The Jingle Bob

Whew, what a week. I made it home Friday afternoon after a week away, 8 airline flights, 3 hotels, countless hours in airports, 3 orthodontists and a trail marathon to boot. I realize this is just a normal week for some people, especially in sales, but for me it was way out of the ordinary.

In Louisville I was pretty much out in the suburbs. My observations of KY is that they must be the most patient people in the US or we in California are the most impatient. The traffic lights last longer than any lights I can remember, up to 2 to 3 minutes. Here in CA if you wait 60 seconds before it changes you've waited a long time. The other observation is that its a good thing I only spent 3 days there, longer than that and I might have become a country music fan.

I arrived in Montreal on Tuesday in the dark and spent all of Wednesday in an orthodontic office until after sundown again. The sales guy and I made the three hour drive to Quebec. He drove me through old Quebec City for a quick tour. It is a very beautiful "Old World" City, decorated very nicely for Christmas. The following day was spent at another orthodontist, then off for the return to Montreal again in the dark (the days in Canada are quite short). We had dinner in the old section of Montreal. It is a very eclectic mix of old multi-story town homes and all manner of shops and boutiques for blocks on end, a very walkable city. I would definitely like to visit again under different circumstances. I was also quite lucky with the weather in the 30's and no snow. The product was well received by orthodontists and staff alike. I feel very fortunate that this is the case, it is not always so and would make my job far more challenging.

I came home to multitude of emails and phone calls that needed to be returned. Being out of the office isn't all its cracked up to be.

On the running front, I took the week off since Otter Creek. I usually take a week off after a marathon but this week there simply was no time to run even if I had wanted to. This morning I met up with my old Cruiser buddies for the "4th not so annual" Jingle Bob. It was started back in 1999 but has not run continuously. This was a 3 mile fun run organized by the coach at Snail's Pace, Brea for the benefit of the underprivileged in Santa Ana. Entry fee was $5 and a gift certificate or unwrapped toy. Several of the cruisers assisted as course volunteers. There was no on course aid station and post race food was potluck style. The finisher's medals were clay snails hand made by the 6th grade students of a CA Cruiser, each one unique in size, color and decoration. Awards were given out to the first and last male and female, as well as first dogs and most festive costumes. About a dozen door prizes were given away. I won a gift certificate for a free haircut.

The course was a three mile loop through Yorba Linda Regional Park. The park is adjacent to the Santa Ana Bike Trail that we run most weekends. It turns out that there is a small lake in the park that I've never been aware of in three years of running the trail. The lake is within sight of the path if I knew to look for it. There were about 60 racers. We took off and we fell into sequence almost immediately. There were two men, two women and two 12 year old guys ahead of me. I overtook the two kids within the first mile and continued to trail the adults for the remainder of the race. The route took us east along the dirt path for a loop and a half around the lake then back west down the dirt path. I ended up finishing 5th overall, with a time of 22:06 (7:22 pace). My original goal was to just have fun but once I was off near the front of the pack I had to keep going. I'm pretty happy with this result coming off two marathons and no speed work and the fact that my 5k PR pace is 7:04.