20 which put me on track for a sub 4:45.  I lost it a few miles later – tightening up at mile 15.  I slowed it down a notch and thought I still had a shot at sub 5:00.  At mile 19 I went down another notch and was now slogging through 13 minute miles.  At this point I knew I wouldn’t break 5:00 and my goal shifted from "break 5 hours" to "finish this fucking thing."  I did in 5:09:21.

While I didn’t beat my time goal, I’m pleased with the result.  Finishing is always my key goal (I’ve finished every marathon I’ve entered – no DNF’s yet.)  While 5:00 would have been nice, the course was tougher than advertised (it’s known as a flat course; I’d describe it is "a mild undulating hill for most of 26 miles.")  It was also on the warm side – this eventually took its toll on me. 

I saw Amy cheering me on just as I crossed the finish line.  I was completely used up so I was a little confused about where to find her since they shunted the marathoner finishers off in a direction away from the crowd.  I stumbled around for a few minutes until I luckily ran into her.  I was claustrophobic and a little freaked out feeling so I missed the finisher food and water as I rapidly (as rapidly as I could manage) headed out away from the crowd.  We’d covered about 200 yards when my left calf cramped up and I went down hard on the ground.  Amy was great – worried – but patient with me as she worked out the knots.  Someone passing by gave me a Coke which helped a little; we were in front of a Subway so Amy went in and got some more Coke and some potato chips while I laid on my face on the sidewalk.  While I was lying there, the other calf started cramping, resulting in me thrashing around like a hooked fish as people wandered by.  A few stopped to help, which was nice, although fortunately none of them knew how to perform a leg amputation which was what I imagine I was crying out for.

We eventually made it back to the hotel (a 10 minute walk took us about an hour) after which I slept the rest of the afternoon.  Mexican food for dinner, a very chilled out day today (e.g. lots more napping), and Indian food for dinner tonight has me mostly back to normal, albeit with two very sore calves.  Once again, Sherpa Amy was phenomenal to have along.

My big (yet obvious) lesson is that I just haven’t been doing enough long runs.  I consistently do 14 to 16 mile training runs, but I’m not doing enough 20+ training runs.  My next marathon is the Mesa Falls Marathon in Ashton, Idaho on August 23rd – I plan to do at least three runs of 20+ between now and then.  I’m ready to set my goal for Ashton, ID at 4:45 – if it has been a little cooler, I’d held back a little more in the first half, and had done a couple of 20 mile runs, I’m confident I would have been under 5 hours yesterday.

We’ve had fun in Duluth – it’s a cute little town at the very west end of Lake Superior.  Grandma’s Marathon is apparently the biggest event of the year in Duluth; by Sunday evening there was nothing going on in downtown on Superior Street.  We did – however – manage to find a good Indian restaurant.

Every time I see a cool Roomba-related thing (including the Roomba itself) I remember torturing Colin Angle when I was his pledge trainer.  Too bad I didn’t have the foresight to invest in iRobot early on (oh well).  Today, Colin sent around a new song by Mr. Pitiful titled "Brand New Friend" – the Roomba prominently stars in it.

I also received a note from my brother Daniel that the new StillSecure web site is up and he stars in it.  Hilarious and well done.  Yes – it was inspired by the awesome Slingbox web site.

As my quest to run a marathon in every state by the time I’m 50 continues on Saturday with Marathon #11 (Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, MN) – I’m excited to announce that Return Path has agreed to sponsor my effort.  Matt Blumberg – the CEO of Return Path wrote about it on his blog at Run, Brad, Run!

We’ve been investors in Return Path since 2000 and I’ve gotten to know Matt well over the years.  He was at my side for Marathon #5 – New York, 2005 and he’s going to hang out with me for Marathon #12 in Ashton, Idaho in August.

Five years ago, one of Return Path’s early employees – Sophie Miller Audette – was diagnosed with MS.  I introduced Sophie and Matt to Art Mellor of Accelerated Cure and Return Path adopted it as their charity as Matt wrote in Doing Well by Doing Good, Part II.  When I told Matt that I has also decided to adopt Accelerated Cure as my official charity for my effort, he and his team started cooking up a way to support both of us.

Return Path has pledged $1,000 to Accelerated Cure for every marathon I run with a bonus of $500 for every marathon I run under four hours.  Including the marathons that I’ve run to date, this is half of my goal of $100,000.  Return Path is hoping their gift will help inspire other people to help me blow away my goal.

Since I wrote about this a few days ago, several blog readers have already contributed $300.  Assuming I finish my goal and not counting any sub four hour marathons, I’ve now have commitments and funding of $50,300.  Come play along – more contributions welcome – just click on the "Click here to Donate" button in the widget above.

I’ve also received a commitment from another blog reader for a dollar for every minute under five hours (thanks Len!) I have one more sponsor to announce – probably after I finish the race but you can guess who they are from the logo listed on my Marathon page.  Finally, in the "wow – that’s cool" category is that Kate Smyth – a member of the Australian Olympic team for the marathon – was on our flight to Duluth.  I introduced myself and we hung out and talked while we waited for our bags at baggage claim.  She could win the women’s race!

If you’ve been following my running efforts, you know that I have a goal of running a marathon in every state by the time I turn 50 years old.  I’ve completed ten to date and am 42 so it’s time to get moving!  My next one is Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, MN next Sunday (6/21).  My times have been steadily increasing the past few marathons with my personal worst (5:47) coming at Sedona in February after I completely blew up at mile 19.  So – I’ve been training harder and more consistently with a goal of breaking 5:00 at Grandma’s followed by 4:45 in August at Ashton, ID and 4:30 in October at Bar Harbor, ME.  Having run a 4:05 in Chicago several years ago, there is no doubt that I can do a majority of these marathons under 4:00 – I just have to get serious about it.

I’ve had a few people approach me about sponsorships for this endeavor and have decided to finally get my sponsorship act together.  My first sponsor is the Accelerate Cure Project for Multiple Sclerosis.  In 2000, an entrepreneur and friend of mine from Boston – Art Mellor – was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.  Art subsequently founded the Boston Cure Project (now Accelerated Cure Project) with his doctor, Timothy Vartanian, to try to find a cure for Multiple Sclerosis.

Amy and I have been steady supporters of the Accelerated Cure Project over the years.  When I started thinking about a charity to dedicate my 50×50 running to, they immediately came to mind.  From this point forward, they are my adopted charity for my marathon quest.

If you have an interest in supporting my marathoning, please click through on the widget below on the "Click here to Donate" tab.  While it says my goal is $1,000, that’s because I haven’t figured out how to modify this yet.  My goal is actually $100,000, or $2,000 per marathon (yes – I have a little catching up to do – $20k worth – but I’ll figure that out.)

If you are interested in sponsoring my efforts in other ways, drop me an email and we will figure something out.  At this point I have three sponsors (the other two will be revealed shortly.)

When I ask someone what animal they visualize themselves I am often surprised.  Not so with Dan Caruso – he is unambiguously a bear (That’s my animal also – you’ll understand this if you ever see me and Dan standing next to each other.)

Since October, Dan has been doing a great job of blogging at BearOnBusiness and now has a must read entrepreneur blog.  If you don’t know Dan, he was an SVP at MFS (bought by WorldCom), went on to be part of the founding team at Level 3, with a group of investors acquired, turned around, and sold ICG, and is now doing another telecom infrastructure consolidation called Zayo Group (one of the best recently funded / founded companies in Colorado.)  He’s also an investor in a bunch of companies, including folks like Envysion (who also happen to have a good blog.)

If you are looking for a new / fresh entrepreneur blog to add to your blogroll, give BearOnBusiness a try.

My partners Ryan and Jason are playing a gig with their band, Soul Patch, June 21^st at Redfish Brewhouse in Boulder.  They start at 930pm – sharp.  It’s a onetime event, as the band resides in Boulder, San Francisco and Los Angeles.  They’ll also be releasing their new album.

I told them that I’d pimp their gig on my blog as payment for missing it.  I’m taking my awesome wife to Duluth, Minnesota to run Grandma’s Marathon for our wedding anniversary.  I’ll be running it and she’ll be cheering me on.  I don’t know how I managed to convince her that this was an appropriate thing to do for our anniversary, but I’ll take it.

Please come and rock the redfish with Ryan and Jason.

My partner Jason Mendelson has finally started his own blog titled Mendelson’s Musings.  Jason has been a guest blogger on Feld Thoughts for several years (in our Term Sheet, LOI, and 409A series) and he and I have been collaborating on Ask the VC since the beginning of 2007.

Given Jason’s unique proclivities, I expect music to be a central theme on his blog.  He even has a special magic Music tab.  The subtitle – Tales from a VC and recovering drummer, software guy, lawyer tells the tale.

Let’s all give Jason an official blogosphere welcome by subscribing to his (FeedBurner) feed.