Literally. The little local grocery store 4 blocks from my house reorganized the aisles and I can't find anything. This is especially disorienting at 7:45 am when you're not a morning person and in a rush on your way to work.
Tri and agility training have been confused and disoriented as well. I haven't been able to practice agility for 2 months now because the practice field is snowed in. I've been going to weekly classes but it's not the same as practice. I had a nice 2 hour ride in the sun last weekend but that's been about it except for a few short, grumpy half hearted sessions on the trainer. I've missed several master's workouts because I didn't want to drive to the pool across town then home again in a snow storm during rush hour. Missed an agility trial, missed several PT appointments for Lola, missed watching the herding at the stock show, skiing up in Eldora, etc. etc. all because of some issue with the weather. This has been the weirdest winter ever. Will things ever get back to normal?
One good thing out of all this has been the opportunity for snowshoe running. The soccer field by my office has remained buried all this time so I've been going out there a couple times a week and running laps in my snowshoes. It's turned out to be a great workout for my quads and gets the heart rate soaring while being easy on my knees. Trail running on the nice soft snow has been good too. I'm up to 30 minute runs with no issues at all and it's finally starting to feel like actual running again. When I started in December it took me 4:00-4:15 minutes per lap and now I'm down to 3:15-3:30. Of course the snow has melted quite a bit but for now I'm going to live with the delusion that I've actually improved just a wee bit.
In hopes of bringing some sort of focus to my training I've decided to enter the Canine Classic 5k out at the Boulder Rez in mid April. I'm not setting any time goals since I have absolutely no clue what I'm capable of. Instead this will be a baseline setting race. My last race was the Rudolph Ramble a year ago last December. I found my race report by accident the other day and it made me want to try racing again. My time was 28:22 and that was on snow/ice with stops for Lola to roll in the snow and to brush salt out of her paws. We'll see how April's race compares. That is if it ever stops snowing by then.
I don't think Lola will be able to race by then so I'm thinking I might take Strummer. He gets freaked out with crowds and loudspeakers but we've been working on this, taking him to cyclocross races last fall and walking him around the grounds of USDAA Nationals last Nov. as well as regular trials. He's still got a ways to go but this will be a nice thing to shoot for for him too. If he's not solid enough by race day I may have to drag poor Cody out of retirement. He hates running with me but I make him do it because it's good exercise for him. Lola loves racing with me so Cody's been off the hook all these years but Mr. Grumpy may have to put on his big boy pants and suck it up because I can't show up to a doggie race without a dog, how boring.
I want to move out of the geriatric lane at masters and I think I can do this in 4-6 weeks or so if I can manage to get to the pool twice a week. Right now I'm able to do a set of 10 100's on 2:05-2:10 (1:55 swim time and 10-15 seconds rest). I used to be able to do them on 1:50 (1:40 swim time) and that put me solidly in the next lane up so I have a ways to go.
Biking is getting the back seat right now. I'd like to get into a spinning class but there's no time for it right now and I have no discipline for the trainer. Hopefully my other training will pull me through until spring then I can dive back into it. I want to do the Winter Park Hill Climb in June if it doesn't interfere with the triathlon I have planned. Either way I want to get going on the bike at some point. Ugh, maybe I'll pile on all the clothes I own and brave the cold weather today. It's sunny and the wind's not howling so I have no excuse.
Oh and some time in there I need to get some dog training in. Strummer's going to be in vets by the time he gets to his first trial.
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