The Week in Review

Another great picture of the Bavarian Alps in winter. I'm excited because next weekend we head north to the town of Oberhof. It's home to exceptional cross country skiing, ski jumping, Luge and hosted World Cup Biathlon in January. The Snow has been spotty in Germany this year but hopefully there will be enough for the Jewell Family to hit the Ski Tracks.

Work

The week was spent concentrating on the Fall 2009 product briefs. On Thursday we turned our ideas over to the design group so they could start designing. It's always a bit strange replacing a shoe that hasn't even hit the market yet but that's how far in advance we work. Mary and I were having an interesting coversation about what I do. As I have said before the place is full of big ego. It kind of makes sense because just about everyone at adidas comes from sport. On my team are former national champions in track and cross country, over in football (soccer) there are former professional players. So you don't get to those levels of sport without competitive egos. Anyway our conversation was about shoes. The shoe business is very competitive and you can get carried away with the sporting competition of crushing the other shoe companies. Mary being the more level headed in our marriage said "It's just shoes, if adidas went away today, it wouldn't be a big thing to the world in total". I agreed with her about the shoes but I said my job has nothing to do with shoes. My job has everything to do with people and I firmly believe that. My job is to elevate the people around me and to teach the young folks well enough to do my job better in the future. At the same time I have this altruistic view that I am helping to make running more pleasurable in some way. At least that's how I view the products.

Marco

The poor kid was sick two weeks ago and missed the 3 available days of school. This week he had two weeks of homework to do. With very few complaints he pushed through all of it. As a Dad, I'm very proud of the work he did. He has an amazing work ethic, again probably thanks to his mom. Tonight I invited him to join me in my core workout. Aside from the close grip push ups, he did the entire workout without breaking a sweat.

Workouts

This is testing week. I am excited to see where I am. Thursday will be the bike test, Friday the run test and maybe Wednesday or Sunday the Swim test. There has to be some flexibility. I am driven by my friends Mike Jacobs and Peg Compton. Both ran the San Dieguito 1/2 marathon last weekend and both did exceptionally well. Mike ran his fastest time in 5 years. That's good for a 40 something guy. Peg ran really close to the same time she and I ran a few years and 2 babies ago for her. So it's up to me to carry on and better myself this week.

Politics

I've decided this is a Politic free Blog. Yes, I know I posted a rant a few weeks back and that is why it's Politics free. There is enough reporting on all of that. We don't need me chiming in.