There’s nothing quite like taking a major spill an hour into a 90 minute trail run – in the mountains – alone – early in the morning.

At least it matches my shoes and my house.  I was going downhill – pretty fast – when all of a sudden I was falling forward for no discernible reason.  My knee took most of the impact (hence the torn pants and a cut the size of a silver dollar) – quickly followed by my forearms (yup – I’ve had a lot of practice falling when running.)  A 30 second system check later and I was back up on my feet.  I shook it off and continued on my way.

Kind of like the process of creating a company.

All serious runners know that ice has special properties and is a critical part of one’s recovery regimen (e.g. “Sore muscle?  Ice it.”)  However, I only recently discovered the magic of an ice bath.

Last month, immediately after running the Albuquerque Marathon, I went back to my hotel room (the bridal suite at the Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town – we asked for the “best room”) and immersed myself in a 10 minute ice bath.  Amy, Raj, and Stef  (my traveling marathon fan club – at least for this race) were in the other room watching the US Open (tennis, not golf) and were subjected to an outburst of “holy fucking shit” and 60 seconds of maniacal laughter as I got used to the temperature.  The last 9 minutes were fine, although I was disoriented and bemused when I got out of the tub.  I felt great the next day, although I forced myself to take a week off from running (every time I thought about running, Amy said “Brad – rest” using her best golden retriever command voice.)

On Saturday, I was in Bells, Texas at my parents farm for the weekend.  If you know me and my love of land, you’ll be able to trace it back to my parents farm, which they bought when I was in college.  There’s nothing like 100 acres that is yours to wander around on.

My dad got up at 6am, drove me 15 miles away from their house, and dropped me on the side of the road.  He drove back; I ran back.  I had a kick-ass run (a mile / minute faster than normal due to the lower altitude, plus I felt great.)  When I finished, I went upstairs, filled the bathtub with cold water, and dumped two huge bags of ice that my mom had bought at the gas station into the tub.  My outburst was even more colorful this time (“you’ve got to be fucking kidding me”) followed by peels of laughter as my body got used to the cold.  Again – I settled down – and this time hung out for 15 minutes in the tub reading 24: Trojan Horse.

Four hours later, I felt great and was ready to go for another run.  I managed to hold off until the following morning when I did a very comfortable hour run (at least for my legs), although I slept too late and ended up in 90+ degree heat.

I’m two for two with the ice bath, and am now a complete believer.

The images from my mom’s new show – “Prints: A Journey” – are now up on her website.  I like them all, but I especially dig the Rothko-like solarplates.

If you are in Dallas in October, the show is currently up at Splashlight Studios on 2410 Farrington Street until October 16th.

For those of you that share my fascination with the versatility of the word “fuck”, Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry listing the films that most frequently use said word.  The 14th on the list is The Big Lebowski, right after Pulp Fiction.  Casino – one of my all time favorite movies – weighs in at #3 (398 times.)  The FPM rating is also fascinating – a surprising number of these movies have an FPM > 2.

Once a quarter, Amy and I vanish for a week.  No telephone, no email, no computer. Amy turned 40 on Thursday so we took last week off.  I mostly checked out a week ago Thursday, had a huge surprise party for Amy on Thursday night, co-moderated a debate between Bill Ritter and Bob Beauprez (Colorado’s candidates for governor) on Friday, turned off my computer and disappeared for a while.

I had a number of emails in my inbox from folks when I resurfaced yesterday asking if everything was ok since I hadn’t been blogging. I try to time these things so I get two weekends in the holiday, although I usually check my email on the Friday before I return so I don’t have a super silly day on Monday.  I remembered to turn on an email out of office message – but not a blog out of office message (is there really such a thing? – I always feel odd reading someone’s post that “they are going on vacation and won’t be posting for a while.)  For all of you that wrote wondering where I was, thanks for the concern and – as Amy loves to say – “hey – try turning off your computer for a few days.”

We were originally going to go to London for 10 days – half in the city and half to hang out at a castle somewhere while Amy rode horses and I played tennis.  After the London terrorist scare, I decided I didn’t want to fly back and forth from London and deal with any existential anxiety I might have around 9/11, so I convinced Amy to go to LA for a few days followed by tennis at Green Valley Spa.  I hate LA and tried my hardest to weasel out, but Amy really wanted to do something special for her 40th birthday.  On Thursday 9/7, I threw her a surprise birthday party with 150 of her closest friends (surprise birthday party rule #42 – never have the party on the actual birth day.)  On Friday 9/8, Amy told me we could bag our LA trip (she knows I hate LA.)  So – we had the perfect vacation – at home, in Boulder – although everyone thought we were out of town.

That’s Boulder from the top of Bear Peak – my hike on Wednesday with my friend Dave.  I read 11 books last week (reviews coming soon), saw a couple of movies (including Lord of War which was awesome and Invincible which reminded me of being 10 years old and a Dallas Cowboy fan), had a few great sushi meals, fully recovered from the New Mexico Marathon (meaning I slept a lot), and had a deep, beautiful vacation with my beloved.

A friend of ours – Ryan Wiese – is having a show of his art at the Pekoe Sip House at 1225 Alpine Avenue in Boulder (located near the Ideal Market in North Boulder.) 

Ryan has been designing glass jewerly (the very cool and popular Laughing Mango stuff) for the past five years.  This is his first show for his paintings.  In addition to seeing some art, you can check out Pekoe’s specialty teas.  Congrats on the show Ryan!

Yes – admit it – you miss 24 also.  Don’t worry – January 20007 isn’t that far away.  In the mean time, Doug Mitchell sent me a link to a blog he wrote about his search for the CTU Ring Tone.  Fortunately he links through to a few instances of it.  I’ve had it on my Cisco phones for months and I always get a grin on my face whenever my phone rings.

I nailed my 8th marathon today in Albuquerque on my quest to a marathon in every state, on every continent, and at the North Pole by the time I’m 50.  I’m going to call it 4:52* as my chip time was 5:02 but I lost a total of 10 minutes to five bathroom breaks (too much water before the start and some serious trouble in the middle.)  Considering that I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs 7 days ago because of a gout attack, I’m pretty psyched.

It was a small race – I was #234 and I registered the day before the race (they didn’t have me registered when I showed up to pick up my number.)  The race started at the corner of Tramway and I-40 at 5:30am – it was pitch dark when the 200 or so marathoners took off.  It was a perfect day for a marathon – 60 degrees, overcast, and no wind.

The course was a strange one.  The first 8 miles were uphill, the next 7 were downhill, and most of the last half was flat.  It was all on roads except for miles 17 to 22 which was on a bike path.  Ironically, the cars were much more polite than the bikers, who seemed annoyed that there was a race taking place on “their” bike path (note to bikers – when someone is on mile 18 of a marathon, don’t drive your bike right at them and make them jump out of the way.)

Amy, Raj, and Stef surprised me at the halfway point to cheer me on.  Since my last few marathons have been large ones, Amy hasn’t been able to see me during a race (other than Miami where the course made a turn at the corner of the condo we were staying at Ocean and 14th.) 

As is typical for me, miles 15 to 20 were tough – and this time included the special bonus of an upset stomach which I took care of around mile 17.  I finished strong – the last 6.2 miles was my second fastest segment other than the long downhill stretch – and had plenty left at the end (the thought crossed my mind at mile 25 that I might run a few extra miles after the finish – fortunately, it was a fleeting thought that in hindsight was the product of a delusional mind.)  Unfortunately, there weren’t very many people to pass – but if they were in my way, I passed them.  Brian Ibbott and his superb Coverville podcast #190: The Covered Side of The Moon once again brought me home.

My next marathon is planned for December 9th at Kiawah, South Carolina.  As part of my preparation for the North Pole Marathon, I’m going to try to get to the point where a 26.2 mile run is simply my long run (usually done on Sunday) with a 24 hour recovery.  If I get there, I might sneak in another marathon before December (but don’t tell Amy.)  Also, another 10 pounds has got to go, so if you eat a meal with me, don’t let me eat dessert.

If you found my golden retriever eyes post to be helpful for your relationship, I’ve got another tip for you.  I call it “Random Answers.”

I’m in Santa Fe with Amy and my friends Raj and Stefanie Bhargava.  We’re about to head to Albuquerque for tomorrow’s marathon (I’ve got my cheerleading team in tow this weekend.)  We spent a bunch of time yesterday wandering up and down Canyon Road looking at art before having a superb dinner at Geronimo.

As we were going in and out of galleries, Stef and Amy kept asking us our opinion of various things.  While both of us had opinions on art, we’d occasionally end up in a store (say – a linen store) that we couldn’t care less about.  We were polite and gave our wives golden retriever eyes.  However, I noticed Raj struggling to form an opinion on certain items.

I decided to share my “random answers” secret with him.  Whenever Amy asks me an opinion on something I don’t care about, rather than either say “I don’t care” or – even worse – dig deep to form an opinion – I simply give her a random answer.  Now – I don’t do this in an offhanded way – it’s not a “yes – I like it” or “no – I don’t like it.”  Rather – I stare thoughtfully at the item in question, flash the now famous golden retriever eyes at her, and then give her a deep, insightful response with plenty of adjectives and adverbs in it.

This used to work all the time for me.  Amy thought she was married to a guy who actually cared about things like dresses, linens, bras, chandeliers, plates, silverware, postcards, stationary, shoes, cars, paint colors, kitchen tables, scarves – you get the picture.  Unfortunately, Raj pointed out this this is also known as lying, which put me in the doghouse with Amy for a few minutes.  Fortunately, I managed to convince her that I was really excited about the red cowboy boots that she bought earlier in the day.