Hmmm

Got an email today for an interesting trail race up in Estes Park in Sept.: Sombrero Ranch It's only 4.5 miles but I'm only up to 1.2 miles so on the one hand it's not particularly feasible with my rehab schedule. And how can I not enter a race that goes up 'Piss Hill'? On the other hand it sounds steep and technical which means I would probably be hiking most of it anyway, even if I could run properly. They also let you take your dogs if you start at the back of the pack and the cutoff time allows for 27 minute miles if people want to walk/hike so it might be pretty fun if I could take Lola and do a hike/run thing. Heck, she'd pull me up the hills no problem. Problem is she'd pull me down as well. It would be nice to have some little goal, maybe it would force me to do my stupid strengthening exercises. I've completely given them up and I really should do them, they do seem to help.

Oh and I was completely unable to run this am due to new and interesting pain in my bad knee. I'm putting it down to that bad girly hormone time of the month which often causes me bizarre aches, pains and stiffness anyway. Hopefully that's all it is, the knee was feeling fine up until this am and it's fine as long as I don't run for more than a half block. So this is a perfect time to consider doing a race. I doubt it will fill so I think I have plenty of time to think about it. I'll see how I'm doing in a couple of weeks.

USDAA agility trial this weekend, hopefully it won't be too too hot. There's no hose/running water but there's a pond the dogs can swim in as long as it isn't too full of algae. I signed Cody up for only one day because I think 2 days outdoors in the heat is too much for him. Also, there's another trial up in Wyoming in 3 weeks and I don't want to burn him out. There's a NADAC trial just 35 minutes away next week but I didn't enter because it's outdoors again and 3 trials in a row is too much, esp. in summer when I'd rather be playing in the mountains.

Practice has been going great these days, lovely fast contacts and tables-we'll see how it holds up in the ring this weekend.

Started Lola's contact retraining tonight. At this stage she can still trial because we're working with a board laying flat on the ground, once we move to the actual agility equipment I'll have to stop trialing her in classes with contact equipment. For now I'm shaping her having her back two feet on the board and her front two feet on the ground with her nose to the ground. She's already got a fair idea of this position so it was easy to shape since she practically did it right away. She's got the idea of her release word pretty well too, I've been keeping up with that training, so I was able to verbally release her off the board no problem. She started out great getting in lots of correct reps then she must have started to get confused or something because she started offering other behavior-sits, downs, etc. and she wouldn't stop staring at me which isn't what I want. Once I got a few more correct reps I stopped for the night and broke out her ball to let her play.

I offered to teach a friend's obedience clicker training class next week since she'll be out of town at an agility seminar. It's funny, she's just gotten into running this year and hated it at the start, she was just trying to get in good enough shape to do agility and now she's totally obsessed and given up agility trials so she can train for the Boulder Backroads 1/2 marathon. She's making noises about the Las Vegas marathon too even though a few months ago she swore she would never want to do one. I on the other hand, who was always the runner, have given up most of my training to go to agility trials.