Dog Days

 We are in the dog days of cross country season: putting in the work over and over and over. Yesterday we traveled nearly 4 hours by school bus to the Tacoma area for the Fort Steilacoom Invitational. This coming Thursday, we will be hosting a league meet on our home course. Two days later on the following Saturday, we are traveling 3 hours to Spokane for another big cross country meet. It's not the 17 hour days or the crowded busy meets that get me; it's those endless skeleton-wrecking hours jolting along in the school bus. I need to start doing yoga again or something!

We are also having more literal dog days...

We ordered Sherlock and Watson GPS fence collars that beep when they go outside our yard boundaries. When the package came, the puppies found it first. I have since changed my Amazon delivery instructions and we are looking into a more permanent delivery solution. Package-shredding aside, Sherlock and Watson are settling in to their new home nicely. I started trying to train them a bit this week, with interesting results. 

The goal was to put them in a simple collar with a leash so I could begin teaching them the boundaries of our yard with the GPS fence collars. The method is this: with a leash, walk the dog to the border of the yard so the GPS collar beeps, then quickly walk back to safety inside the yard. Over and over around the boundary until they learn it. Obviously the first step was to put collars and leashes on them. Silly me for thinking that could all be done in one day! They twitched, wiggled, and nipped so much, it took me forever to clip the collars around their necks and adjust them to the right size without choking them. Once the collars were finally on, I quickly clipped a brand new rope leash onto each dog's collar and started to walk with them. Sherlock grabbed the rope leash in his mouth. Watson balked and started jumping and flipping and rolling. Tug of war with one dog, while worrying the other one was going to break his neck...what now? 

I quickly unclipped Watson's leash and decided to just work on one dog at a time. But Sherlock thought the leash was a new toy and kept it in his mouth while we walked, zigzagging and tugging. Then Watson saw a cow and sprinted off towards the neighbor's fence. Sherlock tried to go with him and defied gravity with a vertical leap-backflip-twist when the leash checked his dash. I was horrified and decided that was enough for Monday's leash training. Back inside, I got online and researched how to get a puppy not to bite the leash. Results pointed to a metal chain style leash rather than a rope leash. Apparently puppies don't like chewing on metal, so I ordered one. 

Two days later, when the puppies were acclimated to their collars, the new metal leash came and we began again. But this time, I watched a dog training video on YouTube first. It instructed me to clip the leash on the dog and let it drag on the ground so the dog gets used to it, while I have  a "high value" treat in my hand. I chose a tiny bit of hamburger and kept a baggie of burger bites in my pocket. The video said to hold a treat in your hand down by the dog's mouth and walk while the dog follows the treat, leash still dragging on the ground. After a few steps, I was supposed to say "yes!" and give the dog the treat. This method actually mostly worked! Sherlock was in love with the treat-following game, and we went farther and farther before I gave him the treat. 

When it was Watson's turn, however, Sherlock grabbed the dragging leash and started pulling on poor Watson! I ended up holding the leash and the treats for Watson, but Sherlock wouldn't give up and kept jumping in front of Watson, trying to follow and steal his treat. It's possible that Sherlock got more out of that training session than Watson. More learning and more hamburger bits, haha. The next day, I did it all again. Sherlock eventually walked next to me without a treat and without biting the leash! It lasted like ten steps before he started leaping up and demanding a treat. Watson...it's going to take a bit more time with him thanks to his nosy big brother dog. 

After those two days of leash training, I was gone all day long, from dawn to dark, at the cross country meet. Hopefully the dogs remember something next time I get out the leash!

Trying to bite off each other's collars on day 1.

Sherlock, taking himself on a walk.

Tired out from all that leash biting and collar-scratching. Sherlock snored next to my hip for 15 minutes straight before I finally got up, and Watson somehow slept with his head dangling over the side of my lap. They love our bench nap times and whenever I go out to the back porch, they jump onto the bench expectantly.

Groggy dogs after I stood up mid-nap.

They went back to sleep on the bench after I went inside.

Ok, but seriously. Sleeping puppies. (On the front porch this time.)

After some mowing and yardwork on Thursday, I spent a little time with the pups.

Sherlock has this look of adoration that ruins my heart every time.

King Sherlock, on his favorite throne: my lap.

The puppies chewed up the foam insulation around our HVAC conduit, so I researched and found a foam-free replacement. I installed it myself and it was one of the easier home repairs I've done.

So the puppies didn't exactly chew on the metal leash, but they still bit it and fought over it.

I have to keep reminding myself that these are puppies, so everything is new to them. So we sat on our bench while they got acquainted with the new leash.

Then Sherlock thought he'd leash train Watson. I took this picture and then dashed to rescue poor Watson.

Two dogs, snoozing on the bench at sunset. I was about to go outside to take a picture of the beautiful sunset when I saw the sleeping dogs and decided not to disturb them and get licked and wagged half to death, haha.

The back row of my purple flowers have kind of tipped over thanks to the dogs' exploration, but one of them was already collapsing pre-puppy invasion, so I figure it wasn't only the dogs that did it.

They don't understand why I fill two big water jugs from our front spigot and then drive off for a few hours every afternoon.

Now, back to the other main event of current life: cross country season. The Ft. Steilacoom Cross Country Invitational was massive. We hadn't been to this meet since 2022, so only a handful of seniors on our team vaguely remembered racing there when they were in 8th grade. Vivid memories of this meet surfaced in my mind--mostly of the stress of losing little Amber in the enormous crushing crowd, more than once, each time we went to this meet. I also remembered running the open community race. I ran it 3 times: 2018, 2019, and 2022. In the 2023-2025 seasons, we signed up for the Wenatchee Invite instead, but last year (2025) the meet was cancelled due to bad wildfire smoke, and we didn't have a meet at all that day. So we switched back to Ft. Steilacoom this year, even though it's an hour and a half farther away than Wenatchee.  

For our comeback return to the Ft. Steilacoom meet, we did a split departure schedule, with a 4:30am bus and a 7am bus. Jeff took the early bus with a handful of high school runners and the middle school team and their two coaches. I took the later but with our second assistant coach and the remaining 30 high school runners. So I missed the first three races that we had runners in! It was very strange, arriving nearly halfway through the meet. It didn't help that our bus driver kept missing turns and we arrived 20 minutes later than expected with the race time for 7 of the kids on our bus fast approaching! It brought up flashbacks to my senior year when my coach got lost on the way to the state track meet and I nearly missed my race. We left at 7:10am and arrived at 11:30am, with one 8 minute bathroom break en route. It was brutal, and I was sweating bullets playing navigator for the bus driver when she kept missing turns at the end. I was so relieved to see Jeff waiting for us in the bus parking area! 

Amber took the early bus with Jeff and ran the club 3k race in the morning. I was sad to miss her race, but Jeff said she ran well! She ran the 2 mile race in 16:47. This meet had a very sophisticated timing setup. The course allowed two races to run simultaneously, with a staggered start 7-10 minutes apart. Since Jay and Rose were both running in the Varsity Silver race, they were on the course at the same time. Jay's race started first, and Rose's race started 8 minutes later. It was a bit of a puzzle, trying to watch the starts of both races while also wanting to see more of the race! Jeff and I watched Jay start, then power walked over near the one mile mark, saw Jay and his teammates pass by, then power walked back to the start in time to see Rose's race start. Then we retraced our steps back to the mile mark to watch our girls, before heading to the finish. The start and the finish were next to each other, and the mile mark was not too terribly far away, but it was intense and made for a confusing photo order in my phone: Jay's start, Jay's mile, Rose's start, Rose's mile, Jay's finish, Rose's finish. 

Jay came off of a sickness recovery (he only ran at XC practice once all week) and ran the 5k in 18:58. He said he could tell his lungs were not all the way recovered from being sick. We think it's a good sign that he was able to sneak in under 19 minutes after the week he had! Rose ran a strong first mile, and then the dreaded hills came during the next two miles, and she said her lungs and legs just wouldn't go. She held it together and finished in 24:37, which was two minutes faster than her race last week! She was hoping for a PR at this meet though, so she was disappointed. She was less than a minute off of her PR though, so that is a very good sign for the rest of the season. We are still working on getting her ferritin levels up, and I told her she is a warrior for racing through that deficiency.

Jeff ran the open community 5k race! He was the first one to race but I saved him for last here. He was sick on Wednesday and Thursday this week (covid is going around the school), and I was super worried that he was going to be his usual post-covid zombie self for this brutally long day in Tacoma. But he had enough energy to run an 18:36 even though a medication he started taking drained him dry (literally--it had a bit of a laxative effect, haha). Jeff ran the first race of the day and the last race of the day: he ran the 5k ran as partner for our adaptive runner, Sal. They ran the 5k in 25:45. Jeff exited the course near the end so Sal could do the homestretch on his own and so Jeff didn't confuse the timers by crossing the finish line twice in one day, haha. 

Our teams did so well! We have our fastest girls team ever right now. Rose is #5, and the four girls in front of her ALL ran under 22 minutes for the 5k! Sunnyside has never had a girl run under 22 minutes on this course, and we had FOUR do it all in one day! and two of them were under 21 minutes! It was SO FUN. We have had fast boys here and there over the years, but the girls have never really been competitive. Until now! I always love our 30 minute girls, but it is also super fun having a group of 20 minute girls. Out of the 63 girls teams at this meet, our girls placed 22nd! Our boys team placed 52nd out of 80 teams. It was a good day! Also, the weather was 60 degrees and cloudy: icing on the cake.

As painful as the bus rides were, it was good to see the evergreen mountains again.

This mural on the bathroom exterior at Ft. Steilacoom Park was so vibrantly pretty!

The starting line of the Varsity Silver race: Jay is right in the middle, on the second row. The starting line with 208 runners stretched both directions waaay outside my zoomed-in picture.

Jay, cruising in to the 1 mile mark!

Side shot of Jay as he rounds the bend to the 1 mile mark--Jay is second from the left.

The start of the girls' race: Rose is about 8 heads from the left, with her tall pink socks on.

Rose, approaching that 1 mile mark.

Rose, rounding the corner to the mile mark.

Jay, digging deep on the homestretch. He's tucked a little behind that guy in red, with 6 runners ahead of him. Mid race photography is not easy.

Go Jay! Past two port a potties and an old red barn--not exactly a scenic background, but oh well!

Jay, to the finish!

Rose on the homestretch. She noticed that her eyes were closed in every picture I took of her race. "Did I sleep through my race or something?" she asked.

Our girls team right after the sun popped out as we were packing up to leave the meet.

School bus shared suffering with my girl.

I wore my puffy coat zipped around my lower legs on the chilly bus ride. Jeff had a nice pointy mountain behind him so I took this picture of our school bus coping mechanisms.

Other tidbits from our week:

• Rose hasn't been able to find a regular time to practice piano since she started high school last year, so she opted to stop taking piano lessons this week. Milestone! Rose took piano lessons for 8 years!
• Since our piano teacher also teaches violin lessons, I asked her if Amber could take Rose's lesson spot for a violin lesson. This week Amber had her first back to back piano and violin lessons. I was concerned that an hour of music lessons after a long day at school and two hours at cross country practice would be too much, but Amber said it worked, and she liked switching instruments halfway through the hour. Amber is in the 6th grade orchestra at school, so she has lots of music time each week!
• Since Jeff was sick for two days this week, I coached two cross country practice without him. It's way easier coaching cross country practice when there's another assistant coach present, plus being in charge of the middle school track team for four seasons has made me better at stepping up to be in charge of high school cross country practice too. So it went relatively smoothly. The hardest part was answering all the questions and trying to filter kids' different aches and pains--usually I do that on the side while Jeff is in center stage running the show at practice, but I kind of had to do both while he was sick and it is somewhat exhausting trying to give injury advice while also keeping practice moving along.
• Amber and I discovered that we can share shoes now! She has a Brooks size 9.5 for her running shoes, and I wear a size 10, but at XC practice on Thursday, I loaned my shoes to a runner who needed them, and Amber wanted the day off of running so she loaned me her running shoes. They fit!
• Amber's palate expander is doing its work, and she's getting quite the gap between her front teeth.
• We mowed the lawn in sections over the course of 6 days this week. Rose did the back on Saturday, and I did the rest during the weekdays. I finished mowing the last section of our yard on Thursday, and now 3 days later, the first section already needs to be mowed again.

Amber and me, wearing each other's running shoes