I spent the morning and early afternoon running the Sedona Marathon.  That was easily the most difficult physical thing I’ve ever done.  But I finished.  That’s me and Herb (who thoroughly kicked my ass) rejoicing together.

5:47.  A new personal worst.  There was nothing pretty about it, but I got it done.  I was in decent shape and before I saw the course thought sub-5:00 would be pretty straightforward.  We drove the course the day before and I started thinking sub-6:00 was a better goal.

It was an out and back course.  Yes – that’s a three mile downhill before and a three mile uphill after the halfway mark.

This is an even more exciting chart.  Note the amount of +/- 10%-15% grade.  I haven’t seen the final times, but my understanding is the winner was around 3:00 (last years winner was 2:55.)  Herb nailed it at 4:14. 

Something happened between 18 and 20 and my left knee blew up.  I’ve had a tight IT band for the past few weeks and have been being careful on it.  I must have stepped on a rock funny because suddenly I had real pain in my left knee.  I struggled on for a mile or so but was reduced to a walk at mile 20.  At this point a sub 5:00 was long gone so I was just determined to finish.  Which I did.

Herb’s wife Terry did the half marathon (her first) and came in right on schedule at 2:28.  After showers and ice, we all went out for mexican food, tequila shots, and beers.  I expect I’ll be in bed by 9:00.

My next marathon is in eight weeks (4/13/08) in Washington State (Whidbey Island) assuming my knee is ok.  I’m focusing my training (and diet) on getting comfortably sub 5:00 for this next one as 5:47 is way too long to be running.

Today’s WallStrip might be the best ever.

Julie and her friends act out what people that are heavy into public equities are thinking.

I have a handful of chronic grammar problems.  I received the following email yesterday:

You seem like an intelligent guy.  But you insist on referring to your friends as, "that."  If you’re not just trying to fit in by using bad grammar (as everyone else seems to do), show everyone how smart you really are.

"To all my friends that are . . . ."
"Since they are the ones that . . . ." 
"(Name) that is . . . ."

How about using the word, "who" instead of "that" when you refer to people?  "My friend who will be . . . ."  "To all my friends who are . . . ."  "Since they are the ones who . . . ."

To which I responded:

I have 12 grammar problems.  Then / than, who / whom, accept / except, …., and that / who!  Thanks for calling me out on it – I’ll try harder but given that I’m 42 and can’t seem to get my brain wired for these few things, I’m probably screwed for life.

Thanks oh vigilant grammarians for keeping me on my toes.

While I’m usually amused by the copyright gaffes I see, I laughed out loud when I saw that Google News was still Copyright 2007 (thanks to dschwartz for the tip.) 

Dear Mr. Google: It’s almost February 2008.  Oh – and make the date a variable! 

I guess I should be nice since I’m sure some of the companies I’ve funded haven’t fixed (or variable-ized) the copyright dates on their site.

My next marathon is in a couple of weeks so I’ve been logging plenty of miles lately.  I had a 10 mile run scheduled yesterday but it was -5, pitch black, and very windy at my house when I needed to get started so I decided to change things up and do a shorter, more intense run.  So – I drove to the office and ran Mount Sanitas – a mainstay 5 mile loop with serious elevation.

The top 25% was ice (doh).  Since I was wearing regular running shoes, that was entertaining enough, but then I got lost coming down the back side (apparently a common occurrence.)  At some point I realized I was climbing down the side of the mountain.

Oops.  Check the drop at 2.5m.  I descended over 500 ft without making an inch of forward progress.  Yes – it was all ice.

I only fell twice.  My left ankle is sore today, but nothing that’s going to slow me down.  And – I ended up getting in an almost 2 hour run anyway (at the expense of my first meeting of the day – Bijan: thanks for understanding.)

I almost managed to not to write my annual “please update the copyright on your website” post.  Matt Blumberg even called me out for being off my game this year.  But this morning, after seeing the 5,323rd Copyright 2007 message of the year, I decided I could no longer resist the urge to shout at the top of my lungs: “It’s 2008 – update your copyright.”  Oh – by the way – you are a software or web company – there’s a way to do this so it gets automatically updated – it’s called “using a variable for the year.”

This has now been a pet peeve of mine since 1980.  Did you know that the use of the copyright notice has been optional since 1989 as a result of the 1988 Berne Convention Implementation Act?  Think of what you could use all of those pixels for.

Micah’s tweet led me to Phil Hansen, an artist who is a master of playing with his food.

Phil’s Goodbye Art series is awesome.  For a taste of what he is capable of doing, take a look at the Christmas Cheese Log.

If you live in Boulder, you know that this is the epicenter of the natural foods and all things good for you revolution.  We all love our natural, sugar free, gluten free, no animals killed or harmed in any way deodorant, but we know it doesn’t work for shit.

Todd Vernon – CEO of Lijit – has come up with a killer Idea in the Natural Food Space.  Since he’s got his hands full with Lijit, he just wants someone to do it.  The entire idea is up on his blog – the following picture is the teaser.

It’s in the spirit of Just Gas, but a little more diversified.

I don’t invest (or know all that much about Bio or Life Sciences), but I like to follow Adam Rubenstein’s Colorado Life Sciences Deal Flow blog just to know what’s going on in the entrepreneurship scene around life sciences in my back yard.

I was pleased to see Adam’s simple description of Lijit and why he’s using it on his blog.  Adam nails it and makes a good blog even more useful.