Knowing Your Decision is the Right One

When we determined that Stetson wasn't going to physically hold up well to a career in Agility I sank pretty low.  Yet I knew he wasn't fun for me to work with in the sport.  His cautious personality doesn't fit my need for the rush of the sport.  I rarely enjoyed our time training or competing, so being let down seemed silly.  To my rational self, it actually seemed ridiculous to get wrapped up in it and think of it as a loss.

What I did hold onto though was the rekindling of my love for the sport.  Having brought Edge into our home and beginning agility training him has on occasion given me the temptation to see if Stetson might be able to compete in Preferred and seek his preferred novice titles.  The temptation is however fleeting because doing what is best for him will always be my primary focus, yet it has flitted in the back of my mind for some time.

Obedience has a minimal amount of jumping and, depending on the dog, it is more controlled.  In order to be certain he would be comfortable for a long career in the sport, I began incorporating strength training that targeted his front end, I started over on jump training.  I wanted to ensure he is knowledgeable and using his body correctly.  We began with ladder work, then moved to poles on the ground, uprights without poles and finally jump chutes.  He is retrieving over the high jump and landing more appropriately than he did prior to the groundwork and jump chutes.  I feel like he will always need jump chutes as part of his training every once in a while to keep him mentally on the game.

The past few weeks we've done jump chutes a couple of times a week plus he has been run more frequently.  I have been of the mindset that we put in the work, it was time to test and evaluate our results. The training and reconditioning is paying off as he is stretching out after a workout without trying to pull back on me when I work his front end and today he even let out the long, heavy sigh of relaxation.  He is relaxing so deeply during the stretch that he is going to sleep.

He is recovering to normal respiration very quickly after 3 mile runs.  Before we stepped back and started over on training and conditioning, he would occasionally "miss" launching into the truck to kennel and hit at his chest on the bumper.  I have become so confident in him the past two weeks that I haven't even thought twice about letting him launch into the truck.

Over this weekend we have run almost three and half miles on back to back mornings, not something I would have considered with him only five months ago while we were battling what seemed like one injury after another.  This afternoon I sent him over the panel to retrieve over the high jump twice and he sailed smoothly over and picked up and returned the dumbbell to me smartly.  When we finished working in the yard and I ran my hands over him, there was no heat and no sign of avoiding my handling him. No more questions.  No more second guessing.  Pulling him out of agility was absolutely the right thing to do.

I am not looking back anymore.  I have confidence at last. He is strong, he is sound and most importantly, he is my partner.

Resistance Training - Temptation

After getting home from a great run in the snow with Stetson the first e-mail I find in my inbox is announcing a price increase tonight for the Publix Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon.  Adrenaline is still pushing through my veins at break neck speed and I began to head into the office to the computer when a very small voice faintly said, "remember your promise to this race, this is the one you need to beat, are you ready, are you really ready to set a personal best in a month on that course?  Are you?"

This race in 2010 was my first half marathon.  My sister came from Kansas City and we jogged and walked the course together.  A shared memory to last an eternity.  It was more than a rush to simply finish something that big. The following year, I trained harder and smarter and finished it again, knocking 17 minutes off the previous year's finish time.  It is a difficult course, with hills that seem to be endless.  The kind of hill that I have to go out of my neighborhood and search for in order to train adequately.  The humidity and pollen in March tend to make air thick, and so heavy it stings going into your lungs.  I have a nickname for this race, it isn't polite and not appropriate to include in this blog, but my dog friends will understand it is a female.

While driving home from a frustrating and disappointing finish in the Athens Half in October of 2013 I made a promise to that Publix course that I would regroup and use it to set my new personal best for a half.  March, 2014 would be my time.  I promised myself that I'd train so that I would deliver a performance that I was truly proud of.  More than a personal best, but I vowed I'd set a time goal that was worth the kind of effort I was ready to put out.  Athens was a painful event for me physically and mentally and I admit my ego was bruised.  Coming off an amazing Triathlon season where I shattered my previous personal best, by both my finish time, recovery time and performance, plus making a re-entry into the sport of Dog Agility after six years away with a new dog (Stetson), I was on a high that Athens almost crushed.  I felt like I'd been kicked.  I wasn't interested in just finishing anything anymore.  I wanted to set my goals to heights that would make me proud of the results.

From the beginning of November, until mid December I was really sick with an ear, sinus and respiratory problem.  I was never so ill when I smoked, and those weeks were filled with frustration and anxiety.  Finally around Christmas I was able to get back to working out some and began to build myself up again.  It didn't take long to get back into a routine, but I haven't pushed myself to train for the race.  I decided to play my recovery out and build for Triathlon season. I had mentally dismissed Publix until the email today.

Stetson has been a great running partner and he was on the trail with me at Kennesaw Mountain a few weeks back when I  set a new personal best for the trail.  Somehow, I let myself go with him.  It's easy to get wrapped up in the time together.  Twice I've been fortunate enough to take him for a run in the snow this year.  I hope I don't have a third opportunity, but today was especially nice.  Maybe because I've been watching the Olympics and following the Yukon Quest; somehow today felt more like an event than just a run.  The crunch of the snow under our feet and the birds singing overhead helped to lift me up out of my normal routine run.  The snow on the lines, brush, trees and houses was so beautiful, I forgot for those forty-five minutes that it had been an unprecedented storm here in the Southeast that brought this beauty to my eyes.

Sweetness

Beginning our second loop in the neighborhood

His hocks collected little snowballs, but his pads stayed clear

I'm going to listen to that little tiny voice in my head and honor my goal.  The 2014 Publix will go on without me, maybe I'll be on a trail with my dog somewhere.  I hope so.

Mutual adoration

It is easy to get wrapped up in the physical training for a sport and forget that the mental game is the toughest part.  There are times that when the physical training fails, the mental toughness brings you through.  But you have to train it and it must be trained more often than the physical.  Today was my mental game winner.  My brain achieved a new level of resistance training and stood up to temptation.  My promise lives, 2015 will be the new marker.