At home, we have been gearing up for the last few shows to round out the summer show season. That means getting up early to get a bunch of stuff done before the heat sets in. I am not a morning person, but I do not like summer and the heat, so I will get up to avoid the hottest parts of the day. Don’t get me wrong though, if there is work to be done in the heat of the day (or a cattle show), I will get out and do it, but not without lots of water, electrolytes and pickle juice.
Pickle juice is one of those tricks I have learned from all of my running and I will drink straight from the pickle jar in the fridge when I come in from the heat. It is definitely an acquired taste and it has to be dill pickle juice, not sweet pickle AND don’t accidentally grab the spicy dill jar and chug a bunch down!
Speaking of running, I am not a summer runner. One is my dislike for the heat and two, we are pretty active showing cattle during the summer months (who am I really kidding here, we show year ‘round). But I happened to find this race in Oklahoma that combined kayaking and running, so I talked my daughter into entering the team race with me. You have to run a mile, kayak 2 miles, then run another mile as a team. I was thinking, ok just a mile and then you get to get in the water and cool off and then finish up with another mile.
After checking to make sure my show schedule was clear, I entered us in the race and started making mental preparations. Of course, this was late spring, early summer when we entered, and I really didn’t pay much attention to the time of the race or really what the date was. Well, this race is in East central Oklahoma, in the middle of August and it begins at 10AM!
So now a little bit of panic is setting in because I can generally for the most part “wing it” when it comes to lack of training for a short one mile run, but when I look at the calendar, I see I have 2 cattle shows BOTH weekends before this race, so there will be NO TIME to actually get out and do much “training”, for a lack of a better word, to get ready for this thing.
My daughter is convinced she is going to have to “wait for me” in the running part, but I told her that my upper arm strength is better than hers for all of those show bulls I wrangle around and I am going to have to wait on her during the 2 mile kayak. We shall see about that because we are competitive as a family when it comes to anything and I will make sure she doesn’t out kayak me even if my arms are spaghetti noodles after 2 miles.
The next two weeks at these cattle shows will be my “training” for this race and I will be outside sweating, dragging show bulls and heifers around, and walking fast, or maybe running to anyplace when I have to go on foot. If you happen to see me dragging a big bull out to tie outs and it looks like we are taking the long way around and doing hill repeats, we probably are! So, if you see me at the fair, setting on the cooler, chugging down a jar of dill pickle juice and not having a delicious funnel cake, now you know why.
Stay tuned for my next editorial on the update on the success or fail of this race. I suppose this will be good practice for the half-marathon I signed up for that is later this fall. At least it will be MUCH cooler for that race and I might have a little more time to prepare for that one.
Debbie Elder is a native of Ottawa County, Okla. and lives on her farm in Webster County, Mo. To contact Debbie, call 1-866-532-1960 or by email at [email protected].
