My dog is dying.

I've never faced death.

In over forty years on this planet, only one person I've ever been close to has died.  My uncle Eugene was an important part of my life, but even then, in later years I saw him rarely. When he passed away, it wasn't real to me, every visit, to this day I expect that I might see him.

Sheamus has been in my daily life for six and a half years. Longer than my two youngest children. I don't know how to deal with his imminent demise.

He is suffering. My logical mind knows that it is best for him. Postponing the inevitable would be selfish.  But there are moments when I see the young Sheamus look at me, a glimmer of hope sparks in my heart that he won't have to go, that he can bounce back from this and be himself again.

Don't get me wrong, that dog has caused me more trouble than anything else in my life. He is a big oaf, a hair brained, over excited, trouble-making, escape artist.  I've cursed that dog more times than I can count. The destruction alone that he's brought down on my yard and house is enough to drive me out of mind.

But he's my dog and I love him.

Dexter likely won't even notice. Delilah will surely wonder where he's gone to. Caleb has more important things on his mind.  But Clarisse is taking this hard.  Harder than I had expected.  I guess she's never had to deal with death either, not since she's been old enough to be really aware.

My emotional mind feels like I'm giving up on him.  Maybe if we didn't have young children, or a limited budget, or a million other reasons (excuses?) we could care for him better, longer... give him more time.

But he doesn't need more time. I do. He doesn't plan for tomorrow, his life is in the now, and the now for him is pain and difficult mobility.

There are few things I will truly miss about Sheamus. 

But I'll miss him.

Crossfit log for Friday, April 6th

Fran.

Last time I did 13+ minutes at 85lbs and decided next time to go back to 75# until I could get under 7:00, my PR at 75# is 9:44.

Today I went 9:16. So improvement, but not dramatic.

3 rounds for time 21-15-9
75# Thrusters
pull-ups.

Crossfit log for Thursday, April 5th

Solid workout at Physics this morning.

Rx had a rope climb. I've tried in the past and it's really hard. But last week I saw a video of an older guy talking about how Crossfit changed his life and all that, but at one point they showed him climbing a rope and the technique he used look very intuitive to me, so I gave it a try and lo and behold in a matter of less than a minute I was twenty feet in the air dangling on a rope. It was pretty cool.

Not to say I did Rx, I'm firmly in the blue camp.

Our workout was 15 min AMRAP:
5 toe to bar
5 jerk press
5 front squat
5 burpees
5 v-snaps (hand to toe sit-ups)

I have trouble with my jerk, well anything over head really, because of my poor should/upper thoracic mobility, so I settled on 65# (tried 75# and it wasn't happening).

Tough workout, went 4 rounds and up to 3 front squats. Toe to bar slowed me down a lot, although I touched the bar with my toes every time (didn't settle for knee to chest or knee to elbow) after 2 reps I'd be swinging too much and had to regain control, or stop and start in order to continue.

All it all it was good.

After we did dead lifts. Little bit of improvement on my form
Did 8-5-5-4 @ 155#

No back issues.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, April 4th

Legs are officially toast!

Started with power cleans @ 70% of max. 3 sets of 1 from the ground, 3 from the hang position, 1 from the ground.

Settled on 105#.

WOD was 5 rounds for time 5-10-15-20-25 reps of:
-wallballs as heavy as you can (settled on 14#, 20# would've been doable, but torturous).
-box jumps 24" (blue Rx, red Rx was 30")
-kettle bell Sumo Dead lift High Pull 20kg

14:17

Kept a pretty even pace. Box jumps were my strength.

Running log for Wednesday, April 4th

Flushed out the legs on the treadmill 7.4km in 40:00 @ 5:30/km

Started to get bored at 30:00, figured I'd go to 7km, then at 35:00 the treadmill slows down: Time for your 5 min cool down! Great. Thankfully I still had control of the speed and cranked it back up to 11kph and figured I might was well ride out the 5 minute count down. So I did.

Running log for Monday and Tuesday, April 2nd and 3rd

Some quick updates.

Ran Monday 6.06km in 30:00

Did 5:10/km for 10 minutes, then dropped it to 4:40/km for 10 minutes then up to 4:55/km for 10 minutes (with a couple of minutes at 4:30 and 4:45 for good measure). Wanted to test the legs. Felt good.

Today did the "Frog" workout, sort of. Started at 10.4kph (~5:46/km) and upped it by 0.4kph every 2:00, ended at 24:00 the last 2:00 at 4:03/km.

It was getting rough at the end, but I felt strong.

Crossfit tomorrow!

Crossfit log for Sunday, April 1st

Back at Crossfit today.

Rough one. A "hero" WOD (typically harder than most WODs) called "DT"

5 rounds for time:
12 Dead lifts
9 hang power clean
6 push jerks

Blue scaled was 115#, after a little warm-up I knew I wasn't doing blue scaled.

Settle on 95#, but after two rounds, there was no way I was doing another 3 at that weight, so I dropped it to 85# and that went better, but still hard.

Took me like 15 minute, I didn't even look at the clock when I finished.