A very sad goodbye..

I am re-posting this part as a history of our beloved Mocha:

12 years ago, we lost a dog that got hit by a car. We had only had her a year. That was so traumatic. As a result one of my kids, Heather & I went to the Humane Association right away and found the cutest dog ever-Mocha. The woman who was showing us around said, "Oh, and this is her sister" pointing to a black dog huddled in the corner in the kennel next Mocha's. Oh god, how can we NOT adopt this one too? Heather & I decided we could not split these 2 up-I mean what kind of person would split up siblings? So we went and adopted both of them but they had to get fixed so we didn't bring them home that day. I got home and told Hartley we adopted 2 dogs-sisters! he flipped out-"No I won't have TWO dogs, ever!" So Heather & I schemed and she went with him to the shelter to pick out which dog we wanted. Well, Heather turned on her Heather charm and guess what? They brought home 2 dogs (Hartley muttering something about not being able to choose). We have had these dogs since they were puppies. (Yes that is pee stain on our carpet-they loved to do that-we did not love that).

So these dogs have gone through raising 4 teenage daughters (well i think the 2 older ones were gone by now), 2 houses, building of one cabin and many, many trips to Chama. We thought we lost them once when a bottle of Tylenol was found empty on the floor and we thought it had been full. They were puppies and of course eating everything-they even ate holes in the wall in picture above. The Tylenol scare ended up to be nothing or they never reacted I guess. They once ate a whole bag of chocolate Halloween candy. Now there was some serious diarrhea after that. We think the neighbor was poisoning our dogs because Midnite became really sick and almost died in our last house. She was on steroids for years for the autoimmune disorder she supposedly had but funny how she could get off of the meds after we moved (I hated that neighbor). The steroids made her one crazy hungry dog. She once ate a hundred dollar bill, 2 tickets to the biggest basketball Lobo game ever, and loved tissues and papers. Once we moved into this house things calmed down a bit.Mocha and Midnite were now inside dogs! They loved it. We kept them in the kitchen at night, they hung out with us all the time. By this time of course they were very attached to Hartley, whom they followed everywhere. He, of course grew to love both our puppies over the years and they are "his dogs". So the last 6 years we have been in this house and kids are gone, they are really like our children. just enough a pain in the ass that you wonder why you have them, then as loving as can be and you cannot imagine life without these pets..

Imagine how difficult it was in September when the vet finally said it was time to let Midnite go. She had a tumor in her head, we had her to the vet many times, all kinds of meds. They are now considered geriatric dogs and each day a gift. I can't tell you how hard it was to see Midnite in the vet's office fully awake, about to go to doggy heaven. Her last act was to come over to me and bury her head in my lap. Kind of like saying-oh I am not sure I am ready. Or maybe saying goodbye. Hartley, Heather & I were there. We watched her go to sleep, painlessly and it was the hardest day i think I have ever had, except maybe when my mom died. Hartley and I can still barely talk about her. We took her to the cabin her last weekend on the planet. We knew it was time when she could no longer run and chase animals in the woods. Here is our sweet, neurotic Midnite with Hartley that last weekend.

Sometimes I can feel her in the house still. Of course Mocha was a bit confused after Midnite was gone. She couldn't understand why she was able to eat her food, un-harrassed. Midnite was the dominate dog and now Mocha had the whole space to herself. She didn't know what to do! She really didn't seem to skip a beat until she got out of the kitchen one day and tore down a bunch of our wooden blinds-this from a dog that has never had an act of aggression in her life (except toward other dogs). An expensive acting out for Mocha and us. i must admit, it was a bit of relief to finally have daily walks where Mocha did not go after other dogs, they did not fight with each other anymore (that got to be a problem later in life). So there really are positives in having just one dog. But we miss that black part lab,part chow dog.

Here is Mocha-the remaining canine in the family:

Mocha is now 12 years old. She is not eating these past few days, has some blood in her stool. She is still very excited to go for walks-that is a good sign. We are taking her to the vet tomorrow-dreading the worst but hoping it is a passing thing. Hartley and I can't stand the thought of putting another dog down right now, our last "child". But we know it is inevitable someday soon-we just are not ready yet. Are we ever ready to say goodbye to our pets-those furry animals whose only goal in life is to comfort you, protect you and serve you? I think not.

Here I sit more than 2 years later and cannot believe Mocha pushed her little soul to live another 2 years. The rest of this post is really sad so if you do not want to read on..

Last weekend, we watched Mocha romping with the children (well, romping is a bit of an exaggeration). Here she is again, "taking a walk" with Ellie. She simply could not get enough "walks" that day..

I am amazed she was even able to walk that much and she seemed so happy. The last few months we have watched Mocha deteriorate to the point her walks have become ever so short. She was falling alot, having trouble with her legs locking up under her. Her appetite seemed to be good especially after we switched her to the ever so unhealthy cheapass canned food! I suppose when you are with a pet 24 hours a day it is difficult to see the deterioration. I know at some point last spring, we did make "the appointment" and then cancelled when she apparently got worried when she heard us talking about "the last visit" and rallied. We never thought she would make it through the summer. Last time I picked her up at the kennel after a weekend gone, I got the sense they thought we were nuts for keeping her alive...I felt guilty..

We realized that at some point we would need to put her to sleep before our 2 month trip. I would never put a dog through that separation at the age of 14, esp. when she appeared to be suffering at this point. She still followed H into his room every night to lay on his floor by his feet. When she gazed longingly up at the couch (which we let her get up on after Midnite died), we would lift her up to what seemed to be her favorite spot at times...She still "watched TV" with us. One time in the last month, she even barked when the doorbell rang, something we had not heard in a long time...Hartley started telling her about a month ago Please make this easy on us. We have been good to you. Please let us know when to let you go..and she did...

On Tuesday, she did not eat anything and was drinking water like crazy. On Wed, we noticed a huge lump over her right eye. This was the same exact thing that happened to Midnite when the vet had told us something is obviously growing there. Her whole face changed. She started labored breathing and we knew it was close to the end...her last walk was Wednesday and she got confused and started wandering into the woods. This is when we knew..it was time...Oh man the sadness is indescribable as we were calling people around the area to see what the hell to do..I called the mobile vet to see if he could come and do the deed but when he mentioned the word carcass I said no way! I talked to DP on the phone, crying and telling her that we had Midnite's ashes up at the cabin. We had never been able to open the urn, it was glued shut. I walked over to see and sure enough the urn was completely unstuck and I saw Midnite's ashes for the first time in 3 years. I thought H had "unstuck it" but when I asked, he had not. It was like Midnite was giving us the OK to finally let Mocha join her..

H finally got a hold of a vet in Taos, 1.5 hours away, who could not only put her to sleep but do the cremation and give us her ashes. The drive to Taos was the longest, saddest drive of our life. It was excruciating..

We finally arrived. Heidi and Jack were there, thank God..Mocha would not even move from the back of the car as we "checked her in" Of course the vet's office was full of lively pets and people and it all seemed so wrong.. I had really wanted our vet, the one that has known Mocha for 14+ years to give her the "last shot" but alas it was not meant to happen that way. We could not imagine driving her all the way back to ABQ, plus we wanted to stay in Chama. Whatever..we were there...The woman at the front desk was very sweet and sympathetic. She had a 16 year old dog named "Mochi"-something I called Mocha all the time. So again another sign I guess. Finally after 45 minutes, I picked Mocha up, (she cried) but with dignity, walked into the vet's office. He gave her the first shot to relax her and she immediately ran out of the room-great! Jack went and got her and of course she came over and buried her head in my lap, just as Midnite had done..I was balling pretty hard by now and Jack told me he would stay with her until the end..I left..maybe I should not have but I just could not take seeing another dog put down. I told her she had been such a good dog and I loved her and thanked her for staying around so long...After about 5 minutes, Jack came out and said it was over...We all cried forever it seemed, then went to pick up Avery and have lunch with her sweet little 3 year old face, which perked us all up even in our shocked state.

So H and I headed back to the cabin and it was so quiet! Mocha, mind you never made any noise, it just was so quiet! H and I cried and threw out all the doggy items...and cried some more..Don't think I have cried this much since my sister died 8 years ago..

We kept hearing the dog..Mocha sighing, dogs barking..H thought he almost "tripped over Mocha"-really weird stuff. We were suppose to have company again for the weekend but by yesterday AM, we knew we had to get the hell out of there. The memories of her being so sick, the whole thing..we thought distance might help...We did manage a mini triathlon on Friday. We swam in the lake, rode our bikes and were going to do a long run until we almost got hit by lightening and decided the 2 mile run off the bike was enough.We ran yesterday AM and did OK until we walked up the driveway to the house and the memories came flooding back. We are outa here!

We got home yesterday, went to some friends' house for dinner, where we related the whole thing, did some laughing and generally forgot Mocha for a bit. Last night I went downstairs and realized we had never been in this house without dogs..I looked out the back door, half expecting to see Mocha wagging her tail to come in..ahhh,....the denial part of grief..

Anyone who says losing a pet is not like losing a person is dead wrong. Maybe not the same type of grief? A person is not with you 24/7 except maybe a spouse. Mocha was always with us, giving us unconditional love. She had the sweetest spirit ever and anyone who ever met her, fell in love with her. So now she is in doggy heaven, Midnite probably fighting with her over who will be dominate dog up there..who knows?

We will get her ashes in 2 weeks and go up to Chama a spread both their ashes over our land up there. A place they loved the most.

We will go on with our lives. No pets for now. We have some sense of relief that we can now travel, be more spontaneous with our lives without the responsibility of pets. We still would rather have Mocha back any day though...Indescribably sadness here still but it will get better. We will keep training and living life and hopefully someday see our amazing dogs, who lived so long with us, again..

Goodby my sweet Mocha, Mochi, Mochi-bug, Mochachica, Mochapottomus,Mochster..all the names we called you and you always were there....

H.A.W.T.

High Altitude Workout Training or:

High Altitude Weekend Training..

At any rate it was fun, hard, tiring and just as we planned...

Friday: H and I arrived around 5:30 with a car full of tri stuff, food, dog and miscellaneous items. Our home in the mountains is remote and beautiful, but not too far away from civilization. The official altitude is 7900 feet so we always feel breathless here for a few days, even coming from a mile high. It is 2 hours, 45 min away from the ABQ home so we can be in remote quiet world just a hop, skip and jump away. Soon our friends began to arrive. There was Mark and his 10 year old son, Orlando, an up and coming(now beating my ass) triathlete, Dread Pirate and husband Steve and their 2- 7 year old twins. We somehow got everyone into a bed except Orlando, who graciously accepted the couch bed. He had to fight over it with Mocha, our geriatric dog, who thought it was very entertaining to have the twins "take her for walks" about 50 yards from the cabin down the road and back:

This is Ellie taking her for one of her "walks". The kids seemed to love it up here..

We all crashed Friday night, got up early on Saturday AM, me at my new waking hour of 4:00 AM-grrrr....

Run: We all had different plans on the run. Mark his 18 miler, Jane and Orlando 90 min. or so, me my 8 miles and Hartley walking his 5 miles on an injured but healing leg. We all took off together up and down the road near our place. It has some traffic but mostly beautiful views of he mountains, pine trees and glimpses of the river. I started out huffing and puffing feeling like dog-doo-doo. This soon passed as I turned around to head downhill and took a gel. We all ran into each other at different times of the morning as the paces differed (mine being the ever so slow 13 min mile). I ended the last 3 miles or so doing the walk one minute/run one minute uphill. We finally all made it back to the cabin and had a great breakfast, thanks to H's cooking:

Workout one completed!

Steve got to do a quick ride up Cumbres Pass as he was on "kid duty" the rest of the weekend. I think this was very noble of him to volunteer to do and think DP is a lucky girl to have such a husband as this. Perhaps this shows the generation gap between my young friends and I. All the men I know in their 40s and younger seem to have hands on parental relationships with their kids. This impresses me!

Swim: OK, no matter how I tried to WILL the clouds from forming, they did anyway. However after lunch we sped out to Heron Lake, a small wake less lake about 25 miles from our place up here. It was mid afternoon and no matter what the hell Accuweather said, the storm was coming...so we found out little spot to swim in the lake, hurriedly putting on our wetsuits, H & I with our new "Safe Swim" belts that will blow up into life vests should you feel like you need them. They are even race legal according to triathlon rules, but if you use them you are DQd (duh)...Anyway, here we are:

Notice how cold the poor kids look without the wetsuits! I had called the night before and got the terrifying news the the water temp in this lake was 52 degrees-say WHAT?!? Needless to say, they lied. The water temperature was probably a balmy 68 degrees, lovely weather for a swim. We still were seeing the clouds rolling in but off we took and decided it would make sense to swim to a green buoy somewhere "out there" and stick together.

There we are..before the squall. We got to the buoy after awhile and then I saw the darkness setting in. All of a sudden, the wind hit and so did the waves. I turned around and signalled Lets turn around NOW! Soon the rain was pelting down and I felt a bit like like I was in a washing machine. We were probably only 500 yards from shore and it seemed like we were going with the waves but every time I looked up,I was being blown off course to the left. I yelled over to Orlando that I was heading Over there and would walk back on the shore..I guess no one else knew that because they wondered where the hell I was going. I panicked a little a couple of times, rolled on my back, considered using the damn "safety sausage" as I call it, but decided against it. My heart rate was pretty high by now and every time I looked up the damn shore looked the same distance away..Damn! I saw a boat hovering near by. I think he was looking to see if anyone was going to start to drown. Finally after what seemed to be 30 minutes, I arrived like a sea wrecked passenger onto shore. There came Steve bringing my my flip-flops so I would not kill myself walking on the rocks..

OK, here is the really depressing part..I looked down at my new Garmin 310XT and all I saw was 1.25 miles..Holy cow! I thought..I swam much farther than I even imagined! Then my friends broke the news to me-we had only been out for a grand total of 17 minutes!! WTF?? This means either a: I swam the world's fastest 1.25 miles or b: my Garmin was SO wrong. It turned out to be the latter. I had forgotten to zero out the Garmin setting so DUH, as it turns out, we went only about 1000 very stressful yards in our attempt to swim 2500 yards. But alas, there was lightening at the end and hey-we did get out alive! That ended up being pretty funny after was all said and done.

On the way home, we turned down our dirt road on the way to our mountain getaway and alas, just as if mother nature thought we deserved a different experience:


Not one, two but FOUR young bucks, who seemed to befriend us when we pulled out the potato chips. They are quite tame around this area but I have never in 20 years seen this many bucks together, sans females..The kids of course LOVED it as the adults did and we all whipped out our cameras, Iphones, Blackberries and took as many pictures as we could as this is what you do when you see nature at it's finest!
We arrived home, tired but happy after our encounter with Bambi's relatives..

Another great meal from H, who loves to cook especially for people he loves so here we are having a picnic on our deck overlooking the Brazos Peaks:

Some of us were really tired:

Connor was taking a snooze (sort of)..

After dinner we all veged around the TV feeling like slugs watching some guy document his 5 month hike up the Continental Divide. We saw the sign for the CD up at Cumbres Pass-hey that is where we are headed tomorrow! Off to bed at a fairly early hour. I awoke again at 3:30 hungry...this time was able to get back to sleep...

Bike: The plan was to leave the end of our dirt road between 8 and 8:30 and by golly that is what we did. I drove the car down about 5.5 miles to a place where I knew I would not have to climb said hill at the end of a tough bike ride. Here are the rest taking off:

It was a cool ride down the hill, then we all rode the 10 miles or so to Chama to meet Steve and the kids, who were enjoying a nice breakfast near the train station:

After a pit stop, we headed up the 2,000 feet to Cumbres Pass. It is only about 12 miles from here but a difficult climb. We left NM:

and headed into Colorado. I was keeping my HR down, a steady but slow pace.




I arrived last to this stop, where we watched the train pass. It was pretty spectacular:









The last 400 feet or so seem straight up although it is only a 10% grade, at 10,000 feet, a very challenging climb to the top of the pass. The real challenge is to "beat the train" up to this point and two of our little group did, but we all finally made it:

The trip down was Wheeeee! Down in about 30 minutes back to town. Finally H & I made it back to the car, where we shuttled ourselves and bikes back to the cabin, then back to pick up the rest of the group.
Total bike miles for me: 45 miles
The longer group did 60 very difficult high altitude bike miles! Done!

We all ate and ate when we got back to the house. I was so hungry...

Then of course, the clouds opened up and it started raining as H & I said our goodbyes and headed to town to pick up some stuff we needed for the week. We are up here for the whole week! YAY! 11 days of high altitude training for us and I am so happy to be in the mountains even if it will be partly training, partly resting.

I LOVED having our NM Outlaws up here for the weekend. This is the second such annual event and it was even more fun this year. Now if we could figure out how to fit the many more folks into our humble abode, I am hoping next year many more of the team will come!

Today I awoke after sleeping like a baby finally! The sun is just coming up over the peaks, I am sipping my morning coffee and listening to the local radio station. We have a 5 mile run today-well run/walk I think with my legs feeling the way they are. We are heading out to the lake for another open water swim, the weather is again, not suppose to rain but just in case we will head out earlier today.

Thank you my friends for a great, great weekend!!

Time Trialled out!

This week was "time trial" week in Ironman Training..

Bike: I went 11 miles in 30 minutes
Swim: I went from 1:52 (500 divided by 5) in June to
1:45 (1000 divided by 10) the other day.
Run: around 3.5 miles in 30 minutes.

Thoughts: I am really proud of my bike TT. I really, really suck on the hills but IMWA is flat, flat, flat and so was my TT. If I could only hold to 22 MPH for 112 miles, well I would be friggin' fast.

Swim: What can I say? I have been swimming 50 years. I remember the lifeguard jumping off the high dive with me when I was around 5 years old. We swam everyday of my childhood it seems. I was on the swim team for at least 10 years-never did so well but had a great time! So just when I thought I would never get faster, I found Coach Eric, a 26 year old swim genius who thinks I can do anything! Who knew? He changed my stroke pretty much completely. I had to learn to "undo" the 'ole "S stroke" I was using for the last 50 years. I learned to pull a whole different way, push back totally strangely..it all feels so awkward. BUT the proof is in the pudding. When they asked what my projected time would be in the swim at IMWA (I think they must have waves), I put 1:12! Seriously? What was I thinking? Now however I think I could actually maybe, maybe do it!

Run: Well, I just suck. It seems no matter what the distance-2 miles or 26.2 miles-it all feels hard. I was thinking as I was running this last TT, Why is this so friggin' hard all the time? It all feels like Ironman to me! I wish for once, I would have that smooth "this is so easy" feeling I have when I swim..OK, so I need some work in this area obviously! I try telling myself I am a runner, I love running, whatever..Nothing seems to work..I am considering doing a walk one minute/run one minute at IMWA though. I do walk pretty fast and doing this I can average 13 minute miles. Psychologically this may be easier for me and I do not think I averaged any faster when I "ran" the whole thing at IMCDA....Will run this by Coach.

We are off to Chama for the next 12 days of glorious training in the mountains. Where I can curse even louder when I run at 8,000 feet!

Time trialing and shopping...equally as fun!

Today was a great training day for me. The "schedule" called for 30 minute time trial on the bike after a warm up. MG met me at the casino,which by the way I was tempted to go in and just stick a dollar in a slot machine and see what happened but my saner, older self did not let me give in. There was a time when my spontaneous nature was way more apparent than it is now. I digress...Despite the ominous clouds surrounding us, we took off from the casino down 313, a very flat road with a pretty good shoulder. A triathlete friend of ours got hit by a car this past week at the very intersection we were headed too. This was a bit eery-I have been super careful about cars since hearing of this accident. She is OK, has a broken hand and leg, very lucky I suppose in some sense but she had qualified for Kona (triathlon Ironman world championship), which is no easy task so I can't even imagine her pain over losing that opportunity this year. We went about 15 minutes and on my GO took off on a 30 minute time trial. With the wind the first part, it was quite easy to maintain 24 MPH and HR of 150. Then we turned around..oh shit.. The headwind was intense but about halfway through seemed to shift again, as it does here in NM often. At the end of 30 minutes I had gone 11 miles or so and my HR was more in the 159 range on the way back. I am very proud of myself! Then, of course between conversing with MG about his life and mine, it started raining just in time to climb the last big hill to our cars. Whew! We made it!

Heidi, Jack and Avery are here for a couple of days so I did what any self-respecting Grandma does..I took her shopping this morning! For clothes. I think How do people with boys do this shopping thing? I mean even at her age she had her favorite shoes and favorite color. Do boys say these things? Maybe I will never know! Avery was a delight to shop with and I have a feeling this is the first of many shopping excursions together. My great Aunt Bernice use to take us clothes shopping at least once a year and some of my favorite memories are "modeling" the clothes afterwards. This was such a treat as I was one of 5 girls in my family and "hand-me-downs" were the norm. I was working at 14 years old to start buying "my own clothes" as the inherited clothes were not really the "cool" thing to have in Junior High!

Today it has rained for two days in a row in ABQ. This is such an unusual occurrences...it totally changes the atmosphere or something..my whole psyche feels energized...

Where the hell have I been?

(I made my blog private for awhile because paranoia was setting in after a bunch of people wanted to be my "friend" on Facebook, some of which I barely remember from HS. So if this is you, sorry-I am limiting my "friends" on FB)..I am over it..

BUT...I decided to take myself off the "do not read" list and make public again..nuff said..

I am in my third week of a 17 week "advanced" Ironman training program from Beginnertriathlete.com. Am I advanced? Well, that remains to be seen. My week last week looked like this:

Swim: 9400 yards

Bike: 108 miles

Run: 16 miles

We are off and running on our Ironman Western Australia adventure. There is some underlying hesitation in my training. We have two elders in our midst who could take a turn for the worst on any given day. First of all, 14 year old Mocha (dog) is still alive and well. And she has a brain or soul or whatever you want to call it because each time we see her faltering and start talking about the final trip to the vet, she rallies. Oh no you don't..I am still here and love to eat and take walks..don't even think about it! Every so often, her back legs just do not work, she falls and can't get up. We think..uh-oh this is it..Then she rallies.. I cannot believe this dog is still alive..We still love her and she seems to want pets once in awhile even still.

Then there is elder mother in law who basically is in the same boat. Just when we think she is down for the count, she too rallies and says Nope, not ready to go yet-got lots of living to do and great grandchildren to see! Honestly I think she is waiting for the two remaining grand-daughters to get married. After all women need husbands you know! God bless her..

You know you are in Ironman training when folks start to tell you that you look like you are losing weight. But the mistake I make is then getting on the scale and realizing I actually gained 2.5 lbs! Damn that scale!! I do realize after riding 52 miles yesterday up and down mountains, taking in gobs of electroylytes and ibuprofen, my kidneys are probably holding water...that's it-water weight! Damn scale..

I am still hesitantly excited for our 2 month vacation which starts in 15 weeks and 3 days. We leave on Thanksgiving day and return on January 31st. Tickets are paid for, hotels reserved for part of the trip, hiking the Milford track in New Zealand reserved...Even our ever so light suitcases are bought..We have friends who have offered to lend us bike cases for the flight..It will get real soon enough I suppose.

In 3 weeks I will be competing in the "Colorado Relay"again with 10 of my buddies. I am the "slow one" here and this year my legs of the trip look easier. Maybe I won't have to be transported off the mountain after vomiting all over the van after suffering from high altitude, dehydration and sleep deprivation. That is my goal...Amazed they wanted me back after that!

November 5th we are off to North Carolina for Beach2Battleship half Ironman triathlon, a prelude to IMWA. ("Eeeemwaaa" is what I am calling the Ironman)..Wilmington, North Carolina is where this race will be held. I am hoping it will be between hurricane season and winter there. 15 of our closest friends will be there and sharing a house and vans. Stay tuned for that adventure unfolding. I am on the planning committee for that one and it sounds like so much fun!!!

Amidst it all, we continue to enjoy retirement, whatever that means. I am so busy and can't get a damn thing done around the house these days although I know not a single person reading this will feel sorry for me!