A weekend in pictures (heavy on the photos)

After my swim test, I kicked Friday off in proper fashion with a trip to see Star Trek. Which COMPLETELY ROCKED. Unless you are my husband but you know what, honey? Leonard Nimoy had something to say about that. And I quote (from his appearance on SNL yesterday), “To not like it would make you a dickhead.” I didn’t say it, Spock did. You got issues, you take them up with Spock, sweetheart.

While it was difficult, we did pry Stanley out of bed and get him in the car for the roadtrip (I kid, he was bouncing off the walls all morning when he saw me load the car – but don’t you love how he takes a fully-made bed and redesigns it to fit his needs?).

Having made the trip to Carson City for this trial at this time of year 2 years ago, I was quite surprised that THIS time, there was still snow over the mountain pass! Since our route took us right past the Lake Margaret trailhead, we had to stop for a quick romp.

It had sentimental value since Jeff proposed to me at Lake Margaret on a backpacking trip a few years ago. Max explains to Stanley that you weren’t alive back then so STEP OFF!

Our route on Highway 88 was dotted by snowy mountains and frozen lakes. It reminded me how much I love the Sierras and backpacking there every summer.

And then we were on the other side of the range, in dry – but still scenic – Nevada.

Saturday morning, I squeezed in an easy run before the agility trial began. I ran from our hotel on the north end of town down to the state Capitol area, all before the sun had come up.

Capitol building

Of course, right across the street…

By the time I headed back to the hotel, the sun was peeping over the eastern mountains into the valley.

Then the dogs and I headed off to the USDAA trial. I went pretty low-tech on our setup since it is hard to get the tent up by myself and there is enough tree shade.

We had a long day of agility runs with varying degrees of success. I am pleased that I appear to be getting back my consistent trial dog. Max did well with a lot of hard courses and placed in every run this weekend – 4th (NQ) in Masters Gamblers (where, for like the first time EVER, he got the gamble, but did not have enough opening points), 3rd (NQ) in Masters Standard, 4th and a Q in Masters Snooker, 4th and a Q in Masters Jumpers, a clean run in Steeplechase, that was not fast enough to Q (waaaaah!), 2nd (NQ) in Masters Standard (iffy refusal call by the judge, IMO), and a brilliant Grand Prix run (with an A-frame called even though he DID get it – arg!). I had a blast in the ring with Max…but I find I am losing patience for sitting around all day waiting for our turn to run. For the non-agility people, consider this akin to waiting for your race to start but never quite knowing what time you will go at and then suddenly finding out you have to go RIGHT NOW and then sometimes you find out they switched the wave starts and you aren’t going when you thought. Or something like that. Point is, it seems to happen a lot to me lately and I find myself getting more frustrated than I should and I’m not sure what that will mean for our future trialing plans, at least while I am in heavy triathlon training.

By the end of Saturday, I had broken dead dogs, even Stanley who just walked around the trial and socialized and whined a lot.

I got up to grab a water and found this in my spot in the bed.

I had originally planned to get up at 5am this morning and ride in the dark before we went back to the trial, but we were all so tired…2 extra hours of sleep sounded like a better proposition.

My sweet Max is so patient with his hare-brained mother.

I used all the *bonus* time we had (i.e. trial scheduling clusterf*ck) this morning to plop Stanley on a picnic table and give him a full line-brushing (and combing) of his coat.

Even though he didn’t think so, he looks MUCH better without all the undercoat I got out.

Who’s that on the start line? Why, it’s Greg Louganis.

All the agility people are thinking “so what?” All the triathlon people are wondering though. Yes, he does agility with his dogs and we see him at trials quite often.

They were NOT happy when I made them share a crate while I loaded the car.

There, those mountains, that’s my state! Get me back there!

Caples Lake, still frozen over.

Of course, we stopped at the Lake Margaret trailhead again on the way home for more playtime. They were so good all weekend – how could I deny them more snow?

Ready…set…

…GO!

Roll in snow AND get a drink at the same time

Training totals for week 20 (May 4-10):
Swim: 3300 yards
Bike: 27.3 miles
Run: 9.5 miles
Total time: ~5 hours

(plus 2.5 hrs of yoga)

Next up: BIG training week!