So I am tired but going to try and write some stuff up so my faithful readers can read my thoughts. It is day two, already have run four runs and yet I am exhausted. We got to Tulsa on Thursday afternoon in time to set up our stalls and check in. While our decorations weren't as eleborate as last year, they still looked pretty dang good. Unfortunately, several other states went all out this year and we are located in the very back of the stalling area so we aren't seen as much. Of course, the NCAA tournament is going on right now and KSU was in the sweet 16 and they were playing Thursday night. We went through double OT and and were up till 12 screaming for the cats so 5 am came wayyy too early! I think Lori and I texted back and forth the whole game! So glad the cats won and got to move on to the Elite 8! We had team day on Friday with two very tough but very fun courses. I LOVE ISC courses because they are so technical and they are so much fun to run. We had two great runs, but little mistakes got us. A missed weave pole entry due to mishandling of the threadle cost us our Q in JWW and a missed up contact on the dog walk (which I got but he sure did miss the down contact which she didn't call) cost us the Q in standard. I was extremely pleased with both of our runs and didn't care that we didn't get the Q. Last year was such a disaster running wise due to my illness and my belief that this would be our only nationals. He ran around obstacles and just did plan crappy and my handling was very crappy. This year I was determined to handle well and that was my main goal. I also wanted 5 clean runs but that was not to be this year. Friday night, mom and I ate and crashed, in bed by 8:30 pm.
Saturday dawned a bit earlier as we had to be at the site by 6:00 am. Mom and I had a good night's rest but still were a bit tired. I was in the first walk/run group for the first course which was standard but the last walk/run group for jumpers. So basically, I walked the course at like 7:00 am and then ran fairly soon after that and then didn't walk till late afternoon in jumpers and didn't run till 4:30 pm. I am so very exhausted, basically from the waiting. The song "The Waiting is the hardest part" by Tom Petty ran through my head over and over! At one point, my brain just started checking out and I started majorly zoning out. The standard course was not as technical as Friday's course, but had some hard parts. It was very doable and had some fun parts. Once again, Miller ran great but for whatever reason, popped the last pole in the weaves. I did fix it so we just got one fault but lost our clean run. The second run was JWW and he was clean but he broke his start line stay and the whole run felt very panicky. Funny enough, out of like 267 dogs, he is ranked 114. Not bad for a big red, barky bossy aussie!
Now on to my thoughts. They did announce that next year will be in Georgia. This is doable distance wise but I am not sure if this will be my goal. I want to get his second MACH and I am really struggling as to what to think about nationals. Much like USDAA nationals, the top dogs are more than not border collies and even with a clean run, Miller barely made time. I think this should be the goal of national events, to have the best dogs running and winning so don't think I disagree with how they do things. I am just not sure nationals is where we need to be. I agree, my first national events were a no -brainer, I had to go. Now, I have been to several and I am just not happy with just being there anymore. I am not wanting to get a border collie so therefore I will never be in the finals so what is the point in going? It is very expensive to just go and run and get a little green ribbon. Again, this is important to some and was very important to me at first but I am over that. I could move Miller down to 16 inches and run him in preferred for next year but I would have to start over in Novice and work my way back up to Ex B and get 6 QQs and 400 points. It is doable but why? I would have to put off getting his MACH 2 and I think this is an attainable goal with the way he has been running. I need to think about is somemore because I do really, really enjoy coming so would hate to pass up on the experience but is the experience enough?
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