Wednesday, March 9, 2011

What a Week

Last week was unbelievable. I thought I'd give a little narrative of the week of an animal rescue person/mother/triathlete. It was one of "those weeks". To help sort out training stress and life stress, I'll put training notes in italics.

Sunday, Feb. 27:
Clinic Day. Exhausting as always. We safely fixed 83 cats and it went really well. More on the clinics later, hopefully, but for now you can visit www.tri-valleyfixourferals.org.

Monday, Feb. 28:
Up at 5am, stretched and hit the pool. I'm on the third of three "on" weeks and am aiming to do what any trainer or coach in their right mind would say not to do: I'm going to make up 7 hours of training I missed last week before the clinic in addition to my planned 15.5 hours for this week. I know it's stupid, but I've done it before, and it works for me. Not the preferred plan, but it works.
I was scheduled to work in Sporty Spice's kindergarten class for the morning. I enjoyed it as always, but was there longer than I had planned and missed my Pilates class.
Related to training, I went home and did some cooking of some basic good foods, squash, quinuoa, to eat all week to stay on track.

Tuesday, March 1:
Rode, a 50 mile Palomares loop with a half hour transition run. Then hit the gym for weights.

My neighbor does dog rescue. She asked us to do an emergency foster for an 8 month old chihuahua corgi cross. Sounded easy enough. So she brings the dog down that night, and I'm quickly figuring out she may have had a "bit" of wine before coming over. The puppy is as cute as can be and is frolicking with Sporty and our dog...it was beautiful....for about 15 minutes until the dog went full-Cujo. And never turned back. So there we were at about 9:30 pm, with an inebriated rescue woman, a vicious chihuahua and a screaming six year old in my house. We finally coralled the dog and said rescue woman took her back home (at last report the dog is actually shaping up well with a lot of work with a trainer).

Wednesday, March 2:
Swam--speed workout.
Dropped off one cat at the vet for an ekg.
Hit the gym for an hour on treadmill and weights.
Picked up Sporty and got him to swim lesson.
Emailing back and forth with rescue group regarding three feral cats I saw near our mountain house and a plan for trapping and fixing them.

Thursday, March 3:
Wake up and start making Sporty's lunch and checking his book bag, where I find a letter from the school. This one I'm going to have to save for his scrapbook because I'm sure some day we'll laugh at it. He has been recommended for "The Rainbow Room", a "special place for kids going through stressful times" (like a divorce or big move...huh? animal rescue? ironman training?) where they will give him a "special friend"...who just happens to have a PhD at the end of their name.
Swam (drills)
Weights
made up Pilates class
Rode trainer one hour with tempo work
Half hour transition run
Picked up my "new cat" (hooray, I didn't have enough cats!) . Sporty's kindergarten teacher is moving and cannot take her 12 year old cat who has been having some medical problems. Welcome Princess Nephretite! Set her up in a cage for now and was up until 9pm doing animal chores.

Friday, March 4: (thank goodness)
Got up at 5, stretched, and did my long swim--2600 yards.
Came home and after animal chores, rode my bike allll the way to the tippy top of Mt. Diablo (including the last grade to the top parking lot--oh, yes, indeedy.) Very proud, as this is the first time since breaking my leg.
Picked up Sporty, grabbed a urine sample from one of the cats, and boxed up Princess Nephretite for a vet checkup. She turned up hyperthyroid. Translation: medications and then considering radioactive iodine therapy (I'll cross that bridge in a few weeks). On the way home, I go to the bank to make the clinic deposit and come to find out the bank has cancelled my clinic credit card as they have a new policy and I need a business-card. Hmmm. I get back to the car and my cell phone is ringing and it is the phonescreener team telling me the phoneline has already been shut down. (It got resolved, but not until Monday.) Raced to Target to get a birthday party present for a six year old.

Saturday, March 5:
Brushed out one of the bunnies, trying to be responsible, and put a hole in him, from which he is now recovering nicely.
Rode out Calaveras Rd. for a total of about 50 miles round trip; did a 10 minute transition run.

Sunday, March 6:
Had planned to do a 3 hour trail run but it was raining, I was tired, and I had a ton of loose ends from last weekend's clinic to wrap up--did the run the following day.

Bring on the rest week!

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