Thursday, June 10, 2010

NCBCF Regional

Today was the second day of our beardie club’s regional specialty – yesterday was herding, today was agility and obedience, tomorrow is the show ring.

I had both my boys entered in the agility trial – our first time making it to the regional in a couple years (last year was a bit busy with training, racing, etc).  I’ve always done quite well at the regional – Max consistently wins at the agility trial and Stan had some great wins in the show ring last time he was there.

I’ve been wearing my “triathlon hat” a lot over the past year.  Today, I tried to wear my “dog hat”…and found that it didn’t fit well.  It was definitely our worst showing at a regional ever.  We still ended up with a 1st place for Stanley in Novice FAST and a 2nd place for Max in Excellent Jumpers, but I felt sluggish and out of it all day and was just not in the right frame of mind to handle my dogs.

Some thoughts on contributing factors:

  • I have a race Sunday and I’m very worried about being rested enough for it.  The race was a late addition after I’d already planned on this regional and really 3 days in advance it shouldn’t make a difference but still…
  • Our trial was very very small and many people just didn’t pitch in to help.  This meant that often when a dog knocked a jump bar or it was time to change jump heights for a taller/shorter dog, I was dashing out there and running around to reset bars.  It’s common trial etiquette, especially at a small breed show, for everyone to help out – I could not believe how many people just sat on their asses and watched.
  • It was sunny and fairly warm.
  • I’ve been sniffly/sneezy for days but it hasn’t progressed to a real cold.  Last night I finally realized it was probably allergies (something I’ve never really experienced before) and took Claritin.  Bingo – I woke up without the slightest bit of congestion.  However, mentally I felt foggy all day and I know this affected my handling.  Is this normal?  Makes me wonder which is better to risk for race day.  I will see how I feel after a couple more days on it.
  • Because the trial was small and kept the willing workers working, there was never a chance to dash away and find the food booths on the other end of the show grounds.  In the end (don’t hit me, I’ve already beat myself up enough about this), that meant that I went 10+ hours without food.  I was cranky and ready to drop by the end.
  • See bullet point #1.  Because I worked my butt off helping out, I freaked out even more at the end about how much my legs and feet hurt and how tired I was.  I came home and took an ice bath and put my compression socks on. 

OK, so the good news is – my dogs still had fun and that’s what matters.  I’ve eaten and I feel a little more human.  I will likely not go the agility trial I entered on Saturday but sit around with my feet up in between my prerace brick at 7am and packet pickup in the afternoon.  I will go watch the dog show tomorrow with my butt firmly planted in my chair and not feel bad about it.  It just looks like I will need to practice a little more with how and when I switch between my dog world and triathlon world.  Training is one thing but combining with races and working a trial is a whole different beast.  My only consolation is everyone else seemed utterly fried too, and I’m probably in better shape than most of them!

3 comments:

Elayne said...

Yeah, allergy medicine knocks you out, at least it knocks me out. I have to be itchy and sneezy enough that I'm ready to claw my eyes out with a fork before I'll start taking it because it shuts my brain down in a hurry.

Balancing the dog stuff and triathlon stuff is difficult in my experience. The tri training effects you more than you think and it does make for a tiring day in the ring, especially if you're setting bars or running leashes. I try to take sit on my ass jobs like scribe or score table. When I was training heavily I found myself way more sore and tired during and after a trial than the average competitor and now that I'm not training heavily the trials are not nearly as exhausting so it does make a big difference.

You either have to pick one and decide that's your focus and that's what you're going to do well at and the other is more for fun or balance between the two and decide you're going to be mediocre at both but it's a challenge to try to excel at both.

Larissa said...

Try Clairton D from behind the counter (if that's not what you took). It doesn't make me foggy like that. But the D does make me like a little energizer bunny if i take it before bed so i keep it as a day time thing and use nasal spray at night. Also you can try getting a nasal rinse kit. Its from the same company as the neti pot but it's a bottle. Or you can get a pop top bottle and save your self the money. The only thing that is getting me through right now is the nasal rinse.

Congrats to the boys and good luck on your race! And always pack some bars in your bags in case you can't eat! i have them in every bag i own lol. i get migraines if i don't eat regularly.

Sherry said...

Congrats to the fluffballs! Rest up well... and GOOD LUCK tomorrow!