Dumbo Double Dare, NYCM, Horse Shows and Kittens. Oh My!

Things have been pretty busy 'round these parts. Training for the NYC Marathon has officially begun, and I have to give a shout out of thanks to my friend and barn mate, Lara.

Me, Tara and Lara last weekend at the Scottsdale green belt.

Lara is pretty hard core. I don't know if she'd agree with that statement, but trust me, it's true. She's been dragging my butt out on all sorts of crazy hill runs on very rocky, mountainous terrain, and while they suck at the time, I have to say that I appreciate the fact that she doesn't let me make excuses to bail. Not to mention, we live in Phoenix and since running the mountain path isn't possible in the dark, we do it at about 6:30pm, which is still incredibly hot.

Yesterday, she also met me for a long run at another, much more flat, desert park to get in 9 miles.

I got up at 4:00am to meet her and a coworker (who is also running the Disneyland Half and possibly Dopey in 2015) at 5:00am.

My Long Beach Marathon visor is my absolute favorite.
Feel free to ignore the bags under my eyes.

I stayed out a little later than I probably should have (I believe going out for sushi is an acceptable reason) and I may have had a glass of wine...but only one. Those 9 miles felt a little tough. It was in the 90's even at 5:00, so that's my excuse. The good news is that I'm definitely keeping a faster pace when I'm running, but the bad news is that I seem to be taking more walk breaks than I would like. I'm going to blame that on the heat.

Anyway, thank you, Lara, for helping me train for NYCM- especially considering the longest race she has planned in the near future is a half marathon (although she has already done a couple of fulls).

This summer will be the fourth year I run the Disneyland Half Marathon. This is my favorite of the Disney races. I know a lot of people like the WDW races better, but for me, DL Half is the best. It was my very first half and is currently my PR. The course is so much more entertaining than WDW races.

 I'm super excited to be doing the Dumbo Double Dare. I know it's going to be a blast.

Me with my sister, who did the 5K, in 2012.

I don't have a specific plan for training for Dumbo, but it overlaps with NYCM training, so I'm just trying to fit in some back to back longish runs as training. Since I've already survived Goofy, I don't feel too worried about doing Dumbo.

Plus, I'm super excited to hang out with these awesome ladies again...

Abby, Fruitfly and Me after the WDW Marathon in January.

And, of course, by trusty running partner in crime, Tara...

Tara and I don't have similar schedules, so it's really hard for us to meet up for training runs. Not to mention, we live a bit of a ways from each other. Hopefully, we'll be able to plan some long runs during NYCM training.

In other news, I also leave for a horse show on Thursday up in the mountains and I can not wait to get out of this heat. We're also going back in August. Louie has been awesome, so I'm hoping that streak continues through the horse show. He's such a great little horse and I'm having a blast riding him.

I'm also most likely going to be adding to my animal family very soon. Both my dog and cat passed away in the last two years and I think it's time to adopt some new furry friends.

My horse trainer is fostering a mama kitty and her kittens for the Humane Society and I could play with these babies all day long.

Seriously. How cute are these kittens? I don't know how I'm
going to pick out just two. I love them all.

Oh Em Gee

Whew! What's new with everyone else?

Weekend of Awesome

Wow, I almost forgot that I have a blog. I know y'all have been staying up at night wondering what happened to me, but life has been super crazy and busy. Plus, I've been seriously distracted by important things like Instagram and rekindling my love of Twitter. Priorities, I know. I think I'm going to set up a separate Twitter account for my blog and running stuff so I can keep that stuff separate from my fandom/random stuff on my current Twitter account. But not today. I'll probably think about doing that for weeks until I finally get around to getting it done.

I still have to recap my my Kiss Me I'm Irish run from last weekend, but first, I have to share my weekend of awesome from this weekend.

Seriously regretting not buying this for one of my
costumes for Dumbo Double Dare.
Boooo.

I found myself at Tucson Thrift Shop Saturday night where many shenanigans took place. And I sang the Thrift Shop song about a million times that evening.

But first things first. The reason I was in Tucson was to take Louie to his first rated horse show! I really hadn't planned on showing, I was just taking him to get some training done at a horse show environment. As luck would have it, there was a scratch on Sunday, so I made my horse show debut with only a few hours notice. And on Lou's birthday! Happy birthday, Lou!

Here are the highlights:

Lou all wrapped up and ready to get on the trailer.



Our show tent. Classing it up!

Beautiful sunset at the Pima County Fairgrounds

Lou and me after a successful maiden voyage.

Little Lou did great! He got a good score and came in second. I'm really excited because he made a few baby mistakes, but he's only going to get better. Woot!

A super tired baby after a long weekend.

Saturday night, we hit the town in Tucson for some dinner...and some wine. Now, mind you, we had several glasses while still at the horse show. Tucson is a college town (I actually went to college in Tucson. Go Wildcats!), and that means several very interesting shops.

First up was the Tucson Thrift Shop.

This group always means trouble. The Quattro Amigos
Lara, me, Kristy and Sarah

Possible scene from Criminal Minds. Creepy, right?
Me and Lara

This is your captain speaking...

Next up was a head shop. I haven't been to a head shop in like 10 years, at least. Let me tell you, the very adorable guy behind the counter knew his pipes and bongs. Now, mind you - and this was emphasized about 4 times - they DO NOT sell marijuana paraphernalia. They sell tobacco pipes. We may be older than the college crowd, but we're not stupid.

It's very freeing to be 36 years old and not give a shit about being cool anymore. I made that kid explain to us in great detail how all of the pipes and bongs worked. A twenty something Jaime would have hung around for hours flirting with that kid because he was A.) adorable and B.)strangely knowledgeable with excellent customer service skills. But then I felt vaguely like a cradle robber. Whatevs.

Those are horse pipes.

I should probably note that at no time were we using any of these "tobacco" pipes - for tobacco or for anything else. Drugs are bad. Don't do drugs. And stay in school. Mmm'kay?

So, yes, this was a great weekend. Hope everyone had a great St. Patrick's Day!

Horsin' Around

Had a great weekend that so far, has not included any running. Oopsy. I will rectify that tomorrow since Little Lou is going to get a two day break.

I missed our group run on Saturday because we took Lou to a schooling show. We had a lot of fun and made a party out of it with my barn mates.

Louie and Petey in the trailer headed to the horse show

How cute is this little face?

Katie and Sarah. Of course, we had champagne.

Me and Katie

Ava helping me get Lou ready.

Showing Lou

I am now officially Louie's new owner. Last night, his previous owners came by to give me his papers and I gave them a really big check. Welcome back to debt! Hope my car lasts a few more years because there's no way I can afford another one right now.

It was sad to watch them say goodbye to him, but he will be much happier in his new job. They decided to sell him because he didn't want to be a western horse, much like Bam Bam didn't want to be one, either. I assured them that I would take very good care of him and that he would be really happy at our barn.

Now I'm off to get ready to meet up with Jason, Tara and Ari from our running team for some shopping and dinner. Pictures and blogging to follow!

The Agony of Making Tough Decisions

It's been awhile since I blogged. Life has been...busy.

You're probably asking yourself why I'm blogging in the middle of the day instead of working. Well, I'm taking a much needed vacation/relaxation day. I'm also catching up on Rizzoli and Isles. I have priorities.

Love this show...

Things have been very emotional for me for the last week. I've made the very difficult decision to retire my show horse, Bam Bam Rubble.

My first horse show with Bam in 2008

I have a habit of hanging on to the people I love way longer than is healthy, even when the relationship has gone downhill. When I love someone, I can't let go of them. The same goes for horses.

The difficult thing is that horses are not pets. If non-horsey people knew how much money I spend on just housing and feeding Bam, they would fall over in shock. Let's just say I could drive a really, really nice car. Really nice. Bam Bam is the reason I never have any money.

He's even gotten to be a model for a tack store.

Bam is a little worker bee and loves having a job. Unfortunately, as we're going up the levels in dressage, it's getting way too hard for him. And he's been letting me know in not so subtle ways.

It's gotten to the point where, as much as I love him, I have begun to dread riding him. He's struggling and I'm struggling and I can't keep asking him to do a job he no longer enjoys.

My favorite picture of us.

Last Monday, a few days before we were supposed to leave for a horses show, I made the difficult decision to retire him. I literally cried for 3 days. I knew I was making the right decision when not a single person that knows him said I should keep trying. At least 15 different people have told me that it was time to move on.

BBR in his own private jungle.

I truly never meant to get so attached to this horse. Show horses are not pets like dogs and cats, but I fell in love with him anyway. I still remember the first moment I saw him when he was a baby and I said, "if that horse moves well, I'm going to buy him." That was in 2001.

I've had him for over 10 years and until now, never gave up hope that we could do it. In all honesty, we got him farther along than most people thought that we could. I even managed to get some decent scores.

But he's no longer happy. I'm not happy. Not only that, but pushing and pushing him is going to lead to one of us getting hurt. And it's most likely going to be me.

There's a reason Tara sent this to me for my birthday...

I'm hoping to find him a home working with kids with disabilities. I think that he would love doing that. He would still have a job, but it would be low pressure. I'm also told he would get non-stop attention and treats.

 There are two places near my house. They both have open door policies where I could come visit him whenever I want.

I truly never thought that things would spiral downward so far that we would have to quit, but he's had some physical issues in the past and this work is becoming too hard for him. And like the people I love, I hung on to this horse much longer than I probably should have.

This is the first time in 10 years that I stopped believing I could make him a show horse. And I cried like I was going through a break up... in fact, just writing this is making me cry all over again.

I truly love this horse. Dealing with all of his surgeries and issues over the years has changed who I am as a person. He's taught me on more than one occasion the meaning of being selfless. I have to do what's right for him, and that means finding my little worker bee a job that would actually make him happy.

So yeah, marathon training has taken the back seat for a week.

Redemption

Since I'm blogging while on the clock, I'll keep this short.

The original "unlikely competitor", Bam Bam Rubble, and I had a rough start to this weekend's horse show. Thank God I toughed it out and showed yesterday. I totally rocked it getting my highest score ever coming in second over the giant fancy European horses. I've never ridden so hard in my life. Guess it paid off. Happy Monday, everyone.



Me, Lara, Kristy and Linda - Kemah Farms


More blogging later!