Low mileage week too.

I was going to get up and run at 5pm today but instead got up at 2:30 to wait for the farrier so she could check Riley's feet. He was perfectly happy to come into the barn and get out of the sun for his lunch. However, his feet were hurting so much he did not want to walk to the gate like he usually does. Seems a lot worse than yesterday but in fact that's good. It means it is pretty likely he has an abcess in his left front hoof. They are easy but time consuming to treat and resolve pretty fast. He was sore on his left hoof when the farrier squeezed on his hoof with her special hoof testers so I'm soaking his feet twice aday with warm water and epsom salts.

So you might be wondering how on earth you get a horse to comply with hoof soaking. Well there are a variety of ways but the easiest for me is to put his feet into 1 gallon storage bags (you fill these with the water/epsom salt mixture) and then into a pair of protective hoof boots he has and then give him some food. He is pretty happy just to stand in the stall and eat. Hopefully this will cause the abcess to drain and he will be a happy camper in a few days.

So needless to say, after losing 1 1/2 hrs of sleep time this afternoon, I decided to sleep from 4pm to 6 instead of running. Maybe on Tuesday although I'm not counting on it. Have to get up early on Wednesday and go to a new employee hiring board. I complained that they never let the night shift nurses do this so when they asked if I could do it this week I couldn't really say no. Hopefully by the time I get to Brushy Creek for the weekly 5k run from hell, I will have enough energy to run my 9 miles. I will be jogging the 5k again this week. Thursday, I will run on my own in the morning to maximize the amount of sleep I get on Wed. night. I will then go and get some cross training in setting up jumps for the show I won't be going to now. Then on Friday I will get up early (hopefully) and run 10 miles, work at the show all day and try to get adequate sleep on Fri. so I can do a long run with Rogue on Sat. before going back to the show for the rest of the day. Then I get to go back to work Sat. night. I will scale back any runs necessary if I get too tired.

The one glitch that might occur with all of this is that if Riley is not considerably better by Wed. PM, I will have to squeeze in a trip to the vet!! I hope not.