Sandy tells me that she thinks this may be the “soggiest” class to date – and I believe her. It feels like we’ve been “swimming” most of our walks here lately, but I guess that only heightens the value of the rain gear I purchased at the beginning of class, right? If only they had “guide octopi”…
We kicked off the morning with a splash through some puddles and a trip to the gym, which is now the second time Piper and I have worked the route. Sandy hung back just a bit while we worked our way down Carter Creek toward Aerofit, which went quite flawlessly I must say. Since we were all drenched to the bone, a quick turnaround took place when we hit the front doors of the gym. That’s when things got a tad on the frustrating side.
Training has been rather tiring, I haven’t slept, we’re in the middle of a freaking monsoon and now – on top of everything – Piper and I have a breakdown on the way back home. In reality, what is a pretty simple and understandable situation, is blown out of proportion by me, sending the energy level on our walk into seriously negative territory. Piper has slowed to a crawl now, as she’s rather bummed that we’re just turning right back around to head home. Instead of keep a chipper tone to my voice and stay positive with her, I get a little agitated and slightly grumpy, which only feeds the negativity in the air. I’m so glad Sandy called me out on it, though, because someone had to. And – since she did – I’ve been able to, for the most part, control my frustration, which is the healthy response for our team.
After a few hours of drying off and airing out, the sun actually broke through the gloom and doom overhead, which changed our afternoon walk into an outside route instead of the mall. We took the first leg of my long neighborhood walk, which essentially ended up being a route from my house to the nearby elementary school. Being the first time on a new route, Piper was bouncy and energetic, but most importantly, safe and confident. It really reminded me of Larry, which made me happy, too.
We worked through tons of obstacles – including some sort of strange looking hedgehog creature and a huge crater directly next to a sidewalk, where I presume they uprooted some behemoth of a tree. We made it to the school, where we found a bench and treated Piper a bit. I think this helped our return home a bit, because she only slowed up a little on the way home. It was great to walk this route, because Larry and I were quite familiar with it. Sandy and I made some modifications to it, as well, which made the route a bit safer and easier to navigate.
I’m tired and achy, which is probably to no surprise at this point. Maybe I should rename this blog and RSS feed something about my terrible bouts with sleeplessness. Until I do, you can go ahead and subscribe to “the Daily Wag” RSS feed to get the latest news on my training journey with Piper – and whether I’ve actually managed to log a few hours of rest.
Who 
I said we wouldn’t do it, but having a kid changes a lot of things, one of which being holiday travel arrangements. Our plan was to stay in College Station for Christmas this year, mostly because neither of us expected to meet Tyson before his due date in mid-December. Alas – he came a few weeks earlier than expected and, of course, we made the trek into Arlington for the holiday get-together with my family.