Friday night was Regular and Hoopers. Regular is the basic kind of agility with all the obstacles (although NADAC doesn’t have the teeter). Both girls had fast runs but missed contacts. In Hoopers, though, they really shined! Hoopers is a strategy and handling game where the handler has to design a course through a series of handling tests, and complete it within a limited period of time. Dancer took first in her class (20+ dogs) with the fastest time of all the dogs in the entire Hoopers group, 25.98 seconds. Elly was almost as fast, at 27.19 seconds.

Saturday, there were issues with contacts… so no Regular Qs and no Touch N Go Qs. And an absolutely beautiful off-course in Jumpers by Dancer… BUT! BUT! Weavers was great. Weavers is a course of tunnels, hoops, and (in Novice) three sets of six weave poles. Dancer ran faster in Weavers than she has ever done before, doing the three sets of poles and the 126 yards (a football field AND the endzones) in 27.74 seconds for third place (14 seconds under qualifying time). Elly did the same course in 33.08 seconds (and also Qd).

(I just realized that was Dancer’s Outstanding Novice Weavers title!)

In Tunnelers (all tunnels!), Dancer was really flying, despite it being the last of six runs that day. She did the 127 yard course in 23.12 seconds, for 5.5 yards/second. That was almost 10% faster than her previous best of 5.2 yps.

Dancer’s last Q came on Sunday in Open Jumpers, where she saved me from embarrassment even though I almost sent her over the wrong jump–she came back around, did the right jump, and ran so fast that we managed to Q anyway, running 32.56 seconds over the 139 yards–qualifying time was 32.71 seconds, so you can tell it was a bit of a squeaker. It’s hard to make course time in NADAC if you make mistakes!

Monday morning I left the girls with Cat (the Northwest’s finest poodle sitter!) while I saw my doctor for a checkup on my bone cancer. Slightly more than two years after my surgery, it is gone, the holes from getting the plate removed are healing well, and I had the pleasure of hearing my oncologist tell me that I’m cured and I don’t need to see him anymore. A perfect finish to a great weekend!

He also reminded me that if I overdid it, fell and broke my leg, he’d have to put the plate back in. That’ll make sure I behave for another month.

The surgery went smoothly. One very interesting experience.

They used a femoral nerve block and a spinal block for anesthesia (and an amnesiac for during). When they were putting in the spinal, they had some difficulty penetrating the back–they were being very gentle, and backing off every time I said it hurt, and I finally had to say “oh get it over with”–and then they penetrated a group of nerves, and I felt an entire nerve network fire, from top to tip, in a spreading pulse. Looking it up, I assume they stimulated the saphenous nerve, judging by the path I felt.

(They hit it twice.)

Of course it was wildly painful, but so quickly that it was over before I could react, except for the sort-of-tingly feeling that remained afterwards that let me analyze the path.

It was quite fascinating, as weird as that sounds, because it made me completely aware of how the nerve works. There was a distinct time interval from top to bottom, although it was very fast, I’d say microseconds. Definitely not instantaneous. I think they were startled by the fact that I found it more interesting than painful after it was over (since it made me shriek when it happened).

Sometimes it’s helpful to be a gnurd.

I will walk without a limp. Now, this may seem like a simple resolution, but it really isn’t. First, I’m having the surgery to get the plate out. Some recovery there. Then, I have to get strong afterwards. Lots of work involved in that. I’ll even admit I’d like to lose some weight to make it easier.

My plan for agility this year: Run gracefully [see: no limp, above], give early and clear cues, and make sure my dogs are having as much fun as I am.

But he did say recovery would be a lot easier this time.

The first time, I could feel all kinds of scar tissue in my knee. It hurt. And the next morning my knee felt distinctly better than it had the day before. I thought that was interesting, so I was curious to go back again a few days later. Once again, the hike itself was on the painful side–and the next day, here I am feeling distinctly better.

I suppose that means I now need to go hike up and down trails until I finish my recovery.

Life is pretty good.

Yesterday at the ZAP NADAC trial, I got to run Riley in Elite Regular. It was like driving a Ferrari: fast, a joy to drive, and absolutely amazing. We got third in the class–and it wasn’t a small class, either. I Q’d with Dancer in jumpers and hoopers, too.

Today I Q’d in jumpers with Dancer too.

Elly stayed home with Jay; she’s injured her left shoulder somehow and is resting for a few weeks or more. She just doesn’t have the muscle balance for a lot of trialing, it appears; this is her second shoulder injury.

This is what I figured out: I took painkillers and my knee did NOT hurt. So I ran faster. I always run faster in trials than in practice, and I’ve adjusted for it, but I’d guess the sprint training I’ve been doing, plus the painkillers… I was overrunning cue positions, I know. Plus I’ve been training speed with Elly–which I got in Open FAST–so I should have been cuing a lot earlier than I was. No wonder I got four run-arounds in jumpers… the poor dog was getting the cues so late she didn’t know what I wanted.

The jumpers course was fun: 18 obstacles… one of which was the weaves and one of which was a straight tunnel. Not 18 obstacles in sequence….18 discrete things that you had to avoid running into, some of which I wanted to layer for distance, some of which I had to run around, which is another thing that contributed to my bad timing. When your stride length is longer than you expected (see: “no pain”), you run into jumps. Or nearly run into jumps.

Mostly, that is. Yesterday I could feel every single muscle in my left thigh, and every single muscle ached, enough that I took two Advil (another thing I’m trying to avoid these days). I took a very hot bath, and I went to sleep without too much problem. Today… working with the dogs was difficult… I just couldn’t seem to get any speed going, so I ended up doing a lot of short sequences, just two or three obstacles. And even just sitting here, I can still feel that muscle ache, right at the top end of the plate.

I’m whining, I know… a little muscle ache really should be the least of my worries.

To an online support group.

Apparently, the moderator feels the need to protect her group members from potential predators.

Yep, that would be me: mom, wife, sister, dog trainer, chondrosarcoma survivor and predator.