Best Laid Plans . . . Xterra Lory Postponed

I had a feeling.  We were up at Lory last weekend and the bridges still weren't built.  Supposedly they were on schedule to be built but have been put on hold due to some 'unforseen budget issues'.   The bridges are scheduled to be completed by mid-June but the race has been postponed until August 10th.  Which means my carefully planned race schedule of 3 races 6 weeks apart from each other has now become 3 races 2 weeks apart from each other.  Or 3 races in 4 weeks.  I was struggling last year with my races being 3 weeks apart.  I could transfer my entry to Curt Gowdy which is the 3rd weekend in June but ugh, Curt Gowdy.  That was a long, hard, technical race.  And I have 2 days of overnight agility planned the 2 days before the race.  So no, that is not appealing.  I could take a refund but then I'd only have 2 races to qualify for Nationals and I'm already worried enough with having only 3.  A few weeks ago I was all, 'Oh whatever, if I qualify for Nationals it'll be great but if I don't, no big deal.'  But I've become more committed to the idea of going to Nationals now.  I really want to go.  So it looks like July/August will be spent racing and recovering.

On the plus side, I don't have to worry about swimming in freezing cold water next weekend.  And I'll have more time to prepare for the run.  I've been focusing on the bike this month but Lory is all about the run.  And while I was prepared in general for finishing the race no problem I was not prepared for doing well on the long climb on the run.  Also, I'm oh so tired.  I started tapering this week mostly because my legs were shot to the point of waking me up in the middle of the night with the 'twitchies'.  Now that I'm a bit rested up I can get in a lot of solid riding this holiday weekend.

On the other plus side, Lory is greening up nicely.

Aside from the singed trees you'd never know there was a fire.

Small fires are good for the grasses in general but decades of fire suppression have led to big destructive fires when they happen.

Eltuck Bay looking very inviting though probably still very cold

Without Limits, the race company that puts on Xterra Lory, has been really good about it, giving us several options including a full refund.  They're a great company, always put on a great quality race at a good price and they know how to mitigate things when they go wrong.

Unlike All Pets who still hadn't called me back with blood work results by 1:30 today despite another call to them this a.m.  I called again this afternoon and finally they put me through to a vet.  Who gave me some ridiculous excuse of the doctors didn't know they were supposed to call me.  Even though I'd called them twice and was told by the first vet during our initial appointment that someone would call me.  So yeah, Boulder All Pets is not going to be my new vet.  Plus they charged a ridiculous amount of money for the exam and blood draw.  High prices, low service, not a good mix.

Oh, and a bonus picture from the Blue Sky Trail where we rode before hitting up Lory.

Bull Genitalia Wednesday w/ Bonus Watering Can

Look - it's Wednesday and you can see my grass!  Spring is here.  Though not with enough vengeance that I was tempted to swim in the Rez yesterday at the inaugural workout for the summer.  60.3 degree water temp. in combo with a 45 degree air temp. did not sound like a happy way to wake up.  I'm iffy about tomorrow as well and with a big warm-up over the next few days it may be best to wait until next week.  I have Xterra Lory in a week and a half though and I really want to get in the open water before race day so we'll see if I gut it out.  Race day could be similar conditions so I should probably HTFU and get some practice in.

I'm convinced that it's impossible to have a sick dog get into a vet in Boulder.  Cody started having weird head twitching incidents - focal tremors or partial seizures, depending which vet you talk to.  I called last Friday and my regular vet refused to see him until the end of the month.  Someone I know through agility who's also a vet agreed to see him at her home on Sunday night but she wasn't set up to do a blood draw.  Nonetheless I was very grateful.  She did some acupuncture on him and prescribed a drug for neuropathic pain that is pretty benign in terms of side effects, harshness, etc.  She said he had a lot of pain and had very little muscle mass.  I felt bad but we've not been able to do much to build muscle.  He only makes it about 3-4 blocks on leash walks then it's a huge struggle to get him home.  He paces a lot though, in the house and out in the yard, sometimes for an hour or 2 at a time so I thought he was getting a reasonable amount of exercise but apparently not.  Or perhaps he has some kind of wasting disease.  None of the vets suggested that, I'm just guessing.

Anyway, he had another bout of tremors Monday morning so I got him in to Allpets for a blood draw to at least rule out that the tremors are a symptom of some underlying treatable disease.  They got me in for an appointment no problem and were quite happy to take my $288 but now it's almost Wednesday evening and no one has called me back.  They said they'd call yesterday and when I checked with them today they said the vet had a big back-up of patients.  Sigh.  Thankfully he's had no more tremors that I've noticed and he seems fine.  The All Pets vet was leaning towards brain tumor but of course she can't tell without an MRI.  And I'm not spending zillions on an MRI because there's no way I'm putting a nearly 15 year old dog through brain surgery.  His birthday is in July but maybe we should cheat a little and celebrate early.

Mr. Awesome

Picked Over

After 3 weekends of agility in a row and a heavy training schedule this is about how I feel.

I know, ewwww.  Buzzards gross me out.  Yet I couldn't help stopping when I saw them at the side of the road.  At first I thought they were some ugly ass breed of chicken.  Then I realized they were awfully big and had entrails on their heads.

I was hoping for zillions of pictures of cute babies - buffaloes, goats, horses, I don't know, anything but gross vultures.

Still.  Kind of cool even if they do barf me out.

USDAA trial this past weekend was very very fun, perfect weather for an outdoor trial.  Only 1 Q in Advanced Snooker which I do need to move up but still very fun, very challenging courses.  It was our debut in Masters Standard and it felt so good to be able to sink our teeth into them.  I missed Sunday's Standard walk-through but still managed to figure it out by watching some other handlers and except for Strummer popping out of his weaves it was a beautiful run.  The course was so difficult that he still ended up in 3rd place even with the 5 faults and lost time for re-doing the weaves.  So I guess it means a maximum of 2 dogs Q'ed in the 22" Championship class.  This was the theme for the weekend, very low Q rates in almost everything.  I'll write a bigger report when I'm not feeling so dragged out. 

Dragged my butt to masters today for the 1st outdoor workout of the season.  It was fabulous to be outside but I was dragging ass.  No one else in my lane and it was 'real' masters with Jane rather than the skills/technique session I go to all winter.  Jane's workouts are notorious and I haven't been to one since last summer so it was a bit of a shock to my already worn out system.  Seems wrong to take a rest day after taking it easy before the trial last week then not training during the weekend but it was an outdoor trial with lots of walking and I had lots of runs and my quads are toast so I think I need to take tomorrow off if I'm to have any hope of a semblance of a training week ahead of me.

Wordless Wednesday

Too Tired Tuesday

Too tired/busy right now for a post about the weekend's DOCNA trial so instead here's a nice photo from agility practice this morning at my training partner's house.  Strummer had some big fun and had some nice collection on jumps and a couple of awesome difficult weave pole entries.

View of clouds clearing out of the Flatirons.

I was supposed to go on a bike ride today but it was cloudy and I was tired and Tuesday is normally my rest day and wah wah wah.  So I rode my bike the 3 miles downtown to do an errand and called it good.  At least I saved gas, pollutants and driving aggravation though the idiot hippie in the big mad hatter hat who along with his friend was taking up 2/3 of the busy bike path downtown and refused to budge and let me by was somewhat aggravating.  I used to commute on my bike all the time back in the day and it was scary enough but now with cell phones and GPS displays and the basic decline in human common sense and intelligence I'm borderline terrified.  But I'd get so much more bike mileage in and save gas and wear and tear on the car and work is only 2 miles away on mostly quiet streets so I'm making an effort to ride my bike more when it makes sense.  May is going to be all about the bike.  I'm sad to leave behind all but one of my boot camp classes but it's time to shift my attention to the long neglected bike.  Just as soon as the 12" of snow we're supposed to get tomorrow melts.

Bear Creek Lake Park

Jonny and I took a trip to Golden to check out Bear Creek Lake Park since it was one of the few places where the trails were dry.  The trails are very easy, smooth singletrack.  A couple of short super steepy bits but otherwise fairly easy going.  There is a good climb up Mt. Carbon, if you want to call it a 'Mt.'

View of 'Mt.' Carbon

Nonetheless I had tired legs and felt the climb since I'd gone to Kangoo boot camp class in the morning and the instructor was feeling especially fiesty. 

View of Denver from the top of Mt. Carbon

Turn around 180 degrees and you see this.

And another view from Mt. Carbon.  If you squint really hard you can see the Red Rocks Amphitheater.

They have an off-road triathlon here in the fall and I've never done it.  Last year it was a couple weeks before Xterra Nationals and the year before, its first year, it was scheduled for October and this made me leery due to the possibility of snow or very cold conditions and sure enough it snowed.  They held the race a week or two later as a duathlon.  I'd love to do the race but again it's a week before Xterra Nat's. this year.

It's a nice park, not somewhere I'd send a tourist but a good place for locals to get out and stretch their legs while waiting for the mountain trails to melt.

In all we rode only 8 1/2 miles or so but I was tired after the morning's workout and an accumulation of hard training over the past couple of weeks.  And I have an agility trial this weekend so I didn't want to go too crazy.

I should say I hope I have an agility trial tomorrow.  Strummer managed to get into a 1/2 full container of Jonny's salsa.  I've given him some hydrogen peroxide but so far no puking.  Little stinker is determined to hold onto it.  I really don't want to find out what happens when a dog eats 1/2 a container of salsa.  Guess I'll try a little more H2O2 and hope for the best.  This dog is aging me quickly.


Edited to add:

We finally have pukeage!  Phew.  Though it's sad that a vomiting dog is the highlight of my Friday night.

Snow Fun

Once again Tuesday's agility practice is cancelled due to 10" of snow.  No, none of this snow is from last week, my yard was melted down to the grass.

April is the second snowiest month but still, this is getting kind of ridiculous.

Though aside from missing agility practice I don't mind all that much.  Thankfully Tuesday is my rest day.

Strummer doesn't believe in rest days.

At least the sun is out and the snow is winding down so this may finally be the end of the spring dumpings.  In a day or two I'll be complaining about the heat.

I have an indoor agility trial this weekend and with temps. expected in the 70's I am a bit concerned that it'll get too hot.  Especially since neither Strum nor I are acclimated to that kind of heat.

I'm also bummed that I'll be inside on such nice spring days but oh well.  I only signed up for 3 runs each day so hopefully I can get out a little early and enjoy the sunshine.  I did manage to get out to the field on Sunday for some solo practice.  Dogwalk is getting better with some remedial work.  Once the yard melts I'll set up the plank/table and I think a few refresher sessions will have him ready for the weekend.

At the field I set up a small sequence to practice wraps using different handling methods - Ketschker vs Front Cross vs Forward Send.  The ground was still a bit tacky so I was able to use his paw prints to trace his path after each rep.  The Ketschker ended up way tighter than the others.  It would be helpful if I had video to compare execution of the moves but I knew I wouldn't have time this week for the project of processing the video so I didn't bother.

Course was blue jump/tunnel/yellow jump back to tunnel.

The tightest path was with the Ketschker, next tightest was the front cross, widest was the forward send.

This is not to say the tightest turn was the fastest.  But it was by far the 'prettiest' and by that I mean Strum had nice collection before the turn and knew where he was going with the Ketschker.  With the others he turned more on the flat on the landing side and had more concussion to his shoulders.  Also worked on some Top Spin just for fun.  I had a similar set-up to last time and went much closer to the jump this time, had more of a pivot and remembered to leave myself enough room to allow for a little motion so he wouldn't stall out.  No photos or videos unfortunately but it did feel more comfortable this time and he hit the weaves correctly every time.

Now if only the snow will melt.  Someone decided to express his opinion about missing agility practice today and being cooped up yesterday during the storm.

Playing Tourist in East County

Trails were too muddy for biking on Saturday so once again I hit the dirt roads for a visit out to The Cowboy in East Boulder County.

I ran into Jonny who was all shook up from nearly being hit by a car.  He decided to ride with me for a bit even though I'm way slower.  He showed me a blue heron rookery which I've never quite made it out to.

One of these days I'll go out there with my telephoto lens and real camera but all I had on Saturday was the point and shoot.

We also visited the largest plains Cottonwood tree in the country.

There's an Osprey nest right next to the road on my route and today one of them was hanging out on a nearby pole while the other was in the nest.

You can see a wee bit of a fish tail to the left of the pole.  Guess he was saving his snack for later.

Nice view of the Front Range from the heron rookery.

I'd like to say that that last lingering bit of powder on the mountains is the end of the snow for the season but we're due for 8" by tomorrow morning.  It was supposed to start raining this afternoon then turn to snow later but alas, it's only 10:00 a.m. and the snow has started already.  They also said the first 2" probably wouldn't stick since the ground is so warm (was shorts weather yesterday) but it's sticking in my yard already.  Can't believe it was sunny and warm an hour ago.  Oh well, at least it's coming now and not this weekend for my agility trial.