A few months back I posted about Mud. For a number of weeks Mud was our life. Mud on the Dog, Mud and Marco and Mud on me daily from the bike or running. Well the Mud is back and I'm happy! That's right, I'm happy the Mud is back. Yesterday I had to ride my mountain bike home from work. It was raining and the trails were thick. Mud in my face covering my glasses in my ears. I loved it! It's amazing how you can hate it one time and then it doesn't seem so bad the second time around. I even predicted it would be back and I don't mind. During the ride yesterday my hands didn't hurt from the cold. I could feel my toes. I was actually riding on trails and not on Ice. During the 6 weeks of Mud last year, I was asking Mother Nature to bring snow. Something to cover the mud for even a few days. A couple weeks ago I hit a patch of Ice on my mountain Bike and went down hard, sliding across the "Trail" into a ditch. At that point I asked her to return the mud. Perspective I guess. The cold wasn't so bad this winter until the Ice came to the trails. For about 6 weeks it was difficult to run on the trails and you most certainly couldn't ride a bike. Now the Ice is gone and we have Mudd and I'm happy.
Facebook-Linkin it's all a little strange to me. Yesterday was one of the strangest days of my internet life. I got two invitations on Facebook from names in school a few years ago. It was just shocking to see these names appear on my invitation list. It took me a few minutes to even place where they were from. Then I accepted the invitation. I'm kind of a freak that way, I'm interested in what everyone is doing. OK, then over to Linkin. I got an invitation from the guy that hired me at Road Runner Sports. He left just about 1 year later so it's been 13 years or so since we had conversation. Then I get an invite from him. Turns out he's a consultant and is working on a project he thinks is good for Road Runner Sports. Really weird. But that's not strange enough. One of the hardest jobs in the business world I've found is to be the President of a company with a Founder who is heavily inolved in the day to day business. So as President your decisions may not hold water if the Founder wants to do something different. Well it's no secret that Mike G. the founder of Road Runner Sports is tough to work for. He's not a bad guy at all he just is involved in everything and has an opinion on all of it. So to work there you have two jobs, manage your duties and manage Mike. As President that pressure is immense. Yesterday I got an invitation from a former President of RRS. It totally shocked me. This guy and I respected each other for sure but we did not see eye to eye on much. When I look back, he did a great job of managing Mike. You never knew who made the decision. Direction was generally final. But we really didn't see things the same way when it came to my department. There was some tension there. So I was a bit shocked when I got the Linkin Invitation. I accpeted of course. I good way to mend bridges that maybe were on the verge of collapse.
It's a good life....
Dave
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
adidas
Yesterday Herbert Heiner gathered all the employees at adidas together. Herbert is the Chairman of the Board of the adidas Group. He's been an adidas employee his entire adult life. His presentation style is hilarious. He just has a way of telling you like it is and making you laugh at the same time. He had done the same presentation earlier in the day at our other facility in Herzo. When he got to us and we didn't clap on something he said, he turned it into a competition. "Well I got applause from the other group" he said. Aside from his dry sense of humor he gave us great news and then challenged us. 2008 was a record for the company in sales and net income. Both rose double digits and have done so for 9 years in a row. So, adidas will be paying bonus this year! Legitimate hard earned bonus money I might add. 2009 is a challenge. Retailers have run out of ink in their pen. It will be a very interesting year watching the results. As always there will be big losers and really big winners, there has to be.
It's a good life.....
Dave
It's a good life.....
Dave
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Run Test
Wednesday was run test day. The goal here is to run the same place the same way and review where you stand. Hopefully to see improvement. I love to do tests. I actually hated them in school. I didn’t study correctly, I rushed through the test and I didn’t check my work. Therefore I didn’t do very well on tests. That is of course until I got to Marketing then the tests were easy. But I love running, swimming, bike tests. The older I get the more I like them. I think partially, it shows that I can still do it.
My testing ground is a loop in the forest. It starts at the trail head just out of town in Grossenseebach and runs into the forest and back out the other side heading back to the start. It’s slightly uphill on the way out and slightly downhill on the way back. One lap is 1.32 miles. I like it because it’s close to home and it’s random. The coaching calls for the test to be on a controlled track but I prefer the dirt and the 1.32 mile distance. Less laps. The test protocol is to run the first two laps at the top end of your Aerobic HR and the second two laps at the top end of your moderate Hard HR. For me that’s 150 and 160 respectively. A special note, the last test on this course was longer and all at or below 150 beats on the HR. There is improvement:
December 14
Lap #1 10:15
Lap #2 10:15
Lap #3 30:56
Lap #4 41:16
Lap #5 51:26
Lap #6 61:46
March 5 - Total 5.2 miles each lap 1.32 miles
Lap #1 9:43
Lap #2 19:17 or 9:26
Lap #3 28:21 or 9:04
Lap #4 37:25 or 9:04
Some additional notes. Temperature was roughly the same on both tests. 35 degrees F. The only real difference in my attire is that I wore Zoot compression tights yesterday and regular adidas tights in December. I know, I work for adidas . I firmly believe people in brands get brain washed by the brand. In other words if you only run in your own brands products how do you ever know your stuff is any good. The Zoot tights are a test on compression. Does this stuff really work? I’m not ready to give it the reason for the results award but I will admit that my old legs like the feel of the compression when I’m running.
Final note for the day and this could be a full note on its own. It’s tough out there in the economy. Unless you live under a rock you know it. There really isn’t anyone it hasn’t hit. So why does a person have to lead off every discussion with giving us the bad news. I say to mister grumpy who does this, buck up little buddy. Go outside and listen to the birds. They’re singing today. They don’t know crisis. They only know that winter is over and it’s time to sing. This crisis will not last forever. If we work together in rolling forward perhaps even singing our way through it won’t seem as bad as it looks on paper.
It’s a good life…
Dave
My testing ground is a loop in the forest. It starts at the trail head just out of town in Grossenseebach and runs into the forest and back out the other side heading back to the start. It’s slightly uphill on the way out and slightly downhill on the way back. One lap is 1.32 miles. I like it because it’s close to home and it’s random. The coaching calls for the test to be on a controlled track but I prefer the dirt and the 1.32 mile distance. Less laps. The test protocol is to run the first two laps at the top end of your Aerobic HR and the second two laps at the top end of your moderate Hard HR. For me that’s 150 and 160 respectively. A special note, the last test on this course was longer and all at or below 150 beats on the HR. There is improvement:
December 14
Lap #1 10:15
Lap #2 10:15
Lap #3 30:56
Lap #4 41:16
Lap #5 51:26
Lap #6 61:46
March 5 - Total 5.2 miles each lap 1.32 miles
Lap #1 9:43
Lap #2 19:17 or 9:26
Lap #3 28:21 or 9:04
Lap #4 37:25 or 9:04
Some additional notes. Temperature was roughly the same on both tests. 35 degrees F. The only real difference in my attire is that I wore Zoot compression tights yesterday and regular adidas tights in December. I know, I work for adidas . I firmly believe people in brands get brain washed by the brand. In other words if you only run in your own brands products how do you ever know your stuff is any good. The Zoot tights are a test on compression. Does this stuff really work? I’m not ready to give it the reason for the results award but I will admit that my old legs like the feel of the compression when I’m running.
Final note for the day and this could be a full note on its own. It’s tough out there in the economy. Unless you live under a rock you know it. There really isn’t anyone it hasn’t hit. So why does a person have to lead off every discussion with giving us the bad news. I say to mister grumpy who does this, buck up little buddy. Go outside and listen to the birds. They’re singing today. They don’t know crisis. They only know that winter is over and it’s time to sing. This crisis will not last forever. If we work together in rolling forward perhaps even singing our way through it won’t seem as bad as it looks on paper.
It’s a good life…
Dave
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