I had one of the best weekends I've had in a long, long while. So lemme run it down for you and share the exhausted bliss. This might take a while.

A video posted by bekaburke (@bekaburke) on Mar 31, 2015 at 10:12am PDT

It feels like I just wrote this post, but, alas, it's been a year.

I haven't been running nearly as much this year as I had at this point last year.  I think it's the stress of having moved coupled with the lack of time.  Going to see my Ponykins eats a chunk of time each evening.  Boo.

In recognition of the day, though, I woke my lazy ass up earlier than normal (and normal is late) and pumped out a mile in under ten minutes (WOO!).  It's my second run in the neighborhood since we moved.

So, to follow last year's post:

Music

Otherwise, the playlist:

• Wait So Long - Trampled by Turtles
• Black Magic Woman - Santana
• Dystophia - Shangri-La
• My Body - Young the Giant
• Grounds for Divorce - Elbow
• Hate and Jealousy - Lucero
• Cassius - Foals
• Run Daddy Run - Pistol Annies
• Only Prettier - Miranda Lambert
• Cinderella Man - Eminem
• Free Until They Cut Me Down - Iron & Wine
• Never Enough - Eminem
• No Love - Lil Wayne & Eminem
• Won't Back Down - Pink & Eminem
• Resistance - Muse
• Love and Memories - OAR
• Dirty Paws - Of Monsters and Men
• Assassin - John Mayer
• Blow Me - Pink
• Beautiful People - Marilyn Manson

Tracking

Today's run.

Clothing

Shoes

Place

I attempted to upload an app to my iPhone this weekend, only to be told that I lacked adequate space.  I have a 32 gig 4s.  And, oh, over 2,500 photos and videos.

So then I attempted to upload that multitude of media to my Mac, only to be told that I had inadequate space (3 gigs remaining - whoops).  And then I spent hours (okay, like two) moving 65 gigs of photos and videos and crap to my ginormous external drive, all so I could finish downloading an app that I haven't even opened yet.

The point of all this?  No pretty pictures for this post, because the iPhone is completely empty.  :)

So, normal weekend summation:

Archie

Fitness Stuff

I have to start with this:  I'm a runner.  (I'm also an American and I'm getting pretty tired of this shit.)  But, if you've never run a race, there is this absolute feeling of euphoria when you approach the finish line.  I sprint.  I shouldn't be able to sprint, if I paced myself faster during the race, but I still sprint.  And then I crumble at the end and take huge gasping breaths and people cheer and I eat an orange half or a bagel and I drink my water/chocolate milk/beer, and I loll about in a wasted sort of happiness.

That's how races are supposed to end.  And if someone had blown something up when I finished the half marathon in November, if I didn't get my bittersweet exhausted post-race bliss, I would probably never run again.

I almost married a sociopath once.  Little snippets of conversations came back to me when I was thinking about what sort of fucking whack job would go after people running.  Running.  Nearly a defenseless state because, once you've run twenty-six point two miles, you've got nothing left.  I wanted to saw my legs off after my little thirteen-miler.

We fall.  We get back up.  We're riders, we do that.  It's ingrained in our psyche.  Runners:  you fall, you trip, you break stride, you correct.  You keep going.  You finish.  And no one should ever take that finish from you.

---

On to horsie stuff...

Side note:  he undertracks on the right and overtracks on the left.

I only had minimal time yesterday to ride because the husband was expecting me at the apartment to officially close it.  I couldn't bear the thought of trotting in my normal little circles, so I took him out of the pasture and we warmed up on the dirt road, walking, back and forth, before I asked him to pick up a trot.  We trotted near the pasture for a little while and then I trotted him down to the meadow.  He lost his shit a little bit back there.

And I wish I'd taken a photo of this, but the owners of the property back there set up a little tiny jump.  I think it's a jump.  It's a skinny with three little rails.  And.. yeah.  We knocked that shit over.  I have all the best intentions of going back this weekend and repairing it.  We jumped it twice (already knocked over after I walked him over it) and he wasn't amazing either time.  The first, he stopped afterwards and started bucking.  The second, it was like his hind end almost couldn't come up over the jump and then it immediately slammed back down.  No bueno.

I'm not going by the barn today.  Instead, I'm going to try to go by the feed store again.  And then I'm going to hustle home and try to get as many boxes moved in as possible.

I'd had it in the back of my mind that the deadline for the Happy 5k (previously mentioned here) was April 15th.  I signed on to the website yesterday just to double-check and was horrified to find out that it was.. uh.. today.

So, yesterday, after working eight hours, photographing four chihuahuas, two mix breeds and a cat, feeding the Archer his beet pulp and photographing his handsome dappled butt, and doing arms and shoulders at the gym, I ran 3.1 miles through the new neighborhood.  I got lost.  :)

They say that there's a syndrome that our generation (because, y'all, most of us are the same approximate age) suffers from called "Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)", which is why we religiously check our facebooks and our blogs and our Instagram feeds.  My husband has often teased me (or nagged or harassed) about my addiction to facebook.  We'll be sitting at dinner and I'll check it.  He'll be driving and I'll check it.  And it's not like anything on there is so overwhelmingly important that I need to read it right now.  So I used some of those two semesters of psychology and moved that icon into a folder on the second page of my iPhone, rather than in the bottom right corner, all prominent, on the front page.  And it's worked.  I will say, though, that Instagram might be my new facebook.

I do think that I suffer from another sort of wistfulness: races and shows.  If I hear about races and I don't sign up for them, I have a huge feeling of regret the day of... even if I didn't have extraneous money or didn't train or had other obligations, there's always a sad face for a moment.  Fortunately, it's less of an issue with horse shows, because I never hear about them.  The dressage barn used to keep a list of the shows they'd be attending for the year posted and that always made me sort of sad.  But, ultimately, "out of sight, out of mind."

---

This weekend, the in-laws return.  Evidently, the grandparents have purchased us all sorts of clipper stuff for the bushes in the yard, which, unfortunately, his parents had already bought us anyways.  Never too much of a good thing?  I hope to ride tonight, even though I'm supposed to meet them for dinner, but the rain may dictate the events today anyways.  But definitely squeezing in a ride tomorrow.  And Sunday, before soccer.

Yay for the weekend!

Oh, so much to say.

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

I've been vacillating on how exactly I wanted to do this recap post.  Day by day or activity by activity?

Okay, so this is what I'll do, things for which I am grateful:

Archie

Husband

Family & Friends

Health

Creativity

Archie is amazing.

Breakfast this morning.

I get jealous sometimes, reading other people's blogs and seeing their photos.  We aren't working in a super-nice ring with great fences.  We aren't jumping huge jumps.  I haven't shown him since... 2008?  Our only show and it was schooling cross rails.  I ride and I ride and I ride.  Five days a week.  There are some days that I just don't want to, that I'm tired and busy and would rather just braid his mane, but I do it anyways.  Pushing his body, pushing my body, trying to work on my form the best I can without someone to help me.  I used to video tape myself, riding in circles.  The only problem with that is that I had to stay somewhat in frame and everything came out grainy, anyways.  Old camera.

I get excited when he picks up the correct lead but don't want to hurt him, so I don't ask him to hold it very long.  I keep thinking that if I could lose twenty pounds (as much muscle as I am, I'm not sure that it's even a realistic goal), he would feel better.  His back would feel better.  I've always heard that a fat rider who can balance is better than a skinny person who can't, but, ultimately - if I'm running, would I rather run with an empty bookbag or one with shit in it?  Empty.  Make it easier.

So, a recent my-OTTB-is-amazing story:  Archie was stung by a bee.  It took me, stupidly, a minute to realize what was going on.  We were trotting.  Archie starts to do the "Bugle Boy Shuffle" (RIP), which is a canter on the front end and trot in the back.  Which turned into a couple of crow hops and a slam on the brakes.  Then his face was almost in the saddle, trying to reach something on his shoulder.  When I looked down, I saw black and yellow doing the death dance, starting to twitch under the saddle pad.  I immediately brushed it off of him - too little, too late.  We stood there for a moment before he started walking again.  I didn't pressure, didn't ask.  We'd been working on figure eights, but I sacrificed the rest of the ride to the trails.

Which is the second part of this.  I'll have to show an enhanced picture, but his pasture is pretty well surrounded by trees, while the meadow we ride in backs up to marshland.  If you aren't familiar with this topography, trees block wind.  Marsh does not.  It was howling back there, his mane standing up and his nostrils flared.  I thought multiple times that his butt was going to drop, his head raise, and he would bolt.  Fortunately, he held strong.  I even took him on a trail I'd never seen before and he was brave.

Other Life Stuff.

We ended up not going out with my friend on Saturday.  She wasn't going to be downtown until 10:30 or 11 that night and, well, we're an old married couple.  Fuck that late-night stuff.  I like sleep.  More so when I have to be up early the next day.  So, it was just a quiet dinner with a dessert of pumpkin cheesecake.

The half-marathon is this weekend.  I'm mixed parts of excited and anxious and so incredibly over it.  I'm taking a half day off of work on Friday, which is probably overkill, but I think I'll probably be useless then anyways.  I keep thinking of all the things I think I'll need:  like an arm band for my iPhone or sweatbands for my stinky elbows or what I'm going to eat for breakfast, if I eat breakfast.  We've got to be downtown and parked by 6:30 that morning.  What the hell?  I'm normally waking up at 6:30.  I know my nerves are going to be shot but I've never tried to run on Xanax and don't know how it'll affect me.  I guess I could try for my last pre-race run tomorrow night.  And for my run tomorrow, do I do a blazing three miles or an easy three miles?  Do I go to soccer practice on Thursday or do I just hang out at home instead and eat carbs?  Or walk the dogs for a few miles?

And then, rinse, repeat and shorten the distance but add some incline.  The Double Pump the first weekend in December, marking my one year of competitive running by going for a 15k over the bridge.. three times.

After that, though?  Fives and tens.  I'm staying away from distance because I think between running and soccer, my feet are getting jacked up.  I mean, seriously: my toes hurt!  That's not normal!  Soccer only has three games left.  I'll miss the ladies on the team, but I'm also stupidly excited to have my Sunday afternoons free.  The best light is actually about the time that we're playing, so I can do more photography.

D's lap has good luck.

Kittens.

It's like story time or something.  Savannah loves the kittens.

I *think* this is Ares.

Dear Mister Super Awesome, Amazing Farrier:

I'm sorry I doubted you.  I'm sorry I questioned your mad skills.  I'm sorry that I was cussing you out on my baby blog yesterday, at probably the same time that you were fixing the Bold Archer.  I am humbly corrected.

                                                                                      Kthxbye,
                                                                                      Beka


So, totally did not know that the farrier was going to be out yesterday.  I wish he would have called me and told me, because I would have brought Archie to the road.  As I was walking to the barn last night, I noticed that there was a weird tire track all the way to the barn and back.  Je n'ai pas compris. And the wheelbarrow was actually in a reasonable spot.  Then I give the Arch his beet pulp and set about cleaning his feet.  When what to my wondering eyes do I behold?

Well, yeah, I could have cleaned his foot before snapping a photo.

Shit yeah.  That's a new shoe.

I could have also explained to the guy why Archie's bell boot was pulled on the gimp leg, but I'm pretty sure he figured that out as soon as he picked up the foot to fix it.

I'm totally riding tonight.  And I'm not going to feel at all guilty.  I might even ride tomorrow, too, even though it's a run day.  I have priorities.

Speaking of running, I ran last night.  And got horribly sick afterwards.  Me thinks I did too much.  We did the Asylum: Vertical Plyo and I headed immediately to the track.  I did six miles.  I wouldn't have gone that far, but the first four felt fantastic.  Push until you can't, right?  Mile five was a slow misery, and mile six, I gave it all I had.

Splits:

1. 13:00
2. 12:54
3. 12:34
4. 12:09
5. 12:07
6. 10:28

Not an amazing photo, but I took it right before I ran.  USA flag above the GA flag.

Damn.

66% through with the year.  Let's take stalk:

• Husband and I have been married for one year and ten months (tomorrow).
• Husband and I have been together for six years and four months (ish).
• Archie has legally been my best bud for six years and one month.
• On the 20th of this month, D and I will have been in this city for two years. 
• Since January, the hubs has lost 87 pounds.  Yeah, you can clap.
• As of today, I've been with my job for a whopping nine months.

Why, yes, my previously anhydrotic horse does sweat better than yours!

My husband would gladly testify that I have been supremely lazy of late.  Any justification I can get for doing nothing, I'll take.  In my opinion, nothing would be better than coming home from work, turning on the tv, making a mixed drink or opening a beer, and sitting on the couch for a couple of hours.

And, to be honest, I do a version of that every night anyways (really need to cut back on the alcohol!).  But my version doesn't kick in until I've done two work outs and it's nine and dinner is in the oven.

It's been like this for months, so I should be used to it, right?

I think I've been going through a burn out phase.  After six months of Insanity and Asylum, I needed some time off.  My husband gave me a week.  I took two.  Or three.  I lost count.

We started the work outs again on Sunday.  I don't have the same sense of enthusiasm that I had before.  It's work.  It's not fun.  I hate Shaun T.  I don't even want to run right now.  And I can't find it within me to really push Archie, either.  We bought the bike and I'm excited about that, but is something new and fresh.

I think part of it is that I'm not seeing any sort of difference in my body.  I'm killing myself, nightly, but other than slightly bigger muscles, there's no magic.  I haven't turned into a bikini model overnight.  I'm still chubby, the number on my scale hasn't budged (other than minor fluctuations up and down - that bitch), and my clothes all feel the same.  Oh, yeah, except my non-stretchy shirts are all tighter in the shoulders, which is awesome.  Except that by "awesome", I mean it fucking blows.  I count my calories, I try my best to balance my carbs and my sugars, I exercise religiously, I eat multiple small meals and drink no less than 100 ounces of water a day, and I'm not getting any smaller.

But I've committed to get back into it.  To keep pushing.  D gets really supportive in the midst of my bitching during a workout and I'll either flip him off or stop exercising and pout.  I'm signing up for the half-marathon, which has me about a tenth as excited as I was for my first 5k, so I'm planning to get back into my schedule. ..Yay.

Very hipster photo of me getting the Blue Midge.  (That's her name.)

Dropping Blue off at the bike shop for her check up.  Digging the plaid.

Or, "Force Applied Must Be Greater Than Friction."

I later learned that it isn't supposed to look like a unicorn horn.