Xterra Nationals Video Highlights

Another cheap thrill of having a cameo appearance in the Highlights video for this year's Xterra Nationals.  I like how everybody else looks serious and focused and intent and I look sort of . . . confused.  Or something.

I appear pulling on the sleeve of my wetsuit in transition at the 25-26 second mark for about a second.  At least they didn't show the part a few seconds later where I started swinging my arms around to warm up and smacked a guy walking past in the head, sending his glasses flying.  Felt bad about that.  There's also some good footage of the mass swim start.  Not as crazy as an Ironman start but still gives you an idea of the chaos involved.  The folks in yellow caps are the age groupers, the blue and pink caps are the pros and they had a much smaller field and a head start.



Waffling a bit about my goals for next year.  Usually by this time I'm somewhat decided and already getting excited but right now I feel tired.  Probably because I'm at the tail of an unpleasant souvenir of sickness that Jonny brought back with him from his plane ride home from Scotland and I'm feeling a bit dragged out.  I did renew my USAT membership (sanctioning body for Xterra and most races) so I guess I have to do at least 4 Xterras to make that $45 fee worth it.  USAT is such a racket but unfortunately they sanction most races so if I want to race I have to pay their blood money.

There's a new Xterra this year near Aspen on private land that I'm kind of excited about.  Supposed to have some artificial obstacles, wood bridges or something.  The land is owned by a mountain bike enthusiast who built a bunch of trails and features so it's an interesting and unique opportunity.  Will have to start hitting up the Boulder bike park for practice.  Supposedly it's intermediate level challenges, easier than Curt Gowdy and I survived Curt Gowdy so I should be able to handle this.  Sounds like a fun new challenge to try.   I'll probably also do Xterra Lory, Xterra Buffalo Creek and, yeah, probably Nationals again.  I'd like to try an out of town Xterra not because I enjoy traveling but because I'd like to try something new.  We'll see if I can get over my dislike of driving enough to go somewhere new.  Would love to do one of the Xterra Epic races which are much longer versions of a regular Xterra but the closest one is a 15-16 hour drive in Arkansas.  There's one in Marquette, MI that I might consider flying to, could combine it with a trip to visit my aunt but I'm not sure how technical the trails are and wow, that sounds like a lot of money and hassle for a race.

Not sure about dog goals either.  Strum will be 9 next March and though he's still going strong he's also at that point where you never know what will happen so for now we enjoy our runs in the moment and that's it.  Can't be bothered going after an ADCH and the nice thing about that is that I don't feel obligated to enter every run that's offered.  Yay for not staying late for Pairs at the end of day or getting up at the crack of dark for Gamblers.  I like the Masters Challenge courses so we'll focus on those.  And Steeplechase!  Whee ha, Strummer's favorite class.  Not going to Nationals this year so no point blowing money on Grand Prix though I may enter one here or there in a half assed attempt to qualify for Regionals which is only 45 minutes away this year.  But yikes, what a price tag to enter Grand Prix at Regionals especially if I have not intention of going to Nat's.  Maybe if I can get a bye and thus a guarantee of 2 runs.  Strum is fast enough to win a bye if we can run clean but it's not something at the top of my goal list.

Not going to get another dog anytime soon, at least I hope not in the sense that one of my current dogs would have to pass away before I'd get another and I don't want that to happen.  I like having 2 dogs, a good sane number.  I like the energy of it and the ease of it and I feel like I can give them each a lot more attention plus Strummer counts for at least 2-3 dogs so I'm happy not to have any more right now.

Hopefully once the fog and energy drain of my cold clears I'll be feeling a bit more motivated.  Also I'm hoping to get  a new GoPro video camera in the next few weeks/months and I've got some ideas for video projects that have been on the back burner for forever so that should be an interesting new challenge and hopefully will provide some entertaining video.

USDAA trial this weekend, indoors on the fun rubber flooring.  Strummer will be off his head.  Should be fun.

Wandering

Last year at this time I knew exactly what my goals were for this year.  Now it's this year and I'm resting and rebuilding after finishing up those goals and wondering what's next.  Because at some point I have to turn off Honey Boo Boo, get off the couch and get back to pursuing something.  The big question is what to do about agility goals.  I'm not going to Tennessee for USDAA Nationals and even if I do decide to go to DOCNA Champs, Strum's already qualified and it's not a super challenging goal.  Chasing titles is not an appealing goal either.  Can't quite muster up enough 'give a damn' about them.  Of course I want to get out of Starters/into Masters in USDAA but aside from training dogwalks until I'm blue in the face there isn't much to work on because that's the main thing holding us back.  Wish USDAA would let everybody into the Masters Challenge events but they don't and not every trial offers them anyway.  So wish we had UKI but I'm stuck with USDAA Starters and DOCNA.

I think for now I'm going to play around with trying more handling moves at trials that I'm not 100% sure of.  There were 2 places at USDAA Nationals where I think a Ketschker turn was a great handling choice but because it was Team at Nationals there was no way I was going to take a risk with it.  Time to start testing the things I've been training.  I have a DOCNA trial this weekend and I'm not optimistic that there will be many opportunities for trying stuff out but you never know.  Maybe I'll see if I can make up some challenging courses for myself in the 2 Gamblers classes.

As for triathlon, it'll be a couple of months before race dates start getting announced and this may determine goals for next year.  Would love to return to Utah for Xterra Nationals if it's in Utah again.  Definitely won't schedule so many races so close together, that was the biggest lesson of the season.  For now, I've gone back to fitness boot camp with a vengeance.  Weights, track work, Kangoo boots, I'm so sore right now but it's a good kind of sore, a 'my muscles are getting stronger' kind of sore.  Haven't been back to masters swimming because my arms are so sore but for now I'm not too worried about swimming.  It's nice to take a little break and do something different.  I think a big weakness of mine, especially on the bike, is lack of muscular strength and muscular endurance and it's hard to build this up during the regular training season.  I think boot camp will be good for agility too, especially the plyometrics.  I've been having fun with it anyway.

Went for an easy 3 mile hike in the high country and it felt positively decadent not feeling like I had to be on some marathon expedition.

Snow on the high peaks, Mud Lake in the foreground

And still a few bursts of color left

Somebody had a lot of fun

For now I'm shifting my energies into my hypnosis practice.  I've got a lot of plans for the website - videos, articles, etc. and I'll post links here as I get stuff up that might be of general interest.  I'm doing a talk up at the University for the psychology club and that should be fun.  More on all that as it develops.