Monday, January 25, 2016

The 2AM Suitor

Maia isn't a barker. She doesn't randomly bark at just anything, but she does bark when something is not right. I read that this is a trait of Ridgebacks... that since they don't bark often, that when they do bark, you should listen.

Over the weekend apparently someone came and stole a car from a house down the street. News about that traveled fast and shook everyone up a bit because that kind of stuff doesn't really happen up here on this dead end neighborhood street. Last night when I went to bed I was thinking that I was glad we had Maia because if someone bad was snooping around our house at night I think she would be alert to that.

2AM I woke up and she was growling. It almost sounded like she was growling in her dreams, but then she started really barking and at the same time I saw the motion sensor light go on outside our bedroom window. Right away I was kicking Scott out of bed GO CHECK THAT OUT! So he quickly got up and went to go outside, bringing Maia with him. He opened the front door ready to launch Maia at the bad guy.

No bad guy. Instead, it was a dog we'd never seen before and within 10 seconds he was trying to mount Maia! GAH! Scott pulled Maia back inside and shut the door. That dog hung around all night (waiting patiently) and was still there at 6 this morning when I went to let her out. I wish I would have gotten a picture of him... You'll have to use your imagination, but I would guess maybe he was a Corgi/Pit Bull mix of sorts? He was wearing a long chain around his neck and had those short little legs- not an attractive dog at all. If you could imagine a canine version of a New Jersey pimp, this dog would be that. It actually made me laugh when I saw him... Like seriously dude NO WAY we would let you mate with our Maia. Give me a break. I told Scott this morning that if Moana ever brings home a human/teenage version of that horny dog we are going to have a problem. He agreed.

Anyway, such is life when you have a female dog in heat I guess. I'm going to keep my eye out for specials that the Humane Society apparently runs to have your dog spayed. When I called the vet to inquire about having it done I was told $700. Argh. That seems insane!?

Not sure if it was lack of sleep or if I rode too hard yesterday and didn't recover or if it was the wine last night... but yikes I felt like a ton of bricks this morning in the pool. Managed to get 3700m in but it was slow to start and got worse from there. 1000 w/u followed by a 45min main set that went 3 rounds of: 300; 2x150's; 3x100's all at 1:40 base send-offs, no extra rest between rounds. I think part of my issue with swimming right now is that I am not fit enough to swim as hard as I am trying to swim, but when I have a training partner pushing me I don't want to back off so instead I just drill myself the whole time. I think physically I would likely be better off if I backed off the effort a bit on long sets like these for now, but mentally/emotionally I prefer the training partner(s)... So I'll prob just keep drilling myself until my body adapts again. A set like that didn't used to kill me so seems like if I stay consistent with it, eventually I'll get back to the point where I can pull it off without wasting the rest of the day needing to recover.

My plan was to run 8-10 miles today but that swim hurt me so I only went 4 and did those stupidly easy b/c I was so tired. That is what tells me the swim was too hard (and a mistake) b/c I compromised my run training and given my goals this year the run training really should take priority.

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