Blogs - Lauren Sprieser

Every year or so, usually after a few months of running myself ragged, I go through a two-week period of serious enthusiasm. I mean, I am JONESED. I'm getting stuff done. I'm up late, sans caffeine, and then up early again the next morning with a big smile on my face. I tell myself that I must be doing something right; I must be eating right or doing really well with whatever exercise regime I'm on, or that maybe I've just biologically hit my stride, because, clearly, all this energy is so great.

Then I get the Plague.

Friday, 4/12, 9 p.m.: My schedule for tomorrow is made, my bag is packed, and I'm checking the big email the triathlon director sent us to figure out exactly where we're supposed to meet tomorrow afternoon for the Mandatory First-Timer Meeting.

Which is when I see that I'm supposed to pick up my packet before 3 p.m. Before 3. No exceptions. 

I work on Saturdays. I've already cancelled two lessons to get to Richmond by 3:30 for the mandatory meeting, something I only learned was mandatory a few days before.

Oh booger.

I'm getting down to the wire training for my first triathlon, next Sunday, and that's meant some time on my bike trainer, watching movies in my apartment. I pick movies that are inspirational—you know, with lots of heavy music, gunfire and punching people. Last week, it was the Matrix Trilogy.

Earlier this month, Michael Pollard wrote a great blog, a rallying cry for American breeders. He comes from an eventing perspective, but the need for more, better horses bred in the United States is true across all the international disciplines. Between the cost of importation and the euro, European horses are expensive and not easy to get.