*insert blank look here*

I’ve been trying to start a blog post for days and my brain keeps freezing up.  As such, I’m apparently incapable of tying together the disparate components of my life in one neat pretty little post.  So I’ll just do the random bullet point game and hopefully you will excuse me for my limited Ironman-training brain.

• You know you’re riding long when the nutrition for one ride takes over more space on the kitchen counter than your food.

• I hammered out my long ride Saturday at my best pace to date.  Definitely loving the new bike.

• I had fog for the first 50 miles and didn’t pull my arm warmers off until somewhere around 65 miles.  I won’t tell you how proud I was to be able to get them off without stopping…

• It turned out I’d parked in a great location for my run off the bike – right onto the Napa River Trail (trail to the left in the trees).

• While I was running around all weekend exhausting myself, Stanley was showing beautifully in the ring at the Richmond Dog Fanciers’ show in Dixon.

• My Iron appetite has gone missing.  I’m not sure if it’s something to worry about or just one of those things about absorbing your nutrients better being gluten free.  For once I’m really nailing my fueling on the workouts so maybe I’m just not running as calorie-deficient?  I’m totally eating meals and snacks, I just haven’t hit that starvation mode I remember from last time around.
• Stanley and I wrapped up the obedience class we’ve been taking with a little graduation Monday.  He REALLY wanted his graduation cookie but sat nicely till I was done with the photo.  The LOOK he gave me though!

• We had to teach a trick for graduation day.  I don’t know a lot of exciting tricks to teach dogs (mine all know shake, high five, etc) but we cobbled this together from our agility touch training.

• I let Max tag along to Stanley’s agility class last night – it was his first time back at class since he injured his neck over the July 4th weekend.  You’ve never seen a dog SO HAPPY just to be at his old stomping grounds, even if he was just watching.  After class I let him run with Mary’s golden puppy Essie and did a bunch of tunnels with him – he was in heaven!  Every tunnel he took, Stanley bounded over the A-frame above it – the boys had FUN.

• Speaking of Stanley…on the off chance someone is here for the dog stuff and not the triathlon stuff LOL, he has what should be some very nice puppies due up in Washington in a couple weeks – feel free to contact me if interested and I’ll pass you on to the breeder.  In addition, we hope there will be some more coming along in the Midwest in a couple months.
• Today is 8 years since Jeff and I got together.  Time does indeed fly when you are having fun!  What are we doing to celebrate? Um, well…he’s off to backpack in the Sierras and I’m racing this weekend.  I guess that makes us an old married couple for sure! :-)
• And that’s about it for my weekly brain dump!