I finished the LA Marathon on Sunday in 6 hours and 30 minutes. Walking the whole thing straight would’ve been faster, and I was on track for a 5 hour and 45 minute marathon, but my foot blew out in the last 4 miles. There were lots of things that almost derailed this marathon, but I’m glad I did it. All the hard work paid off this time.

Hopefully, it’s nothing more than a muscle injury and not a fracture. I’ll find out soon.

There are 4 tools that really helped me out. I’ve tried a dozen tools but these 4 turned out to be the best of the lot.

Runkeeper was by far the best for daily use. I’ve tried different apps and even got a GPS enabled watch, but Runkeeper proved itself to be quite a bargain at around $10 USD .

Next up is the free Marathon Coach app by Running Method. It’s free but shouldn’t be used as a stand alone since it’s GPS features are quite buggy. However, the synergy you get when used with Runkeeper is excellent.

Tim Ferriss’ book, The Four Hour Body, really helped me out a bit. I experimented one week by reducing the amount mileage by 75% of my midweek run and replaced it with sprint work. This sprint work was provided by AccelerateSF at Kezar Stadium. These guys are great and train you for $5 / session by experienced marathoners and track runners. The result was a fast (for me) weekend run where I ran 10 miles in 2 hours and 5 minutes vs. a previous 2 hours and 10 minutes. What’s more is that this speed gain pretty much remained with me throughout training.

Rapid carbohydrate loading after a short bout of near maximal-intensity exercise is the last piece of technology that helped me. I didn’t hit the wall at all during the LA Marathon by following this program.

There were a few mistakes I made during training:

• Be sure to keep your nutrition levels up. I had a zinc deficiency that led to an infection. I did not eat enough protein or consume enough calcium in the beginning. The requirements for these double during training.
• I think the reason I got injured was because I didn’t have the year of running that is required as a base prior to any marathon training.

Marathon training is quite the commitment but I’m glad I did it!

(I also raised money for the American Heart Association as part of my marathon participation.)

We test so many phones at App Dev + Marketing because we are exploring the issues involved with tackling cross phone performance issues.

MyChamberApp is an app we created that works on

• Android
• iPhone
• Blackberry, and
• Mobile Web.

It leads to a lot of late nights and heartache but when you hear from a customer like the Vicksburg Chamber in Mississippi saying how pleased they are it makes it all worth it.

Right now I’m wrestling with Android issues which hopefully me and my team will fix tonight for our partners, Target Marketing aka Chamber Maps.

I got an iPhone 4 this weekend, and have been so happy with it. Here are the 3 reasons why:

• It is so much faster, 100 times faster on google maps. Apps that I stopped using because of the iOS 4 upgrade slowdown, I can now use again without issue.
• It takes great pictures and records HD video. You get 5 megapixels which is just 1 megapixel shy of a 3 year old Canon Elph.
• I think FaceTime is the bomb.

I am a bit bummed that I had to upgrade. The inconvenience makes Android look more attractive.

But if you’re still on 3G, I totally recommend the iPhone 4.

I like:

• folders, and
• photo zoom

I’m driving from LA to San Francisco today. I’m trying out the WordPress iPhone app to see how much it differs from the Desktop experience.

Great blogging tools make you more efficient. They can also help you drive more traffic to your site.

1 Camera+ brightens up your photos and makes them look so much better. You can share your photos on major social networks.

2 WordPress for the iPhone is a must. I’ve written posts on my iPhone and it’s a great tool. Whatever blogging software you use, make sure you find the one that works with your smart phone!

3 Seesmic for the iPhone allows you to share your blog post created on the go. If you use ping.fm you can share one blog post on linkedin.com, facebook, myspace, friendster, flickr, tumblr, twitter, and bebo in one status update!

4 Once you’ve posted your message, it’s time to study your Google Analytics. The only iPhone app that does this for me is Analytics Apps. At $6.99 it is pricy, but if you’re on the road lots, it’ll start paying for itself.

If you’re on WordPress 2.7+ and have lots of iPhone hits to your blog then get WPTouch, the plug-in that turns your website into an iPhone friendly site.

Trust me. It’s awesome!

I looked at the Linkedin, Flickr, and Facebook iPhone apps to see how secure they were.

When you log-in your password is safe and protected with SSL:

However, let’s say that you view your list of contacts on the LinkedIn iPhone app:

You’re basically giving away your contacts to the hacker at the cafe who is taking advantage of the fact that you’re using WiFi.

Here’s the scoop on the iPhone Apps.

Your data is not secure with these apps:

Flickr: Password Secure, Data not
Facebook: Password Secure, Data not
Linkedin: Password Secure, Data not

All your data is secure with these apps:

Gmail: Password Secure, Data Secure
Hushmail: Password Secure, Data Secure

Hushmail even has an option to turn off security, but why would you?