Merry Christmas to All

Christmas is here - well almost.  It's 8:00 in Utah on Christmas Eve.

Last night Amber, Susie and I went to Salt Lake for the Mannheim Steamroller concert.  This is the second time we've gone.  We went two years ago and enjoyed it immensely.  Last year we went to the Delta Center to see TSO (Trans Siberian Orchestra).  It was fun, but the mood wasn't the same and I much preferred Mannheim Steamroller.  I like TSO's music, but I didn't care for their performance.

About noon today I read an email that Mel sent me on Thursday.  She had already run about 13 miles.  I hadn't run anything - well that's not quite true.  I played 3 games of racquetball and shot hoops with the young men for about 2 hours.  Some stop and go running in those events, but nothing close to what Mel did.  I also did a 4 mile walk on Wednesday during my lunch hour.  I'm into a little cross training, don't want to get to sore from just running

I responded to Mel's email with my own stating what I had done during the week.  An hour later I got a message that she had just finished up a 5 mile run in 51:10.  Way to go MEL.

I've been a competitive guy lately, it runs in the family.  I think I got it from Justin and Jason.  When we lived in California I took Mel with me and the scouts on a hike up Mt. Baldy (10,068 feet) when she was no more than 9.  All the boys took off, Mel and I just hiked at our own pace and we caught up to the troop when they all stopped at a creek for a break.  Mel wanted to keep going, so we did. Half of the scouts jumped up and ran to get ahead - can't let a 9 year old girl beat them to the top.  As we continued to hike & climb, we passed more and more of the boys.  By the time we got to the top.  The only boys that were ahead of us were Justin and Jason.  I think they would have rather died than to let their little sister beat them to the top.

So I packed up my stuff and headed to the base gym.  I spent 29 minutes on a treadmill (lots of motion, no progress - felt like a squirrel in a cage) before it crapped out so I switched to running circles around the indoor track (10 laps for 1 mile).  Now I'm making progress and running in circles is a little bit better than running in a squirrel cage, but harder to keep my speed constant.

Final result, I ran 6.3 miles in 58:10 miles.

Thank's Mel for the motivation.

Merry Christmas Feliz Navidad