Tired

Training was going well this week until the weekend. Today in particular was disappointing because I was hoping to get on the trails up at West Mag one last time before my race next weekend. Oh yeah, I did finally decide to sign up for the off road tri at the Eldora Ski Resort. Anyway, this was meant to be a confidence boosting ride more than anything plus I love riding up there but I've been battling some health issues lately and I woke up this morning with some terrible fatigue and there was no way I could have managed those steep hills at 9000' altitude. This means I did zero biking this week and little chance for biking next week before the race. Oh well, it is what it is. At least I'm getting hit with the fatigue and other problems now and not next Sat. I should be through the worse of it by then. I'll take it easy this week in part because I'll have no choice but also to have a little mini taper. I'm hoping to finish the race in 2 3/4 to 3 hours, it all depends on the bike course which I won't see until race day.

On the plus side I got some good agility training in this week. Took Cody to course run throughs on Tuesday and had one trouble area to work on but otherwise a beautiful run. Then both dogs ran the same course perfectly on Saturday. I was hoping to work on drills and shorter exercises but there were other people there who were running the course so we went with the flow then worked on little things when they left. For Lola I set up a tunnel/A-frame discrimination since our biggest problem at the last trial was her sucking to the A-frame. As soon as I unleashed her she took a jump and went scrambling up the A-frame with glee with no word from me. No reward for her but I didn't scold either, she's such a soft little girl and I'm glad to see her happy and enthusiastic, esp. since it was hot. After that transgression she was perfect so I did just a few reps and called it a day. For Cody I practiced flips backward from A-frame to tunnel since we've been seeing a lot of this sort of thing in Gamblers. He missed one or two reps but had the rest perfect so we left while we were ahead.

Strummer got to play on Monday night and had some great focus going despite a loose dog wandering around the field (dog wasn't interfering with us but was still a good distraction). He's getting better with the tire though still runs under it or through the side every once in a while. Jumping was going o.k. but he's still knocking bars when he gets overexcited though it did take him longer than usual to get overexcited. I've been working very short sessions with each piece of equipment to keep him from getting bored or overxcited. We do a few reps of something then move on the something else and that seems to be helping with the obsessive/compulsiveness. Of course he lost his mind when someone merely sent their dog over the A-frame so we left and worked on sitting quietly in the parking lot. He's getting better but still has a long ways to go.

As far as upcoming trials go I've entered a USDAA trial in Laramie, WY but decided against the USDAA trial in Utah. In the end the judge was the dealbreaker. He's a nice judge and I've had him a couple of times before but he calls fault limits, no matter what. We had a very small trial that was going to be done pretty early and he still called fault limits despite the groaning and complaining of the competitors. I hate fault limits, getting whistled out of the ring after just a few obstacles is so demotivating to both me and the dogs. It's bad enough at a local trial but there's no way I was going to take time off work, drive 8 hours, spend a fortune on gas, hotels and entry fees to spend the weekend worrying about getting whistled off the course. I decided against the DOCNA trial too, mostly because I'm afraid it will be too hot. Also, it's the day after my tri next weekend and I'm worried that I might be too tired to give the dogs my full attention and energy. Oh and I sat down to fill out all the paperwork on the day the trial closed so I took that as a sign that deep down maybe I had too many reservations about it or I would have been more on top of the closing date. Well, actually it's that my memory sucks and I kept forgetting about it but for once my little brain probably saved me from myself. I'll make it to a DOCNA trial eventually when the timing's a little better.