The BAA warning before the race was pointed: If you had never run a marathon or had not run in these conditions, they recommended you bag. I realized if I ran in the 88 degree heat, next time that warning wouldn’t mean me!

So the moral of my story: I got greedy. Inexperience told me to add a half-minute to my planned 8.5 pace. Ha! More like two minutes. The BAA warning mentioned adding two minutes per mile, too. If I was realistic, I should have targeted a 10 minute pace, and maybe the plan would work out for 4:20. Maybe. That was the best I could have hoped for. In reality, I ran it in 4:38:03, and I consider the 18 minute extra time to be my punishment, and I’ll take it. The weather was a huge deal for everyone, even for the winner. The word of the day was ‘Brutal’.

Now on to the fun stuff (I’m typing this on an iPad. Why am I typing this on an iPad?): The crowds are awesome. They screamed and made noise whole way. The guardsmen were everywhere. I saw the full-dressed Marines out there. Inspiring!

At some places there were bands playing on trucks or on a lawn. A blues outfit, a bluegrass band, a horn ensemble, and some drum circles. There were some funny signs that I can’t remember. One spectator wore a shirt that read, “Running Sucks”. I was running in pace with a bandit crew from BC (unregistered runners). They got big cheers from their crowd when we reached the school.

I didn’t see any people fall, but I did see runners resting in the shade, being helped by police and volunteers. The volunteers were exceptional. So much work goes into this thing that a staggering number of volunteers are needed. And they get a cool jacket. Orange this year.

I started feeling cramps after the hills. There are four miles on Beacon Street that deserve mention. By this point you want it over. The crowd is loudest here, and tend to yell stuff like “Four miles left! Almost there!” And you feel like you have to oblige.

They really do provide a boost, but at this point swerving over to the edge to high five and whoop back with them uses precious energy. Of course that didn’t stop me. I knew this stretch would be my nemesis, so anything to have fun. One group had a sign for someone named Skip, so I started skipping, and a couple other runners joined me. There was a percussion group banging away, so I gave them a taste of my weird brand of step dancing. More cramps.

At the end, some runners spread their arms wide and ‘flew’ serpentine toward the finish, I didn’t do this, but I did run that last mile. I ran the entire Kenmore stretch (this is where you get seen on the news, doncha know), and just ran through the cramps. Probably stupid, but it’s in the books now, and we’re uninjured.

So, now what?

How about 5k on Tuesday? You can’t say you ran 5k the day after the Boston Marathon unless you run 5k on the day after the Boston Marathon. So I did.

I never went much beyond that, mostly because the tool is no longer highly visible in Facebook. It’s hidden among all the other stuff that has adhered like barnacles to the right side of the screen. Or maybe it’s only in the feed view and not my account view, or whatever.

The people appearing there nowadays are further from my friend window. Maybe people I know from business, friends of friends, wives of friends, bandmates of friends. For the business peeps, there’s LinkedIn, and for everyone else, let’s call it NothingBook.

Now about Google+. I am following several actual friends, but haven’t gone far beyond 40 or so. I’m looking at the “You May Know” box right now, and it’s filled with people I most completely do not know at all. Matt Cutts. Don’t know him. Pete Cashmore. Don’t know him. Ricki Lake. Don’t know her. Did we go to high school together? College? Spouse of a second cousin? Are these people from the gMail contact lists of people I do follow?

Yes, I know these people are famous. But they’re not friends. Are Pete Cashmore and I going on a mountain bike ride this weekend? Does Matt Cutts need directions to my daughter’s party? Do I owe Ricki Lake an updated article? If I want the Mashable feed, there’s a website for that. It’s called Mashable.

The bottom line? I’m using Google+ because A) I’m in marketing and am therefore ‘supposed’ to, and B) Google is using it for search results and that means I have to. If Google, master of the algorithm, figures out how to prompt me to add people who are actually friends, I’ll be more than happy to raise my game here.

Until then, I’m over at Facebook.

To many people, that means nothing. It looks like some kind of running stat, like that annoying cousin, the triathlete or something, is always talking about. Normal people talk about Final Fours, Yards per carry, and RBIs. You can stuff your 42 minute 10Ks.

Real runners don’t care much for numbers like that either. They run a 5-minute mile, not a pokey 8. A 42 minute 10K is the mark of a piker.

Well, this piker is pretty darn proud of the number. I turned it in this morning, one week before my first Boston Marathon. I’m in ‘taper’ mode, which means I’m not supposed to be running very much during the 2 to 3 weeks before race day. After 5 months of training at distances of more than 20 miles, the heart, lungs, legs, stomach and mind are ready.

Well, I’m ready.

A lot of real runners have been running since they were stars on the high school track team, so they turn in times like 25 minutes for a 10K and 2:30:00 for marathons. I’ve never seen these folks while training. Most of the people I see while running are doing about my pace. The fast folks must train in some exclusive village they never tell us about.

Come to think of it, I hardly see these folks during the race either. Before the run, I can’t tell which ones they are until they gravitate to the front of the starting line. Then they’re gone like a bullet at the gun, and are dressed and fed and outta there before I hit mile 10. But still, the race people keep the barriers up and keep boxes of bagels out so people like me can finish. Nice of them, really.

So why do people like me run marathons?

• A vain search for the fountain of youth?
• The manifestation of a serious midlife crisis?
• The dumbest weight-loss program ever?
• A thinly-veiled substitute for a depressing lack of career success?
• An attempt to ‘get fit so I can play with my kids’ that results in being too tired to play with my kids?

The fact is there are a lot of people like me, who were not track stars, but just want to run. Maybe it was just a way to keep fit, but then we get fitter, and faster, then suddenly we get the notion that we can enter the realm of real athletes. That’s kinda how I feel about the Boston Marathon, like it’s hallowed ground. Thanks to Team Playworks, the awesome charity I am running for, and a lot of great people who have donated and helped me raise money, I’m allowed to touch it and graze the grasses of greatness for just a few hours. It’s a little awe-inspiring and overwhelming.

It’ll be hard to feel like I belong on the course, and it’ll be hard to overcome the crowds, the adrenaline rush, and the runner’s high. I already know it’ll be hard to push the last few miles if I’m not disciplined about the early ones. If I want that late kick, I need to watch the pace, take care on the hills, watch my water and gel intake, keep a light step, and just let the ground coast under me like I’m a leaf on the wind.

Whoa, those are things real runners say. Like I said, I’m ready.

Normally that wouldn’t bother me at all, but this year is a little different. This time I’m supposed to run in it.

It’s 26 miles. 26.2 actually, as any marathoner will probably point out. I’ve run 5 miles. Even 10. But that’s always been my limit. I don’t think it was physical as much as mental. Running 10 miles takes an hour and a half. That could be a movie. Instead, I’ve chosen to spend that time pounding my legs into pavement listening to an iPhone shuffle playlist that is short enough to call up Barry Manilow twice.

Barry Manilow. Twice.

And now I’ve signed on to run more than twice that distance. No iPhone allowed.

But I have learned some things. First, I’ve learned that a die-hard skier can actually shift priorities. This was probably the mildest winter I can remember in awhile. As a lifelong skier, I’m sure feeling a bit torn about my good luck with the weather. If there was ever a winter to keep the skis in the cellar and train for a marathon instead, this was it.

I’ve already been telling people this was my plan all along, because I knew, (yes, KNEW) this was going to be a warm, dry winter with the roads clear of slush and sand and the temperature a balmy 20 degrees for my 5AM runs.

I’ve learned whenever I’ve heard runners say: “If you can run two miles you can run anything.”, “If you can run 16 miles you can run a marathon.” it’s emphatically NOT true. I cannot run 10 miles if I don’t get used to running 6. I could never run 13 without first running 10. And so it goes. The 26.2 mile distance is only getting HARDER to reach as I start running 18, 20 and 22 miles.

I learned to be cavalier about injuries. Is that a bone spur? Is that an IT band? Is that tendinitis? Did I just jam an ankle doing something really stupid at the playground with the kids? Let’s run it out. Let’s put in 3 miles and see if it goes away. I have to put 22 miles on this ankle tomorrow.

I learned about ice.

Speaking of that, for the first time in my life, I’ve learned what it felt like to be unconsolably cold. A long run takes so much out of you that I now have this unnerving need to bundle up right afterward and just be warm. Now. This is a concern because I always want to be a northerner, but I think it’s because endurance training draws down every ounce of energy I have.

About that, I knew my legs and ankles would feel it, and I knew my mind would be tested. I wasn’t ready for the gastrointestinal issues associated with distance running but that’s now under control.

I’ve learned that my heart and lungs actually work really well during a run even though I’m slightly asthmatic. In fact, I’ve become annoyed that I can’t get my heart rate up anymore during regular exercise.

The biggest energy effect I wasn’t ready for? The crushing stupidity. After three hours running the road, I’m a much bigger moron than usual. Alcohol wears off in a day, and I assume other popular imbibed and inhaled substances wear off overnight. But running 20 miles puts me in a should-not-drive-should-not-use-scissors-should-not-be-put-in-charge-of-children stupor that can linger for days.

I learned that runners see a lot of sunrises from the road. More than that, after a year of hiking and running, I’ve become far more claustrophobic. I can’t stand being indoors. But I consider this a happy discovery.

I’ve learned that it’s possible to raise ridiculous amounts of money from friends and family, but it’s hard for someone like me who hates asking. You have to. You just do. And many amazing people will come through for you and the Playworks cause.

I’ve learned that I like this. I’ve learned that it is possible to see runners on the street and wish I was out there. I can sit up and say “You know what? I feel like a quick 5 miles.”

Most importantly, I’ve learned that I can do this.

I first heard about Pinterest only a few weeks ago. Apparently it’s the latest fad in social media. But what the hell is it? I wondered. I went to the site and saw a massive array of gorgeous photos of stuff that looked a bit too upper-class for my taste.

“It’s a pinboard!” I was told. Now, pinboard was a brand new word to me. Yes, I’m 40, and I got all this way without ever hearing about pinboards. Now here’s Pinterest, supposed to be this big public ‘pinboard’, and not only was I totally in the dark about the site, but the idea it was based on.

I asked my wife. “You know, it’s a board you pin stuff to, like the one in the kitchen,” she said. She meant the corkboard where we stuck calendars and notices from the public school.

But a pinboard is apparently not a thing; It’s a concept. Maybe like a scrapbook? I wondered. ”That’s where you put pictures and souvenirs,” she said. ”Of stuff you’ve done.”

So she didn’t know either. Neither did the next several people I asked. It was dawning on me that we here on the east coast may have no idea what a pinboard, the very concept that Pinterest is based on, actually is.

Maybe it’s a class thing? You just have to be in a certain income bracket? Or maybe it’s an age thing? Or a taste thing? A regional thing?

Anyway, a pinboard is a place where you put up pictures of stuff you really want. The idea is that if you affirm your desires every day, they will come true.

Gag me.

Basically, to even know what a pinboard is, you have to watch Oprah or Martha Stewart (Actually, being from the east coast, I wonder if Martha even knew). To have ever used a pinboard, you have to be a thirty-something woman from the midwest. Maybe they do these in the South, too, I don’t know.

What I do know is: TO REALLY BE A HUGE SOCIAL MEDIA SENSATION FOR THE LONG TERM, YOU HAVE TO APPEAL TO CYNICAL PEOPLE WITH DARK SENSES OF HUMOR AND LITTLE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.

And that’s what’s wrong with Pinterest. To be a fan, you have to be a person who believes, really BELIEVES that dreams can come true if you just pin them to a wall somewhere and share them.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but in my experience, the best way to assure that something will never happen is to want it really bad. The last thing I ever want to do is tell people about my hopes and dreams, so I can be mocked years later after they never happened. “Still have the picture of that sailboat, Tom? Heh heh.”

Shut up.

So my Pinterest site is full of photos of stuff I’ve done, and things I already have, as well as some really ham-handed attempts at inspirational messages. I suck at that. I’m basically using it as a scoreboard, not a pinboard. This is why I didn’t get it at first. This is also why my pictures are terrible compared to the gorgeous cover shots offered by merchants for thirty-something Oprah-watching women from the midwest to share and pin to their own boards.

I’m sorry, I just can’t see guys posting pics of cars they want or golf vacations they’d love to take on Pinterest. I also can’t imagine young urban types posting shots of zombie video games, black t-shirts, and music that isn’t Yanni. The minute Pinterest goes that way, the party will be over, the way it was when your mom joined Facebook.

So kids, hurry over to Pinterest to wreck it for mom. Payback, I guess?

UPDATE: I hope folks see my attempt at humor here. A recent post of mine to Pinterest has garnered 25 repins, so maybe I’m figuring it out after all. Now where can I get a DVD of Oprah seasons 1,2 & 3!

I may never again get the chance to sit down and do this. You are two active, precocious, lovable, beautiful children who create your own energy together, the way an intense fire creates its own whirlwind. You spin and fly and run and think, and the threshold where I can no longer keep up is rapidly approaching.

Before frustration causes me to forget what I believe when it comes to parenting, I wanted to put my promises to you in writing.

I will try to be a different kind of parent. I’m sure everyone says this, but this is more and more a world of hate and ignorance, where a lot of people get their principles from a mob mentality. It is dangerous and I will not be a part of it.

I will always try to earn your trust and respect, not to demand or expect it from you without deserving it.

I will be less than perfect, and we will not always agree. You may hate me for what I do, but I will always try to do what is right and what is best for you and for our family, not for myself.

I will never try to humiliate you, especially in front of your friends (though I may sometimes be inadvertently embarrassing).

I will never lash out against you when I am hurt.

I will not try to be your friend, but will use my experience as an adult who was once a child, to guide you and lead you.

I will also let you lead me.

I will never, ever act like a child to punish you. I will sometimes act like a child when it drives us closer, not further apart.

I will never try to alienate you. You will feel like hitting me at times, and you even will. I will never retaliate with violence.

Yes, I will spoil you.

I promise to lose games to you. I promise to lose races to you. I promise to never keep score.

I promise that you can say anything you want to me, and you can also keep secrets from me.

I promise that you can complain and vent about me, to whomever you want, and I will not respond in kind.

I promise to laugh at your jokes and cry when you hurt me, but I will never try to hurt you back.

I will to never try to intimidate or bully you.

I will fail at times, but I will always try to fix my mistakes.

I will not make sense all the time, and you will hate me for it.

I promise that I will know this.

I will silently weep in frustration as I watch you copy my own mistakes. I may try to help you avoid them, and I may stand by while you resist. I will not get in your way when you make your own decisions.

I will try to help you see and experience as much as I can give you, and it will be much more than I ever knew myself.

I will offer unqualified support and hope.

I will give you opportunities, not chores.

I will give you chances, not strikes.

I will give you wings, not shackles.

I will love you, no matter what you do or say.

It is not just love that matters, but what we do with it. I promise that I will use it to be your foundation.

I will be your ground, and the sky will be your limit.

Sincerely,

Your father, Tom Bishop

For learning to use one of these sites, it’s not really a matter of how, since they’re all pretty easy. They may have their own set of normal practices, and you may look like a terminal noob if you don’t adhere to them, but how much you care about that is driven by your own practices. You either think and act like Google+ or you don’t. If you do, you’ll focus your efforts on that site. If you don’t, you’ll drift away.

Within the next year, I think the shakeout will begin in earnest. When the dust clears, we won’t all be using every tool in a way that is ravenous toward some and pathetic toward others. I’d make the soft drink metaphor but it’s been done.

So it’s time to lay down the cards. Which is best for you?

First the Times claimed it was spam, then blamed their email service provider Epsilon, and finally fessed up; The Times did it themselves.

As I’m sure we’re all wondering: How exactly did it happen? And how can you avoid it? Only people at the Times know for sure, but it’s possible, in fact easy, to guess. In fact, it’s a worthwhile exercise, because it may help you to avoid copying their mistake.

Let’s consider what we know:

• The email itself is of the ‘transactional’ variety, designed to be sent to people who canceled their subscription recently, supposedly about 300 people, not 8.6 million.
• It is very likely that the emails were triggered to send immediately after some change in the database, like an upload of canceled subscribers. This may have been automated or transferred as a .CSV or some other kind of data file compiled by the circulation department.
• It is likely that the Times uploaded, updated or moved their entire subscriber database, changing the field that is used to trigger the cancel emails, which is how 8.6 million people would wind up in the ‘Canceled’ category.
• If the database driving the auto-trigger is part of a web analytics platform or the site’s backend, it could have been altered by another department doing something that was considered purely technical and unrelated. This could mean the marketing and circulation departments had nothing to do with this. The database update was made by people whose primary focus is elsewhere, and whom are not familiar with the email system.
• Or, it is possible that someone in the marketing or circulation department was playing with the database, maybe ‘cleaning up’ fields, without considering the consequences.
• Finally, while it’s interesting to imagine that someone pressed the wrong button somewhere. It may have been an automatic change triggered a long time ago, when somebody set a transactional mailing to run for a very long time, like 24 months, before expiring and throwing the emails into the regular queue.

What doesn’t seem likely is that someone manually set up the ‘Cancellation’ email and selected the entire database by accident. I’d like to think the people at the Times are beyond that.

The bottom line:

Today’s most advanced email systems have a lot of moving parts, including triggers and filters, database connections, hundreds of fields, countless segments, dynamic content, differing browser compatibility, myriad admin levels, and multiple departments with people of varied experience. How many marketers have made manual uploads, global field changes, or set up automated systems and made a few compromises?

It isn’t just a matter of testing the content and using a browser with your email platform (though these measures help). You have to run all the scenarios. You have to think about the worst case outcome before uploading a file, integrating a database, eliminating or merging a field, or setting up a trigger.

Somebody within the New York Times is being called onto the carpet, where the explanation may be too technical and complex for the bosses to understand. That somebody, who may or may not even be at fault, is headed for the door. Don’t be that person.

Email is an extremely powerful communications tool. And remember, with great power…

Crossposted at The Net Atlantic Email Marketing Blog

Why do social media marketing ideas sometimes fail so grotesquely? Sometimes the idea is truly idiotic, or malformed, or naive. #McDStories is different. It actually seemed like a good idea for a well-known brand like McDonalds, which trades on convenience, cost, speed and a chipper all-American wholesomeness. The problem is that McDonalds is well-known to different people for different reasons.

Creating a hashtag is like naming a child. You’d like him to get through kindergarten without being tormented because of his name. But you’ll never know if the name you give him at birth will be considered wierd by the other kids, or so popular that he sinks into a sea of Coreys or Parkers. If an infamous criminal or Hollywood star arises with the same name, you can’t control that. So you choose a name and bear it. That’s what McDonalds did.

So what was the mistake?

In using the #McDStories hashtag, their first few posts were about the people who provide the restaurant chain with raw materials, such as farmers. The genesis of their error resides here, because it led Twitter users to align the campaign with where McDonalds gets their food, not the family-friendly sappiness the brand offers to the public.

No doubt McDonalds was hoping that the campaign would morph into people posting about the time they took the kids’ soccer team out for burgers, held a birthday party, found a much-needed rest stop on a long trip, or shared moments after a fun day out. In other words, they needed parents; People like me, who actually have stories like this but have no time to tweet about it. Why? Because we have kids.

So they reached a different audience instead; Socially plugged-in, cynical, humorous young adults without kids, who do have time to tweet about an unethical brand they abandoned long ago and don’t believe in.

Could it have been avoided?

It actually could have been, if McDonalds used their legendary brand awareness acumen to appeal to their traditional audience with a broader campaign. In other words, soften the ground with radio, television, and parent-oriented websites, infusing the hashtag with the kind of stories they want their audience to tell, and invite them to use it on social media platforms. McDonalds is not grassroots, and can never be. Even parents like me see it as a necessary evil. It can not drive a social campaign that is not top down. Period.

Here’s the worst part: This social campaign was clearly attempted without any such strategy, and #McDStories backfired, so there’s that. But this is really a tragic double-fail. Here’s why: the notion of using real customer stories to strengthen McDonalds’ community relations, a very powerful idea that is well-aligned with their brand, is now dead. Not just the hashtag; but any stories at all.

There is one silver lining: Clearly, McDonalds has learned that it should never, ever, remind people that its food once ever existed as chickens, beef steers, or potatos.