rebound?

I went into these three days with a little bit better attitude and a whole lot of small tiny goals.  I wanted barless runs and i wanted good contacts.  Anything else was icing on the cake.  This was a four day trial but I only entered three and entered T2B along with standard and jumpers.  T2B was first friday and saturday so  I used it as a warm up as I always do.  Friday's run was smoking hot with one bar and not a bar I thought he might take.  I will take it, I was happy.  Then jumpers came and he refused a jump.  I honestly don't think he even saw it as I was sending it to him and staying close to the weaves since it was a wrap back to the weaves.  I really thought if I had too much motion to the jump that he would take it in full extension and then in his rush to catch up to get the weaves, would either back jump or hit the poles in a non collected manner and probably pop out or go in second pole.  Anyway, he compensated by not taking the jump and going straight to the weaves.  That was the tightest wrap around me he has ever done and of course he did it twice before he realized there was a jump even back there.  Then he went around behind the jump and took it going the wrong way but it did line him up for a better weave entry LOLOL!  I had to laugh and we finished the course with of course NO bars.  Figures:)   Standard was one of those runs that you dream of.  We were in sync, no screaming, good contacts, perfect weaves and we got a Q!!!!!!  I was shocked and the whole place cheered for me.  That is the beauty of having great agility friends, they are there for you in the good and  the bad.  We ended up in fourth place, right behind those smoking BCs.  I was really, really happy.  What changed?  I haven't a clue.

Of course the next day the butterflies which have been absent for a while returned to my tummy when we stepped to the line.  Q in T2B but some wide turns so only 8 points.  Jumpers had one little bar, but again in standard, a Q!!!!!!!  Wasn't as tight of a run with two wide turns, one doing a very wide spread 180 with his beloved weaves calling his name and one where I really think he had gone over the finish jump so he floated till he realized it was time for the beloved weaves.  We were probably in the top 10 and I am still super pumped.

Then sunday came.  Dropped bar in JWW.  Dropped the triple in standard and then multiple mistakes.  I hate to end on a bad note but I was overall very pleased with the weekend.  Still need to find a time to condition him.  I truly believe his bars are a product of being out of shape.  The footing was much better this weekend so instead of multiple knocked bars, he only had one per run but he needs to figure out how to deal with crappy footing.  I do believe that this weekend was probably a product of using last weekend as "practice".  I need to do some less expensive practices.  We are almost to march now so hopefully warmer weather, longer days and more time to train.  Keep your fingers crossed!!!!!!  We have a weekend off and then a seminar and then we start back showing again!

melt down

I have officially had my first mommy melt down.  I knew it would come, just didn't know when.  I finally have officially declared I don't know how I am going to do this whole mommy thing and be in agility.  It's not the money, which is what I thought would get me.  It's the time.  I have had little to no time to train lately, partially because it is dark when I get off but partly because when I do have a free moment of no baby, no laundry, no working out, no housework, no dishes, no responsibility at work, I just want to crash and play words with friends, not train my dogs.  Now it is painfully obvious. I so wanted deuce to be like that horse that you put out to pasture and not ride for a year or so and then saddle up and they are just the way they were before you put them out to pasture.  Kind of like an easy keeper.  NOPE.  He is not and I learned the hard way this weekend.  Every single run was nasty. I  really had trouble finding anything positive about any run and of course this was a USDAA weekend so several runs per day. Our team mightily struggled and did not Q.  I feel really, really horrible for our teammate who needed the Q for nationals.  I did try really hard but didn't get the gamble, got second in snooker, E'd in standard and E'd in jumpers.  Then our frigging team won relay but maybe because we went for broke since there was nothing to loose.  I of course had had four hours of sleep the night before but I don't think the mistakes were because of that.  I truly felt like my handling plan was the best in standard.  It was a tunnel to tunnel under a-frame scenario and I HAD to get to the end of the second tunnel to perform a handling manuver so i elected to blind and he went up the a-frame using the nastiest angle I have ever seen.  I really did not see that as any way shape or form of an option.  Jumpers was frustration.  He had knocked three bars including the broad jump and I think I had just had enough so I just did a cross and he read it as a 180 and took an extra jump.  I was probably out of position but he had really taken out the broad jump so I was really rattled.  Anyway, it was bad and i was not happy.  Then add in another day of hardly any sleep and thus you get the melt down.

The funny thing about all of it was the very thing I had been working on, the opening of gamblers not being a hot mess was the best part of both days.  I was late on saturday because i had to bring andrew and he is in the midst of teething, thus the lack of sleeping.  I literally walked in, was told a plan and had to go run it.  He was very responsive, did not take any obstacles that he was not directed to and got a good number of points prior to the gamble.  Unfortunately the gamble then became the hot mess but we are a work in progress when it comes to gamblers. Sunday was a bit better after several hours of crying saturday night and posting a whiny post on FB to which all of my agility friends replied back to with great words of wisdom.  So I basically have to make a choice.  Is it good enough to just go out and run with my dog with no illusions of any type of success right now since I have no time for training or do I need a break?  I don't know if I can hang it up for a break but it stings a great bit to go out run after run and biff it, whether it be bars or wrong courses. I am very competitive, always have been and always will be.  That is not to say that I don't revel in my friend's successes because most all of my friends are working their asses off for their goals and it is super cool to see their hard work pay off.  Can I be happy with training in the ring a while longer?  I was happy with these one bar runs but all the sudden, something has changed.  I do feel like deuce would probably benefit from going to the chiropractor but just haven't had the time to take off from my job and go.  It's hard to justify time off for that right now even though there is a benefit.