I finished marathon #25 today and checked South Dakota off the list. I ran it with ten friends (nine of us did the marathon, two did the half) who were all part of my Chorus team that I started in June.

While this was one of the most enjoyable marathon weekends that I’ve had, it was a rough marathon for me. I finished it in a personal worst of 5:58:26 (gun time right at 6:00:00 – the clock said 5:59:59, but the website says 6:00:00.)

Things went wrong almost from the beginning. The weather was in the low 30s so I couldn’t decide whether to wear pants or just run in shorts. I was hot in the first mile and my stomach was rumbling. At mile three, we looped back around to the start so I went into the Crazy Horse Visitor Center, took my pants off, and took a five-minute bathroom break to make sure I was empty. The Visitor Center was warm, so when I went outside to start running again I immediately stiffened up. At least my gut felt better.

I caught up with my friend Mahendra (co-author with me of Startup Boards). I had planned to run the race alone, but I settled into a nice pace with him as we comfortably cruised through a long downhill section (that we knew we’d have to turn around and come back up later, but well – that was later.)

Around mile 8 I had a sharp pain in my left calf. I never get cramps, so this startled me and I limped on it for fifteen or so seconds. When I realized that it was seizing up, I stopped to stretch it out, but the damage was done. I didn’t have a pain free step on my left leg for the rest of the marathon.

Mahendra was awesome. Instead of going ahead, he waited with me for a minute while the cramp subsided. We walked for a few minutes until I felt like I could run again. We then ran side by side for the remaining 18 miles. A marathon typically gets difficult for me between mile 15 and 20. Today’s was hard for the last 18 miles. That’s a long way to be uncomfortable.

The downhill segment went from mile 4 to mile 10, where there was a turnaround point. Amy was at the turnaround and as she saw me coming she asked if I was ok. Apparently, my gait was off enough that it was noticeable.

For a moment, I thought about calling it quits. I’ve finished every marathon I’ve started and given the Chorus team activity, I quickly got over my doubt about staying on the course. Mahendra (standing to the right of me) and I said goodbye to Amy and started back uphill.

After seven miles, we crested the hill. By mile 17 we were both pretty done and were just shuffling through each mile. The course was extremely well crewed, which was great, but the snow started around mile 17 and by the end we were cold, wet, and mildly manic. When we turned the last corner and saw 5:59:00 on the clock, I told Mahendra to get moving since I didn’t want the clock to hit 6:00 (even though we had 90 seconds or so banked from the start.) We crossed the line right at 5:59:59.

The amazing thing was the performance of Team Chorus in this race. The marathon winner, Jason Burke, was on our team, as were #5 (Winter Mead) and #6 (Gary Ditsch – my coach). On the women’s side, one of our teammates Lou Anderson came in 14th.

Everyone else turned in impressive times. Ryan Martens finished (his first marathon!) in 4:14:37 (with Lou). Christina Sollenberger also finished her first marathon in 4:35:02. And Donna Miller finished her first marathon in 5:04:52. Bryan Oki finished his first half marathon in 2:00:02 and Davis Godbout got his first half marathon done in in 1:47:11.

As we had a post-race meal and told race stories, we all agreed how much Chorus had helped us on both our training and motivating us for the race. I have some new friends for life. While not a great marathon for me, it was a great weekend.

And Amy – you are the most awesome marathon sherpa ever!

Also published on Medium.

October 6, 2017

Among all the distressing news of the world, I heard today that AOL Instant Messenger is shutting down on 12/15/17.

AIM was the first instant messenger I used. My AOL account handle was bfeld, which stuck and is generally my handle for all things (like Twitter) unless someone else grabbed it, in which case it’s bradfeld.

On 9/11/01, I was in NYC. I had taken a redeye the night before so I took a nap in the hotel room after I checked in and slept through the first World Trade Center tower collapse. When I woke up I was disoriented from my redeye and totally confused (like many) as to what was going on. I called Amy and caught her on the way to the airport (she was heading to NYC) and had been trying to reach me but couldn’t. There were tears but we figured out enough that she turned around and went home.

That was the last phone call I was able to make for a while. I was in the Benjamin Hotel and the phone wasn’t able to dial out. My cell phone couldn’t get a signal. As a last resort, I turned on my computer to see if I could connect to the hotel Internet.

That worked just fine. All of my IM apps opened up (AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, and ICQ). Email worked fine also.

So for the rest of 9/11, until I went to Jenny Lawton’s house in the evening with Paul Berberian and Nick Cuccaro to get Jenny’s car and drive home to Boulder, I hovered over my computer.

AOL IM was probably 10x more active than the other IM apps combined. Amy and I went back and forth in real time throughout the day. My Mobius partners were equally distributed across AOL and Yahoo and a few randoms were on Microsoft and ICQ.

The little yellow AIM man was burned into my brain that day. I can’t imagine getting through 9/11 without him – and AIM.

AIM – you served me well for many years. Thank you. May you rest in peace for all of digital eternity.

Also published on Medium.

I had a long conversation with a friend last night that included a segment about men, sex, and power. I had just finished Ellen Pao’s book Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change which I thought was phenomenal (more in a separate post soon) so there was a lot in my mind about this topic.

I woke up to several articles this morning that reinforced a simple concept that so many people miss. Sexual harassment – while it includes sex – is also about power.

Let’s start with Harvey Weinstein. For a preview, read the shorter article titled Another man behaving badly in Hollywood — this time, Harvey Weinstein. What a shocker. This line about narcissism is reflected in the behavior of many prominent men.

“I have always argued that power, particularly the Hollywood strain, infantilizes. Success in Hollywood frequently reduces fully grown adults to narcissistic babies. Babies have no self-control. They scream and cry when they get mad. Their needs are uninhibited. Gratification must be instant. Weinstein may be a talented moviemaker. But he is also just another overgrown Hollywood man-baby.”

The longer article in the New York Times that kicked this off, Decades of Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein, is worth a complete read. As you put the pieces together, Weinstein’s public response is similar to many self-reflective apologies that come out of this situation when things finally become public.

Back to the first article, here is another great section from Robin Abcarian.

“Weinstein’s behavior is also an excellent example of the hypocrisy that is so rampant in Hollywood — and politics, for that matter. He is a liberal Democrat who publicly champions women’s rights and professional advancement but demeans and exploits them in private. (And yes, I do include Bill Clinton on that list.) The conservative equivalent is the anti-abortion crusader who privately urges his mistress to abort an inconvenient pregnancy or the “devout” Christian who ditches his sick wife to marry his mistress.”

Power. And that led me to the second story I woke up to, which is the anti-abortion crusader, Tim Murphy, who privately urges his mistress to abort an inconvenient pregnancy. The article Inside Tim Murphy’s reign of terror shows very clearly how power is at the root of this. The statement from Congressman Tim Murphy is another typical one, which basically says “I’m resigning, I’ll spend my time remaining working on important things, I’ve accomplished a lot, and please leave me alone.”

At least Harvey Weinstein said, “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.” But, this was his fourth paragraph. As my mother taught me, the way to apologize is to start with the sentence “I’m sorry.” You can write anything you want after that, but start with the apology – that’s the lead – don’t bury it.

I’m really hopeful that we are at the tipping point of sexual harassment being completely unacceptable. I have a profound appreciation for the women coming forward with their experiences. I know there are many multiples of these stories being suppressed by non-disparagement clauses that were signed and sealed with money to keep people quiet. That’s just another form of power being used in this situation.

Also published on Medium.