Belle and I traveled to Muscatine, Iowa yesterday for one day of an AKC trial hosted by the Muscatine Agility Club of Iowa. The trial was held in a horse arena. Usually, I bring along hiking shoes just in case the footing is too uneven for me to negotiate in my running shoes. Unfortunately, I didn't bring them with yesterday :( I found just walking on the surface hard, so I taped my ankle and planned for as much distance as possible. JWW was first and it lent itself to distance handling beautifully.
I was able to take a very long lead out which enabled me to easily do a front cross between 4 and 5.
By far the best way to handle 8 to 9 was to execute a rear cross between them. However, I knew I'd never get back to the 12/13 gap in time for a front or blind cross. (A rear cross at this point had the unfortunate tendency to pull the dog off #15.) Therefore, I spent a lot of time planning a front cross. I executed the cross well enough, but I failed to carry forward until Belle committed to #9 (red line), and we incurred a refusal. The rest of the run went as planned.
So many of the small dog handlers wrapped their dogs right at #17, I really thought I'd missed something on the walk-thru. However, it just didn't make sense to me to do two extra lead changes when you don't have to. For the 24" and 26" dogs, I think wrapping right produced a nicer line to the last jump since for the most part they turned wide around either wing and turning wide around the right wing put them directly on a line for #18. Turning wide around the left wing did not. Most of the 20" dogs and all of the smaller dogs were capable of wrapping left tightly enough that they were heading directly at #18 after the wrap.
Standard did not lend itself to picking a couple of spots to handle from. However, JWW round tamped down the surface and evened it out considerably.
Nonetheless, I tried to plot as an efficient a course as possible to minimize my yardage. Almost ever handler put in a front cross between the teeter and the panel jump. I used a rear cross between the panel and the tire and it worked quite well. I was able to easily get in a front cross by #7. For 8, 9, 10, I did a post turn. My original plan was to rear cross the weaves, but the run was going so well and I knew it was an easy push to the #12 tunnel, so I didn't bother with the rear cross. Unfortunately, I didn't think to slow myself down and keep my right arm close as we ran from tunnel to #13 and Belle went sailing off course to the dogwalk. Bad, bad arm.
Our final run was T2B and the surface had been leveled out even more.
I opened the same way I did in Standard, but now it was a straight shot to the tunnel if you set your dog up on an angle to #1. I debated whether to handle the serpentine from the back side or the front and decided on the front, realizing that I would have to pace myself in order to do a nice rear cross at the weave entrance. In my haste to get in a front cross on the landing side of #8, I finished my rotation too soon and pulled Belle into the gap. But since refusals don't count in T2B (except for the time they suck up), I was able to fix my mistake and we earned 9 points.
I really liked the courses that Annette Narel designed for Friday, and I look forward to running under her again.
I'll start with the good news. Belle and I went 4 for 5 Friday and Saturday at the Scott County Kennel Club AKC trial under Judge Daniel Dege, including our very first Excellent B first place!!!! We were the second 20" team to run, and I thought our time was pretty good. However, I was unable to watch the rest of the 20" class run as I was busy waiting in line with Dusty for a chiropractic adjustment. When I checked the results, I was ecstatic to find we had placed first. Additionally, on Friday we were within a half second of the first place dog in T2B.
Now the bad news. On Friday, I spoke briefly with Dana Pike Chamberlain to find out if she thought she could help me shave three seconds off our JWW runs. She asked me a couple of questions, one of which was were did I think we were losing time? On the straightaways or on the turns? I didn't have an answer for her at the time, but it occurred to me later that I had analyzed some video of Belle and Dusty jumping and Belle was consistently putting in an extra stride of two between jumps--strides that she probably wouldn't have needed if she were running faster.
However, even without that bit of insight, Dana's suggestion was that if I wanted Belle to run faster, I would have to run faster. This is not a new concept. I had considered it before. However, I'm 60 pounds overweight (which is a choice as one friend put it) and 62 years old (which is not), and I already feel like I'm running as fast as I can possibly run.
When I've watched video of myself running with the dogs, I've always thought I looked like I was lumbering. Yet when I'm running I feel like I'm running fast and smooth. I mentioned this to my chiropractor, and he asked me to video this weekend's runs so he could see them. When I watched the video from Friday, for the first time ever, I noticed that I was bringing my feet to the mid-line of my body when I ran--I was single-tracking! (It is particularly noticeable in the closing of Friday's JWW run beginning at 36 seconds.) I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that when you run. I thought this might be due to the ankle break, but I looked at video from four years ago, and I was definitely doing it even then.
Saturday morning, I got some advice about how to sprint from my less-than-diplomatic friend and made a conscious effort to implement a couple of his suggestions when I ran. I also spent a lot of time watching handlers run. I'm hoping my chiropractor will have some helpful ideas for changing my running style without over-stressing any joints or muscles. I may not be able to run "faster," but I wouldn't be surprised if running more efficiently translated into greater ground speed.
