River Valley Hunter Pace Results

Actually, not as bad as anticipated.

Remember my initial goal of finishing in under 1 hour 30 minutes?

Well, it turns out we finished in 1 hour 34 minutes. Even with her spooky attitude and stumbling gait we only came in 4 minutes over my goal time. Not too shabby!!

We ended up in 16th place out of 42 and were 22 minutes slow. Yup, the optimal time was just over 1 hour 12 minutes. Fast, fast, fast.

I really wish they would publish the distance, but then maybe they don't actually measure it so they don't know. I had forgotten the Garmin, so I have no clue but given how she was going and the time it took, I bet it was around 8 miles.

Where did we lose 22 minutes? I can almost account for all of that time.

• 4 minutes lost just trying to get her out on trail
• 2 minutes lost trying to get her to go on some red clay footing in the first 2 miles or so
• 3 minutes lost trying to get her to walk past a Christmas horse decoration
• 5 minutes lost trying to get her to walk over a bridge
• 2 minutes lost trying to cross a creek

That is 16 minutes right there. All trying to go by obstacles that she knows how to do and does consistently.  Well, except for the horse statue. That I allowed for because it was half in the shade and half in the sun and had a big old wreath around it.

The other 6 minutes was just a slower pace on some of the open fields that we trotted instead of cantered. So really, had she mentally been present on Sunday we  would have easily met the optimal time.

I hope the spring date fits in well with our conditioning and endurance rides so that we can go back and kick some serious butt!!!