Memo to self: Don’t spend 10 hours at ACL next year the same day I do a long run.

I don’t want to say a lot of people were blowing smoke in my face at ACL, but Mount St. Helen’s called and needs its smoke back. Seriously, if the city had taken a referendum about the new smoking ordinance at ACL, we might have ended up with mandatory, one cigarette a day minimum.

But the music? Way beyond insanely incredible. For me, the highlights were String Cheese, New Pornographers, Deadboy and the Elephantmen, Ben Harper, Galactic and Austin’s own syntillating Del Castillo and my favorite expats, The Greencards.

Lowlights: Nickel Creek (bored and ready to call it quits) and Los Lonely Boys (one-hit wonders?).

• Patrick Evoe, who trains with Gilbert’s Gazelles, won the USA Triathlon Halfmax National Champs last weekend in Innsbrook, Missouri, outside of St. Louis. Evoe’s time of 4:04:53 for the half-Ironman distance topped the field. He ran 1:19 for the half-marathon.
• Our favorite running chiro—Dr. Steve Minors—is limping around his Lake Austin Blvd. office. Seems he suffered a stress fracture of his foot. Sort of a running injury. Steve fractured his foot chasing his oldest son around Mike Myers Stadium at the Marathon Kids opener last Saturday.
• Speaking of favorite running docs, Dr. Ted Spears and his Sports Performance International group has moved from its downtown location (right next to RunTex) to the Arboretum Atrium on Great Hills Trail in northwest Austin. Their new facility has much more room and its own MRI on the premises.
• Another running-related business on the move is Betty Sport. Business has been booming for this upscale women’s active wear business on 12th Street. They will be opening a second Betty Sport in the new Domain shopping center in March in northwest Austin off MoPac.
• Great job by Nancy Dasso in her first Ironman race. She finished the Ironman Wisconsin in Madison in 14:11 despite miserable conditions. The next day she did a 20-miler in Austin with training buddy Paul Williams in anticipation of their double marathon next weekend: A marathon in New Hampshire on Saturday and then another 26-miler in Portland, Maine the next day.
• Starting to hear that the Olympic Development program that was such a success at last year’s Austin Marathon, won’t continue in ’07. Too bad. It added plenty of luster to the marathon.
• It looks like Lance Parker has settled on the California International Marathon in Sacramento in December to take a shot at running the Olympic Trials qualifying standard of 2:22 or faster. Gilbert Tuhabonye is talking about running it with Lance.
• You’ve probably heard the “other” Lance is running the New York City Marathon. Armstrong says he hasn’t done any runs longer than 13 miles in preparation for NYC, but wants to finish within an hour of the winner. Good luck. He obviously has a great engine, but can’t help but wonder how the pistons are gonna feel in the hills of Central Park.
• Ruth England reports that Rogue is starting a weekly spinning class—just for runners. Starting next month, the class will be held every Thursday night for 90 minutes at the downtown RunTex with a long ride on Sunday. The class will be presided over by former stud-ette Laura Ruthven. Call Ruth at Rogue for details.
• Carmen Troncoso is running the National Masters 5-K Cross-Country Championships in Saratoga Springs, New York and then on Columbus Day, she and good friend Cassie Henkiel will run the Tufts 10-K For Women in Boston. For Cassie, it’ll give her a look at the ’08 Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials course which will use part of the Tufts course.
• Ever look back wistfully to the days when you ran high-school cross-country in Adidas Country shoes? Yeah, me too. A new event in town will give you a chance to relive and rehash those glory years. It’s called the Texas Cross-Country Invite and it’ll be held on October 14th at Hancock Golf Course. There will be a UT dual meet at 8 a.m. with a bunch of Texas collegiate teams, followed by a high-school invite and then, age groups for bragging rights and even some kids’ races. 
• And, by the way, much appreciate the aonymous donor who forwarded two pairs of my favorite training shoe which Nike saw fit to discontinue. Thanks man.
• See you at IBM Uptown Classic next Sunday—the first race in the Distance Challenge. Just got word that Jody Hawkins is running. If we get good (i.e., cool) weather, PRs should fall all over the place.
• Got any news, notes or idle gossip? If you do, just email it to me wish@runtex.com.