November

Can't believe that November is already behind us and the holidays are just ahead. Much of November was spent working toward the opening of my new office. Things are moving along but not nearly as quickly as I might have hoped. I finally found a good location and signed a lease! I got the key last week and hope to open in January. The difficult part has been securing the funding I wanted to purchase equipment and supplies as well as cover overhead for the first few months . The credit crunch has made lenders very leary about lending to start up businesses. The equipment vendors I am dealing with have never seen someone with credit as good as mine have difficulty securing loans in their 20+ years in business. Oh well, Redlands Spine And Sport will open in January, we just may have to wait a year or so to add some of the equipment and services we had hoped to have at our opening. I can't wait to get out of the house and into the office treating patients and helping them to get well!

Run training has been very consistent as we have continued to run every day. I am now doing more of the runs on my own so more of my weekly miles are at a faster pace while we still have "family runs" on other days. Unfortunately, my swimming and cycling have not been nearly as consistent, which is something I want to work on in December and January as I build towards California 70.3 in April.

In early November we made a road trip up to Santa Cruz and the Bay area for a wedding and visited with Kylies family.

A couple weeks later we went to Arizona to cheer on a number of friends that were racing Ironman Arizona. It was fun to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in many years. I swam with Scott Curry at the Gatorade swim the day before the race. Scott and I used to race against each other 10 years ago, he has continued to progress in the sport and is a phenomenal athlete. We also reminisced about the Trisport Series with Graham Fraser as I raced in his series throughout most of the 90's. We were also cheering for Marky V who is Kylie's coach. We brought Gracie with us and she loved it all - the drive, getting petted by tons of different people, walking for hours while we cheered and especially getting to sleep on the bed.The next day after watching the race we headed out to Tucson to visit Kylies brother and his family. Coincidentally her dad and bonus mom Wendy were also visiting that weekend as well so we got to have an early family Thanksgiving dinner! We had a great time and a great meal but it sure was difficult keeping my eyes open on the drive back to California with that tryptophan in my system. ;-)