I’ve owned and used Apple’s products for a very long time. In my last year of college, I built my first computer, an Apple II+ clone – sourcing and soldering all the individual components, circuit board, cabinet, keyboard, and it ran on Apple’s OS. That of course, endeared me to Apple early on. Of course, I’ve also owned many non-Apple computing products. When fortyninegroup was launched, I made the decision to always use Apple technology and the line “fortyninegroup runs on Apple” has been in our signatures since the company’s inception in 2008. And, having developed Apple Apps, we’re as entrenched in Apple’s ecosystem as any company can be. At the start of every day, I look at this keyboard, smile and think about what I’m going to be able to do with it today.

These moments remind us how rewarding it is to do great work, to create, to delight. They also remind us that the moments of life are fleeting. In 2005, Steve Jobs’s commencement address at Stanford summarized several life lessons and inflection points, and borrowing from Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, suggested we “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” The text of that speech is below. Thank you Steve, for everything.

Here’s the speech:

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.

This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

This morning we officially announced that fortyninegroup is the new Sponsorship Sales and Strategic Marketing provider for Set Up Events.

Set Up Events was founded in 1994 by Bill and Lynda Scott. Bill has an extensive history in endurance sports and events. In the early ’80s, he worked at Southland Corporation, then owners of the 7-Eleven chain. Bill was behind the marketing of the famous 7-Eleven cycling team, with Eric Heiden (1980 Olympic Gold medalist in speed skating). Southland sponsored the cycling venue at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where nine Americans medaled. The 7-Eleven team turned pro after the Olympics, and went on to race the Giro d’Italia in 1985 and the Tour de France in 1986, becoming one of the major teams in international cycling. Which set the stage for the Motorola and US Postal teams to take over sponsorship from Southland in 1990.

Based in Wilmington, NC, Set Up Events has grown from 1 event in 1994 to well over 100 events in 2011 across 8 states in the mid-Atlantic region. Set Up is now one of the nation’s largest producers of triathlons. We’re extremely excited to be working with Bill and his team. As the sport of triathlon continues to grow, Set Up Events, and our Strategic Marketing and Sponsorship Sales will work to accelerate that growth with new events, new partnerships and new marketing initiatives. There’s something to be said for announcing this the week of  7.11 We’re looking forward to a great ride!

My much-beloved 2008 Specialized S-Works finally packed it in about 10 days before Ironman Florida. Seen here, during an IM race in 2008, the bike was extremely fast and I continued to get faster with it over the 2.5 years of riding it. But 10,000 miles and the extreme South Florida conditions of heat, salt and wet road training caused the steering to literally seize, meaning it was not all that safe to ride anymore! The frame has been shipped back to Specialized for their assessment. I love that bike… with that kind of mileage on it, at an average of 20 miles per hour, I’ve spent over 500 hours in its saddle. And at $4k for a frame, $8/hour is amazing entertainment value – especially considering the fitness level those hours provide as added value and benefits.

So I decided to move all the components over to a new frame, a Cervélo P4. Fellow Canadians Gerard Vroomen and Phil White have been building incredible performance and aero speed machines since 1995. Cervélo is typically the most common bike in any triathlon transition zone and the P4 represents their current highest design achievement and performance statement. Certainly it feels fast – I’ve only done about 100 miles on it so far to shake it out. However, at this level of bike performance, there is only an incremental difference between any two bikes. The true speed comes from the person in the saddle and Pros of the caliber of Fabian Cancellera, Chris Lieto or Chrissie Wellington would have blindingly fast TT times on either of these two bikes – once their fit is dialed in. I’m just a racy Age Group triathlete, but all the 100 mile training rides in September and October is making the P4 feel faster than the S-Works. It’s certainly stiffer, and holds its speed more easily. We got the fit very close by moving the S-Works measurements over. And I’ve only tweaked it slightly since. The P4 lets me stretch out and get even lower and more aero than on the S-Works, which is probably contributing its sense of speed. I’ll miss the S-Works, but I’m already looking forward to putting the P4 to the test in races in 2011.

My post last week about recent issues with World Triathlon Corporation was written before last Saturday’s Ironman 70.3 Miami. I didn’t race in that event for a couple of reasons. First, I was previously committed to Ironman Florida. Second, I had done a couple of races put on by Paramount Productions, the race director/production/promotion company. Both (Miami International Triathlon) events were terribly run races. The swim course was either too long or too short, there was broken glass all over the transition area – not a great situation for 2500 triathletes running through in bare feet, the run course layout was hazardous etc. So I didn’t have much hope for this event, and when I saw the initial Ironman 70.3 Miami course layout – which, btw, was revised at least 3 times in the year leading up to the day of the event – I knew the race would be a bust… a full-on amateur hour event, not at all worthy of the Ironman brand. I was still curious though, and when I was out for a run Saturday morning, I crossed the bike course a couple of times. Unfortunately, my preliminary suspicions were confirmed, and I only thin-sliced a perspective on the race. The bike drafting (which is illegal in Ironman events) was the worst I’d ever seen in any triathlon of any distance. Packs of 10-20 riders 3 and 4 wide and on each other’s wheels – almost impossible to officiate, even tougher to pass. Apparently, however, that was only one of the issues. The rest of the problems with the race are well documented on the race’s facebook page, race reports, and Slowtwitch.

WTC, who owns the Ironman brand, heard the complaints. Last evening an official response to complaints voiced about the race was posted on the ironman.com site. WTC is offering a free 2011 70.3 entry for any 2010 Miami competitors as a means of compensation for the atrocious event put on by Paramount. Good on them, it’s a gesture that the competitors and Ironman racers will appreciate to restore their confidence in the Ironman brand. Hopefully the race will be saved in some form.

Miami Man, a pre-existing 70.3 (but not WTC or Ironman branded event) has been a staple on the end of season Miami triathlon calendar for a number of years. It felt like the WTC 70.3 was placed on the calendar specifically to blow up Miami Man, which is an exceptionally well-run event. That hasn’t happened – if anything, this will only strengthen Miami Man. Here’s an idea. I have to think WTC will likely want to disassociate itself from Paramount completely at this point. Why not blow up MIT, Paramount’s spring race (now a 5i50) to compensate for the irreparable damage caused to the IM brand by Paramount. Miami can easily support two 70.3 races – apparently both within a month, but rather than disrupt the independent race, complement it with a March Miami Ironman 70.3 and flip the 5i50 to another date, or try moving it up the coast to Ft. Lauderdale or another city.

Yes, I’m passionate about this sport!

Interesting times for the World Triathlon Corporation, owners of the Ironman brand. As 1) a repeat Ironman competitor myself, at both full (140.6) and 70.3 distances, 2) a professional who works with brands everyday and 3) respects the Ironman brand… although I don’t have it tattooed on me… it’s intriguing to watch the stumbles made by WTC this year.

Ironman is one of the most revered human performance brands on the planet. Not only is it an extraordinary test of individual physical achievement and endurance, it’s one of the only sports where normal people can line up alongside world champions on the starting line. Because of what it takes to just complete an Ironman, competitors are passionate about the mark, as they are about the sport of triathlon. It’s a lot more than a Sunday afternoon thumb exercise to do a triathlon. And to complete an Ironman is a huge commitment for an individual, and usually for their family. So finishers, rightfully or not, feel they own a piece of the brand, which is why you see so many M-dot tattoos on competitors. Additionally, the sport of triathlon is exploding – as these stats from usatriathlon.org show.

In 2010, in addition to launching several new full Ironman and 70.3 series events, here is what WTC has done:

• They launched a magazine, Lava. OK… with the dead tree business in decline WTC is going against the grain. How many magazines has Conde Nast, Time Warner or Hearst launched in 2010. A better question would be – how many did they fold? Look, Ironman is trying, and  I suppose WTC could know the print business better than the aforementioned publishers, however isn’t it a matter of priorities and resource management? Ironman’s website truly does not do the brand justice. Especially when you compare it to any other major sports brand such as the NBA, MLB or NHL, or even the sport’s governing body usatriathlon.org or Slowtwitch, a site that does a phenomenal job of covering the sport of triathlon. Add to that underwhelming video coverage of events, weak social network integration, no iPhone or Android Apps, no iPad App. But a magazine… ok… why was that a priority again? Ego battle with Triathlete magazine perhaps? Ironman is not in the content creation, content packaging and content distribution business – it’s a brand licensing and brand marketing business. But if you’re going to play in or make a bet in the content world – better to make that bet with a medium that is growing (mobile), rather  than contracting (print).
• 5i50 or is it 5150. I’m confused. Is that still an Ironman, or what. Ironman is a platinum brand. Diluting the brand, devaluing the brand equity correspondingly devalues the enterprise. Earlier this month, WTC announced a new series of Olympic distance races called the 5i50. Sure WTC wants a piece of the action in shorter, entry level events – what’s next, Sprint distance races? The number of triathlons in the US alone has grown from 800 per year a decade ago to over 1800 today, so inevitably some Sprint-esque WTC event series will follow the 5i50 announcement. This only serves to weaken the core Ironman brand. Maybe you’ve heard of baseball… it’s played everywhere. But there is only one World Series. Find a way to work with the shorter races – provide entries to various IM events for series winners in regions. In other words, support the feeder, aspirational races to the benefit of the IM brand. But don’t steamroll them or be threatened by them and try to own the sport entirely. Nurture and protect the Ironman brand.
• It’s evidence of a systemic problem when the three-time Kona winner speaks out against World Triathlon Corporation. Such was the case earlier this year, when Chrissie Wellington, Kona’s 2007-2009 Women’s champ wrote this thoughtful and articulate post taking WTC to task for performance levels, registration fees and prize money. Ironman made Chrissie Wellington, but now Ironman needs her to be an inspiration for others to aspire to her level of success, and WTC needs her to be a proponent of the Ironman brand, not a detractor. Good for her for speaking out.
• And lastly… Wednesday evening I received an e-mail invitation to a new Ironman “Access” program. For a $1000 annual membership, I would be given opportunities to register in advance for selected IM events, 2 VIP passes per registered event, a one year subscription to Lava magazine(!), a 2011 Lottery entry and second chance, a 2010 Kona DVD, 20% off IM merch and a membership card. I don’t need to say how I felt. Triathlon is already an expensive sport. $550 to enter an event. You typically have to sign up a year in advance of an event. There is no transfer policy or rollover policy if you can’t make a race. I was supposed to race in the Ironman at Couer d’Alene in Idaho this past June, but couldn’t because of a foot injury encountered earlier in the year. I would have given… given my registration to another athlete to enjoy but couldn’t. I’ve recovered enough to do Ironman Florida this November, but that’s beside the point. WTC is owned by Providence Equity, a Private Equity firm which purchased WTC in 2008. Like any good PE, they’re probably looking for 50-100% ROI per year, as they should… that’s their business. If it feels like WTC stands for We’ll Take (Your) Cash, that’s why. Last night, I received a second e-mail, with a link to a video from Ben Fertic, WTC’s CEO. 24 hours later, Ironman canceled Access, as a result of the howling negative reaction to the program. So did WTC float Access or test a response to the program across a group of active Ironman competitors. Was the $500K the program might have drawn in worth the beating the brand and WTC took? Wouldn’t the time developing Access have better spent working on product licensing, sponsorship, applying positive attributes to the brand through Mobile Apps,or tweaking the site perhaps??? Maybe these tactics are all in progress. If not, my company would be pleased to help.

The fact is, Ironman is not Coke. People don’t tattoo a Coke logo on their legs, arms, neck or torso. They don’t define who they are through the mark on a can of soda. But they do with the M-dot, the Ironman logo. As a brand, Ironman needs to protect the incredible equity entrenched in that logo, and bounce every dumbass idea for the growth, pimping and exploitation of the brand against a series of enshrined core values. And it’s a challenge, to Watch The Core… to preserve the core brand equity and grow the business. But then, so is 140.6 miles of swimming, biking and running.

Looking back

I seldom look back on a week, preferring to always look ahead to the next week. Even rarer are the occasions when I would allow the occurrences to coalesce into a posting, but in the technology world, a lot has happened – one event was substantial in scale, others… smaller but portending the development and shaping of the future, and then… there is what is ahead! So here we go…

iPhone 4 – Like many others around the globe, I stood in line a week ago Thursday (June 24th). For 13 hours… which is a long time for just about anything. Fortunately, The Apple Store’s WiFi at The Falls in South Miami was working, so my iPad was in contact with the world, Victoria Secret let me charge my iPhone, and it was largely a productive and somewhat pleasurable day. While my iPad arrived on the release day, April 3rd, direct shipped from China, the last time I’d gone to a store to buy any new product on the day of release was in 1995 – August 24th, for Windows ’95. A lot can change in 15 years in the technology world. I expected that Apple would sell 2 million phones over the 4 days from Thursday through Sunday. This week, the 1.7 million number surfaced in reference to 3 days of sales. So 2 million over 4 days is probably light, irrespective of limited stock etc. The phone is great, for me – I’m not experiencing any antenna issues. I truly can’t believe how stunning the display is. Any CD covers in the iPod section look incredible. And FaceTime is amusing.

Kin – RIP – No surprise – As I wrote in April I indicated the prospects were grim for this device before launch. And since then, Robbie Bach and Jay Allard have exited Microsoft, the device was widely criticized, and it surfaced that that factional dissent existed between the flagging Windows Mobile and Kin teams – never a positive indicator for an aligned corporate strategy or a product’s potential. We may never know how many of these devices were sold – yes, the rumors were “around” 500. Nor could we calculate how many hundreds of millions this mistake cost Microsoft in cash outlay, lost opportunities, and reputation damage.

But certainly, iPhone 4′s first weekend sales killed the Kin.

Great week for Startups!

Woot! - Woot! gets acquired by amazon. After investing several million dollars into Woot in 2008, amazon fully immersed itself in the social commerce space by acquiring Woot.

Tapulous – Disney certainly had the inside knowledge of how successful Tap Tap Revenge is, through the tight relationship with Apple. Great to see this frugally funded startup joining a company with significant investments and acquisition successes in social and mobile properties.

TESLA – TESLA IPO’s – Behold the new Tesla Roadster. Stunning, quick, and green. Congratulations on being the first American automotive manufacturer to IPO in 54 years – not since Ford in 1956 has there been a new public company creating cars here. If only Silicon Valley’s speed of innovation had once been embraced by others in the automotive sector.

BuyWidget – One of our apps, BuyWidget, got mentioned in Billboard this week. As the music biz saying goes, you’re not a hit until you’re a hit in Billboard. Thanks for the mention! Thanks also to the many, many new sites who signed up for BuyWidget this week. Among them, one took me back a few years. Steve Kilbey was the unmistakable voice of The Church, whose big hit “Under The Milky Way” is still alluring, even a “few” years after it was first released. Steve has teamed up with Australian Martin Kennedy and has made some great new music. Check out their site, and this performance clip to hear what they’re creating.

Canada Day - Canada Day was July 1st. So, a belated Happy Canada Day to all my friends and family.

Looking ahead

July 3rd

I’m not much of a fan of Wimbledon, and the World Cup holds only a passing interest for me. But starting tomorrow I’ll undoubtedly be mesmerized for three weeks by the Tour de France. This year there are four strong teams in contention – Astana, Radio Shack, Saxo Bank and Cervelo – all with great riders, and the potential for great stories and drama. As I wrote a year ago, Lance Armstrong remains the story, but there are significant sidebars to be found along every mile of the ride. the race is defined in the Time Trials and mountain stages, so with the Prologue on the 3rd, mountains starting on the 8th, and final TT on the 24th, it will be an epic tour.

4th of July – Have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day!

Deep into some current client projects, I completely missed Patriots’ Day this past Monday. And so late Monday afternoon, I also realized that I’d missed this year’s running of the Boston Marathon. When I checked on the results, I was blown away by Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot’s winning men’s time 2:05:52 I was aware it was a new record, and quickly did some calculations in my head. Somewhere around 12.5 miles per hour, and under a 5 minute mile… for the entire race distance. Incredible!

There is a great review and analysis of the race over on The Science Of Sport. And if you want to understand what this pace, this feat means, here’s a fun way to compare it with only one mile as a target distance. Head over to your favorite gym and find an available treadmill. Do your stretching exercises, warm up on the treadmill if you prefer, with a short 0.25 run at a leisurely pace. Stop running and reset the treadmill if you’re warming up, otherwise,  just step on the treadmill. Set the speed for 7.5 miles per hour and start running. This is equivalent to a 3:30 marathon. After about 0.3 miles, start inching the speed up in 0.5 mph increments, every subsequent .05 miles, come up another half a mile per hour. By 0.5 miles of distance, you should be at 10 miles per hour. Keep going… when you feel  you’re maxed out on the top speed, try and hold it for the rest of the mile. If you keep increasing the speed, by 0.75 miles you’ll be at 12.5 mph, the winning Boston Marathon pace. All you have to do then is hold it for a quarter mile!

I’m no speed demon – but I don’t consider myself to be slow either. My marathon PR is 3:16 – my best on that particular day. There’s probably a faster time out there for me, I just haven’t had the forces combine to deliver it. It seemed like it took years to break 3:30 When I try this exercise, I would probably start out at a faster pace, as that’s what I’m accustomed to. But my top end for sustained turnover is around 11.5 mph, meaning over a quarter mile. I lose fluidity at anything above that and can’t hold the pace smoothly. I can hit 12. 5, but I get all herky jerky… my body just isn’t made for it nor is it accustomed to the cadence and stride required to maintain that pace. And bear in mind that a treadmill gives you a significant push over a road, there are likely studies that measure the differential, but I would guess it’s in the order of an extra 10% of speed when you get above 11 mph. Think about what it took to pull off that 2:05:52 the next time you hit the road or treadmill. I will. Oh, and Robert’s actual time per mile – 4:48

It’s always music that serves as a constant reminder of who I am, what and why I do what I do. Sure, a beautifully designed and executed website or consumer product, any buildings by the two Franks (Gehry and Lloyd Wright) and Paul Rudolph, the works of Miro, Pollock and Rothko will always stop me in my tracks, as will standing at the foot of any ancient mountain or looking across and expanse of open water.

But it’s the exceptional significance of music, and the place that it occupies in my mind for which I’ve reserved a more visceral, emotional appreciation. It’s probably lost on today’s consumer, or music fan, for whom music can be purely ephemeral to a widely fragmented array of experiences. For me, however, there is still a straight and direct line from a song I hear and know, through a collection of associated memories to an emotive response and the constant reminder of my identity. I suppose it can be attributed to just how much music I’ve listened to over the span of my life, and that it’s always been related to what I do in media and technology.

I remember an August morning, several years ago, when I was living in New York. Just the day before, I’d become a US Permanent Resident after a number of years of living and working under an O-1… and before that… an H-1B visa. I wanted to celebrate in a way that I usually celebrated a personal, professional or life accomplishment as well as the start of a new day… with a morning run around the 6 mile outer loop in Central Park. It was hot that morning, the sun was already up, reaching under the canopy. Heating up the moist overnight air that hung below the trees south of 75th. As I cruised up the east side of the loop, under the cat sculpture, around the Met, to where the loop runs parallel to 5th Avenue as you pass the Guggenheim, I noticed how quiet the park was that morning. It was, after all, August in New York where, in a city of 8 million people, you could find yourself alone. Or so you might think. So after dropping down toward Lenox, above the north transverse and adjacent to the Harlem Meer, where the road was empty, I started to hear this music. The volume increased as I continued to run north, then started the turn west at 110th. As I approached the source I recognized what the song was, and in a few more steps, looked up the hill on my left, and there was a guy, standing in among the trees, kind of dancing, gyrating to the music. And at his feet was a boombox. And out of that boombox, blared James Brown’s “Living In America”. And as I ran I smiled and choked in a mix of emotion that I can recall in an instant if I hear that song today. I remember at the time thinking… how strange… this song, this place, this moment… all three combining forces to enshrine the significance of a pivotal life change for me. The park has always had a special allure for me, and even with my new status, that morning’s run was like any of the thousands of other morning runs I’d done in the park. And living in Canada, some 25 years ago when that song was released, it held no special significance for me, other than recognizing its groove. And yet there it was that morning, and since that day,  it will always have a meaning, an association and a significance reserved for my most treasured musical recollections.

This has happened two other times… each occasion while running. A few days ago, I was on my usual 6 mile morning run. Perfect morning, cooler, sunny… best time of year in Miami, and seemingly a morning run like any of the thousands of other morning runs I’ve done along the same route. I went around the circle in  CocoPlum, and turned under the banyan trees onto Old Cutler, where the cars always accordion in the traffic flow. And right there, stopped, was a guy in a Mazda Miata, windows open, radio on. And out of the open windows came a song that is so woven into my psyche, so much a part of my past, as Miami, and running are part of my present and future… that I again asked, why this song, this place, this moment? Growing up in Canada, you could not avoid the influence of the music of The Guess Who. Randy Bachman’s writing, guitar playing, Burton Cummings’ vocals… stretching outward from the windripped wheatfields of Winnipeg, wrapping the country in their effusive prairie soul-sparkled rock. Cummings’ voice, some 40+ years on, still stands as one of the most recognizable in rock. And Bachman’s legacy… is ensured as a guitar icon with both The Guess Who and later, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, a writer of one of the most widely placed consumer product-associated songs – Takin’ Care Of Business, and lately, Guitarchives label owner… protecting the legacy of Lenny Breau and Howard Roberts. American Woman, No Sugar Tonight, These Eyes… these songs reached south from the 49th parallel… deep into the heart of America… and so, apparently, did No Time… all the way down to Coral Gables, Florida, and that morning run. And hearing it, I wondered if there was anyone, anyone around who would feel what I felt about that song, that place, that morning. How it’s as much a part of me as anything I know about myself. As while even photographic memories fade… the song remains the same.

And then there was the third occasion… here, in context from a previous post where I wrote about completing my first Ironman… “I was surprised I wasn’t more emotional at the finish or during my first Ironman. I remember vividly when I ran my first marathon, how at mile 22 there was nobody else around me, it had been raining in biblical proportions for the last 10 miles, I was trudging and sloshing along, my feet literally floating in my shoes, and there was a trailer at the side of the course in Kennedy Park on South Bayshore in the Grove, with a PA system playing out Bob Seger’s woefully overexposed GM soundtrack chorus “Like A Rock”. Music is such an emotional cue for me, and that song, at that moment, did me in that day – just the realization that I was about to do something I hadn’t really had as a life goal, but threw it out there, challenged myself and was on the threshold of completing it.”

So for me, this humbling synchronicity, this extraordinary triumvirate of “this song, this place, this moment”… frankly, I can’t experience it enough in this lifetime.

How could you not be completely blown away by Fabian Cancellera‘s performance at the Paris-Roubaix race last weekend. In a 145 mile ride race, he pulled away from the peleton with slightly under 30 miles to go, and finished a full 2 minutes ahead of second place… and this was after winning the Tour Of Flanders the previous weekend.

I don’t know how those guys do Paris-Roubaix. The Hell Of The North has to be the toughest one-day ride, if not one of the toughest rides in professional cycling. Sure, some of it is on asphalt, but it’s the sections between the asphalt that tests the riders. The cobblestones and the dust. The pounding those riders endure on the cobblestones has to be just unbelievable and unrelenting, even with the race-specific tires. I can’t ride on surfaces like that at all – the jarring is… well, there’s a road that takes you through Everglades National Park here. I’ve ridden it a bunch of times on century rides and training rides. And the only issue with it is the top layer of asphalt has really deteriorated. So it’s bumpy, quite bumpy… but it’s not cobblestones! And after about 10 minutes of riding on that crappy asphalt , I’m ready to pull over to the side, jump off the S-Works, and throw it as far as I can into the sawgrass and let the gators chomp it into tiny shreds of carbon. So how the pros maintain that for 6.5 hours is beyond me. And that’s not even considering the dust they are forced to inhale on the ride.

As I watched Cancellera’s astounding performance, I thought a lot about the way he rides. Fabian amazes me… he may never win the Tour, but he is an unbelievable Time Trialist – literally the fastest man on two wheels over a TT distance, and clearly one of the best one-day racers too. Now, triathletes have this ongoing debate about cadence. Some triathletes believe you need to turn over at around 95 rpm – a relatively high cadence. And there are those, like me, stump pullers who grind it out at around 72 or 73. I like it because I transition from the bike to the run more easily. That’s just me though. So if you compare Cancellera to a rider like Alberto Contador, last year’s Tour winner, Contador is this highly strung screaming little V-10 – an F1 racing engine that redlines at 19,000 RPMs. Cancellera, on the other hand, reminds me of an engine in a TVR I once owned. With a big beast of an aluminum V8, that had been tuned… not stressed or strained, but tuned, and completely optimized for its design. It was happy to cruise along all day at a low RPM, docile, and very polite, thank you… after all it was British, but if you ever needed to be reminded how much power it had or what lurked under the hood, all you had to do was just tip your right toe ever so slightly and awaken the beast. Cancellera reminds me of that beastly engine when you just stuck your foot well and truly in it… he’s on full song all the time, pulling from a bottomless reserve of torque, but doing it… seemingly effortlessly, and never, ever running out of gas.

This past Saturday, I competed in the Ironman Florida event in Panama City.

It was my second IM distance race (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile run). I managed to set a new PR of 11:00:13 and knocked 20 minutes off my time at an IM distance from October 2008. Overall, I was pleased with my performance in the race, and afterward I can typically see places where I could have shaved off even more time, as the clock is relentless. Plus, you learn during the race – about the course, and about yourself.

My training had been more rigorous than a year ago, when I had competed in a number of shorter distance and 70.3 races leading up to the IM. This year, I took a different tack. No short races, and instead I focused on distance training – building up my running distance to a peak of 180 miles over three weeks in late September/early October, which was a new personal distance record for that period. And I worked on my mental fitness for the perseverance required in the Ironman, I did a long run of 20 miles (just over 80 laps) around a track one Saturday. Add to that, several 100 mile rides on the weekends, and Tuesday/Thursday rides of 30 miles with a 6 mile run off the bike, or a 4 mile run before the ride, then 6  miles after. And more time in the pool – a lot more time in the pool!

So I felt my race prep was solid – I’d had a good taper, had put together an achievable race plan, and  the S-Works was tuned and ready, and I’d studied the course, current and weather patterns and prevailing winds. Panama City is a beach resort town, on the Gulf, which meant clear aqua waters, white sand and the inevitable beach attractions – it reminded me of Blackpool, England – with sort of a carnival atmosphere, but it was evident that the recession was hurting their primary industry. In spite of that, the volunteers (supposedly 3500 in total) were the best I’d ever encountered at any structured triathlon or marathon I’ve raced in. They were clearly appreciative of the 2500 athletes and their families and went beyond the call to assist in the pre/post and race support. Any negatives about the event would be the responsibility of the organizers, as we had to wait over 1 1/2 hours to check in at the athlete registration.

Race morning was cool (by Miami standards) and windy. There were breakers rolling in, and long period swells of about 2 feet in height out in the ocean. I’d tested the water the day before and it was flat and fast, but in open water swims, the conditions are always changeable. The 2500 Age Groupers (including me) took off in a mass start at 7AM Central for the two lap swim. It was immediately obvious it was going to be a tough swim, but after finishing my first lap in 37 minutes, I wasn’t disappointed. The swells picked up and the second loop was slower for most of the competitors – 42 minutes in my case. I threw away some time in T1, (probably 90 seconds) getting into arm warmers – next time I’ll try them under my wet suit. And then it was onto the bike.

I’d ridden the first 10 miles and the return previously, so that cut the “unknowns” down to 90 miles. And I expected that we’d have a headwind for the first 50 miles or so. Panama City is renown for drafting on the bike course. Above all, I want to run a clean race, so I avoid other riders, and pass them quickly when I come up on them. I’m well accustomed to the relentless pedaling and headwinds of Florida riding, where there are few opportunities to coast, and equally few hill climbs. I maintained my target pace of 20.5 mph on the first 50 miles of the ride, where as expected we turned and got a break from the headwinds. While there was still some battling of head and crosswinds on the second half, I was able to maintain a 21+ pace on the return. I found the bike segment to be well officiated, with packs in the penalty tents, serving their time. The cool weather, however, presented somewhat of a paradox. In hot weather training in Miami, you’re forced to take in huge amounts of fluids to offset dehydration on long rides. But at Panama City, I found that I was forcing myself to drink, and was worried about over or under hydrating in the cold. You’re always learning in this sport – especially on race day! My bike split was a 5:24 – a new PR and 6 minutes ahead of my race plan. I had wanted to be off the bike and on the run in 7 hours. I was one minute off.

I started the run strong – between 7.7 and 8.1 mph but cramped at mile 7, when the over-hydration from the bike caught up to me. I walked for a few minutes, while I waited for the race to come back to me, then gradually picked up the pace. I didn’t eat anything other than ice until mile 19, when I saw that the aid stations had oranges. A couple of those and I immediately felt stronger and turned up the pace. All the support stations and volunteers were fantastic, stocked and enthusiastic, and I loved the two-loop run course. My 3:58 run was well off my best (3:16), but decent given the hard ride and swim. As I came around to the finish straight, I saw the timing clock click over from 10:59:59 to 11:00:00 so cutting a sub-11 will have to wait until the next attempt. All I could think of was the places I’d left 14 seconds out on the course and in the transitions. This race was about being passed by people in the first 90 minutes, then spending the next 9 1/2 hours gaining all those positions and more back.

Now, the 2009 race season is wrapped up – I’ll probably do the A1A marathon in February, and a few prep races before the Couer d’Alene Ironman in June. I’ll be in the pool a lot over the winter… and I think I’ll be back in Panama City next year to take back those 14 seconds!