The #1 Reason to Own Your Own Business

Wednesday morning I pointed the truck towards Croft State Park instead of work. It felt amazing and liberating to ride instead of stress and worry about paying the bills. Yeah, I will need to work harder to make up for the day off, but so be it. There has to be some benefit from all the added work load and stress and that is the ability to take random days off. 

Croft was the perfect place to try out the Renegades with steeper hills and a ton of rocks on a nice 6 mile loop. I will save all the boot talk for another post to focus on the ride itself.

The morning was cool and overcast with the promise of reaching the low 80s in the afternoon. I had chosen to wear a long sleeve shirt for the first time since spring and the scent of fall was everywhere. Gem looked smashing in her tack, new boots and very rarely ever used cantle bag. I prefer to wear a camelbak myself and keep as much gear off her as possible, but I needed somewhere to put the boots if they decided to come off and not go back on. Her winter coat is already starting to come in and is speckled with black hair. I love it :)

We headed off to the trail head and dived immediately into the heavily treed forest. Gem was eager to move forward, but remained calm and focused on me. The trail began up a nice grade with gravel. It would be the perfect start to trial the boots. 

At the top of the hill is an old graveyard. Every time I pass it, I tell myself to research the family but I never seem to remember to. 

The first 1/2 of a mile was on a double wide gravel path and I let Gem stretch her legs at a forward walk. She was feeling good and strong beneath me and I took a deep breath letting it out slowly as all stress left me. In its place was a deep seated peace at being deep in the woods, far away from the busy hive of life, on the back of my favorite girl. Nothing else can touch that feeling.

The trail began a steep, but short down hill that would end up making a sharp turn onto the lake. I knew the large drain would be waiting blindly around the corner and had been a point of tension for Gem in the past. The summer had been exceptionally dry and the last time I hiked there the drain wasn't flowing at all, but I still worried a bit.

It was a partly self fulfilled prophecy and I really need to get better at not anticipating problems which in the end just creates tension in Gem as she senses my apprehension. As it was though, she just stopped and looked around trying to figure out where the danger was. Once I relaxed and let her know it was ok, she moved forward again.

Once past the drain, we popped out onto a lovely sandy lane that divides Lake Craig from the river/creek it drains into and then down a short hill and back into the woods. I knew this section very well since it is one of our main hiking trails. Gem had only been on it twice before though and so I just let her take her time and look around.

I paid close attention to my Garmin during this section out of curiosity for how long the next uphill climb really was. Having hiked it frequently, I knew it was steep and seemingly un ending and always pegged it as a great training hill for Gem. We began at the base at 0.63 miles and I made a mental note to check it at the top.

It is hard to capture the grade of hills on camera when on horseback, but this single track hill just keeps going with a few really steep sections, but mostly just a continuous climb. Gem stopped a few times to grab some greenery alongside trail and since I wasn't there for speed work, I let her.

Even at a walk, Gem was breathing a little harder as we neared the top. She moved freely, never hesitating except to grab food and really seemed to enjoy the morning as much as I was.

When we finally reached the top the Garmin showed that it was about 3/4 of a mile of continuous climbing. No wonder she was breathing a little harder!

From there the trail flattened out and weaved along becoming a single track and then widening once again. Overhead the trees formed a near sold canopy of leaves blocking out the overcast sky. It was like moving through a fairy tale and I quickly lost track of all thought as I got lost in the moment.

As the trail flattened, I also allowed her to open up and trot short sections. I didn't want to push her too hard and refrained from opening her to a canter even though the combination of great trail and perfect weather was screaming for a run. Gem responded by flowing into an extended trot that reached 8 mph effortlessly.

I slowed her to a walk after 1/4 mile and only let her trot again when the mile changed over and if the trail was flat and not technical. No reason to hurry her return. Gem stayed calm to the point where I dropped the reins for a good mile and just enjoyed the freshly fallen leaves strewed along the trail, cool breeze blowing through the warm early fall air and the pure sense of freedom. While I love wide open spaces and grand vistas, my soul belongs in the forest.

Sadly, the miles flew by and I soon found ourselves nearing the bridge only a mile and a half from the end. Gem notoriously hates bridges, but will cross them. I forced myself to think positively and she marched across snorting in displeasure. Half way across I had to laugh out loud as the wind plus her movement made the metal braces start to creak and her snorting grew louder and more disgusted. She crossed over the creek and I rewarded her with letting her move out once again.

It is such a novel experience for me to reward her with letting her move out. This is the mare who was completely unrideable solo on trails and then turned to careening wildly. Not this day. This day she was calm, forward and eager. It was the icing on the cake.

Of course, this is still Gem I am talking about and as I turned her to head back to the trailer we past by the barn. There was a camper with a boat and I looked at it bracing for her to spook to the right, away from the boat on my left. I'm not sure what the reason and Dusty is prone to believe she did it on purpose (past experience would have to agree with him). Her signature move is a 180 degree spin and  shoulder duck to the right. She very, very rarely goes left. Well, with my weight slightly more in the left stirrup she spun left and off I flew through the air. Fortunately, while the last year has seen me lose practice at it, I have enough in reserve from the last 5 years and I landed on my feet tweaking my right shoulder as I clung to the reins and spun around.

Gem looked at me calmly without so much as a glance back to whatever it was that set her off and not even a tad snorty or tense. Mares.

I climbed back on board refraining from any reaction whatsoever. Getting mad at her, going after her, or hitting her only back fires. Ignoring the bad behavior and carrying on like nothing ever happened to interrupt it is the only way to go, so we made our way past the boat and barn and back toward the trailer.

As we got close to the trailer, I looked over at the gorgeous show ring. It had been nearly 2 years since Gem saw the inside of an arena, so I pointed her inside the gates. The thought of cantering her inside the arena to test the boots a little more flitted through my mind, but the footing was deep, soft sand which is not something her ligaments and tendons are used to, so instead we just made our way around and then exited.

Back at the trailer, I took a look at the boots, snapped a bunch of pictures to send off to Renegade  untacked her. I gave her a huge hug to thank her for such a lovely ride (minus the fall) and brushed her out.

Unfortunately, the ride had a bit of a damper at the end. Pre ride, all the weird filling I had noticed to her hind legs last week was gone. The legs were nice and tight with well defined tendons. It both verified that I hadn't made it up and lessened my worry about the previous existence. However, when I removed her hind boots it was back. We did 6 miles in 2 hours, right at a 3 mph pace, and while we did trot some short sections and walked hills this was by no means a difficult work out. I have no clue when the filling began during the ride, but it was most certainly there at the end. There continued to be no reaction from Gem with prodding or flexing. She weighted it evenly and had no pain with prodding. No heat or pulse was appreciated either. I am not rushing her off to the vet for an evaluation, but I will be keeping an eye on it as we continue to move back into full work. Dusty is under the impression that getting her stronger and back to full work will improve it. I am worried that she might have injured it back in June, but it was missed with the very much more important left front injury.

Front left post ride. Nice and tight.

Hind left post ride. Filling noted above the joint. If she was off on it or it was painful I would be making an appointment immediately. For now I am going to mindfully ignore it. 

            

                     

RnT Wrap Up

I have fallen in love with the sport. I have been thinking about it for a few days and I think I finally figured out why. Bare with me a bit through this.

I love riding in the woods and going fast(ish) is much better than walking the whole thing. I get bored in an arena in about 4 minutes although truth be told that is more a function of not knowing really what to do in an arena besides go around it. I would bet that if I took some real lessons and had homework to work on, the arena would be a lot more interesting. But never as interesting as a nice trail. Which is why I gravitated towards things like hunter pace and endurance.

Endurance to me (or at least to this point in my experience with it) is not really all that physically challenging. Yes, I hurt like the dickens after it and I won't even try to claim that I ride as well towards the end as I do in the beginning, but I'm also not elevating my heart rate at all or pushing my muscles past the point of normal limits. To me endurance is a massive mental and psychological challenge that is rewarding in and of itself.

It is all about my preparation for the event: nutrition, hoof health, hydration, do I need to electrolyte or not, tack fit, Gem's mental preparation etc....

Crossing that finish line has less to do with my physical state than all the little details of horse management. It is the best way I know of to become a great horseperson and not just a rider.

But I got  much better physical/emotional high off of crossing the finish line of a half marathon because it was all on me. It was under my own power that I went 13.1 miles in x amount of time. Nobody was dragging me along. Nobody was compensating for my weaknesses.

Enter RnT. The perfect combination of mental challenge, horsemanship and physical exertion.

It gives me that sense of accomplishment that other horse endeavors have not been able to fulfill. In fact, I think it is an even greater challenge because you have two partners out there with you to not let down. If I decide to wimp out and start to crawl my way through the event, then my partner will end up having to work even harder to make up for me. She will pass me quicker, have to tie sooner and then be on her feet way longer all because I am a snail. So I force my legs to move because they can. I also have to continue to be able to manage my horse well. I have to watch for ribbons, make sure Gem is handling the pace ok and monitor her breathing and footing. All while trying to catch up to my partner to continue making good forward progress.

Not everyone can ride a horse and not everyone can do endurance, but the vast majority of people given the properly behaved and well trained horse can actually fudge their way through a LD. A lot of horses can to. But I would bet that there are far fewer people who can ride a horse at the pace required, jump off and tie said horse to a tree and then happily take off on foot away from that horse hoping that their partner will catch up and pass them before their legs fall off. It is a high that I have not matched as of yet in any other sport.

I've been scouring the RnT calendar and unfortunately there aren't many events in this area. The next one I can get to (meaning less than 5 hours away) is at the end of August in VA. You bet I will be there. The shortest distance is 15 miles, so I better up my running game a bit. I think I've conned S into doing it with me. I'm not sure of all the details yet. There is an endurance ride coinciding with it and she had already planned to do the LD there. It is awfully close to the Biltmore 50, so I think we may go and use her other mare for it on Saturday and she is going to ride her endurance mare on Friday in the LD. I am toying with the idea of doing the LD Friday as well, but need to see where Gem is at. The 15 mile ride Saturday may be nice for her as a last long ride (with lots of breaks) before the 50 in September. Either way I will be there!!!

New plans

Making plans is for the optimistic. I'm not an optimist. Nor am I a pessimist. I think I fall more into the realist category. I don't assume everything will be roses, but nor do I assume the worst will happen. I look at what will most likely actually happen and go with that. I don't like making plans. They rarely work out.

But in this game, I think I have to make some sort of game plan to make it to the start line of our first 50 mile ride.

I know the ride I want to do, the location and the date. I rode there on my birthday for a hunter pace and now have a better feeling for the general terrain and footing. It is doable barefoot although there are quite a few access gravel roads. If I don't scrape up the money for boots before then, I will have to either hug the edge or walk more than I would want to especially since the access roads are on the most flat sections where making up lost time in the hills would be nice. So hopefully I get the boots. If not, we will deal with it.

I may even be able to convince S and/or T to come with me and ride a very slow 50 to make sure Gem isn't by herself for 12 hours. I think she would go insane.

Anyway...

I like riding alone because it definitely pushes Gem mentally and has helped build a better relationship between the two of us. But riding with others pushes us physically and I think we need more of that than mental work.

S and I have made hopeful plans to do a "very long" ride at a place I've not been to called the Brick House in 2 weeks after her mare gets her feet done. Apparently the trails are smoother, wider and flatter so we should be able to push the speedometer up a bit. Its what we need. What "very long" translates to exactly will have to be seen. I'm thinking we might do a 12 mile loop, stop and eat lunch then go back out for a 6 mile loop or so. Not sure though. I don't want to push Gem too much, so depending on how she is doing we may stop at the 12 mile mark. The heat will also be another factor. It was 91 today. In the beginning of May. I'm most certainly not used to that.

Then the next stop is a potential 25 mile LD in July. Biltmore had a ride this past weekend that I was neither physically nor financially prepared for. But it was cancelled due to bad weather leading up to it causing flooding in the camping area and a new ride date in July was chosen. I'd love to do it. Early July puts us 2 months out from the 50. It would be a great test to see how she handles ride camp, eating, drinking and camping after being out of the game for 2 years. My only concern is the heat. Even an early start would leave us out in the heat of the afternoon. I don't want to stress her and give her a sour taste when 25 is not my goal. 50 is. So we will wait a bit and see how this ride in 2 weeks goes. If I can get out and work her some in the heat of the day to work on heat conditioning we may be able to safely do the 25 in July.

Riding Naked

Ha! That should get some google search hits :)

We are skipping over last weekend's trail ride. It wasn't a fun one, but not in a way that would make for a great, funny story. It was just annoyingly slow and pokey. I did manage just over 7 miles, but it took over 2 hours to do it in. So lets skip it.

Gem needs more miles to get ready for the future. I had texted S to see if she could do a long ride today, but her mare needs shoes and isn't able to meet with the farrier for another week. Another reason I love being barefoot. So I was on my own. The plan was to try to get about 10 miles in. I don't know a good 10 mile trail up there, but planned on heading out and taking some new off shoot trails and seeing where we ended up.

Upon tacking up at the trail head, my cell phone beeped at me that it was dying. It only had 10% battery life left and so I decided to shut it off incase Gem and I decided it was a good idea to part ways in the middle of woods and trek back to the trailer separately. I was annoyed, but not really all that much since all I use my phone for is taking pictures out on the trail. There are only so many ear shots of the exact same area you can take.

I was deeply annoyed however when my trusty Garmin notified me in a very unfriendly and direct manor that it too was out of battery life and went dead. Darn. There goes the idea of heading out randomly exploring.

I was now officially naked without either phone or watch and no good way to determine how long we were out or how far we had gone.

I had two options. Do the red trail that I did with S and replicated solo last week (which didn't go so hot). This trail is about 8ish miles with lots of hills and a few rocky patches. Doable but shy of my 10 mile mark and I didn't know it all that well. The other was to go back to my good old green trail. At just over 6 miles it wasn't far enough, but I knew it very well and there were plenty of awesome stretches to get moving on. I decided to go for the green but do my utmost best to keep that girl moving. A fast 6 miles would be better than a pokey 8 in my mind.

We headed out doing the green loop technically forward (green markers to my right) and Gem began with a super bad spook and her head up her butt. I ignored her, informed her that we would be moving on down the trail today and she eventually settled in.

The first mile went by fast. Of course without my Garmin or even a watch, I can't say exactly how fast, but we had a lovely trot and were going well. The second mile was a bit more steep and with more ditches/roots/logs so it was slower but not by much. Gem was forward moving with her ears up and happy.

Not much of incident happened. She lost her marbles twice. Once around mile 3 when she was pretty sure her mind was going to explode if she had to lead any more and she just gave up. Instead of getting angry, I hopped off and jogged down the trail with her following to give her a mental break. I don't know how far I went (stupid Garmin, stupid cell phone) but it was a decent distance and once I got back on she was settled down again until mile 4.5 ish. (We had been past the 4 mile marker for quite some time, but didn't get to the 5 mile marker so I guess it was somewhere in the middle) when she did it again. But I just got off and ran a bit and she was fine for the remaining trail.

I had one run in with an idiot. Why are there so many out there??? It was a father/grandfather and young 20ish son/grandson who I had passed on the trail earlier, but now had decided to stop for lunch and tie their horses across the trail. Huh? Who does that? I came up and they asked if I needed through. Yes. The trail does happen to go that way and is single track without room to go around. I thought they were going to move the horse. Nope. He said to go between their two horses which was barely wide enough to fit us. No way was I doing that. So I got off and led her around then got back on. Really?? Wow.

Anyway...we finished the 6 or 6.5 miles in about 90 minutes. Which still isn't super great, but it is a half an hour shorter than ever before. We trotted about 95% of the trail too which is great.

The one thing I definitely noticed on this ride is that I believe Gem is finally understanding her job. She is finally understanding what it is I want from her and while she will never be all that happy being out by herself for long stretches, she is much calmer about things.

On today's ride I really never had to get after her to trot. Sometimes I had to ask her to trot at an actual trotting pace instead of fake walking, but still she knew what I wanted without me having to harass her. After the 2nd mile she began to even start paying more attention to the trail. When I first got her she didn't follow a trail at all. If we were going straight and the trail happened to turn to the right, she just kept going straight. But today she followed the trail and would slow down on her won for really steep ditches/lots of roots/bad rocks or if I asked she did it with me barely touching the reins at all. Once the bad spot was behind us (even if it only took a step or two) she immediately went back to trotting without me having to ask.

This is a big relief. I've always known I could trust Gem to eat and drink out on the trail. The day she stops trying to eat all the leafy greens she can reach or bypasses a water stop when I know she should be thirsty, is the day I rider option in a hurry. But until today I couldn't rely on her to chose her own footing and pace for the trail. She would always just be pokey if I wasn't harassing her into a faster gait. But today. Well today she did it all on her won and I didn't need to micromanage her. Instead I could focus on my position, relaxing my shoulders (for some reason I like to ride with my shoulders up by my ears) and watching for trail markers. It was great!!

Future Plans

We all know how I feel about plans and even my attempts to only kinda, sorta make them for the spring have gone out the window. But...I need to have some sort of idea on how we are going to make it to our first 50 in the fall.

I would love to make it to a 25 mile ride beforehand. It would be great to get her back into the mindset of the ridecamp and having a true hold with a second loop to go out on. But it just isn't going to happen.

Rides up north begin in April and go pretty solidly until the end of October. Each weekend had many to chose from and it was rare to have a weekend without any ride going on. But down here the rides shut down from Jun-Sept due to the heat. Some locals head up north to Virginia to keep riding, but that is too far for my life right now.

I don't see making it to a 25 before the end of June. I don't have the time right now with starting up the new business nor do I have the money. I also won't sign her up for 25 miles 2 weeks prior to our first 50 mile ride. That would be setting us up for fatigue and failure and I won't do that to Gemmie.

So that leaves me in a little bit of a conundrum. I plan to continue to try to ride 2 days a week in the arena working on speed and consistency working up to a solid hour of work at speed. One weekend day will be spent out on the trails locally spending about 2 hours out on the trail. I hope to keep increasing our speed on trail so that our distance in those two hours increases.

When I rode with T she mentioned a trail system called the Brick House that is a bit far away from here, but will be a shorter drive once we move this summer. It sounds like a great place because it has two loops: 9 miles and 16 miles.

Here is what I am thinking: continue with my current 3 days a week plan until we move in June/July. As long as our heat conditioning is working well, head out to the Brick House in the summer to simulate a ride hopefully in mid to late June. Go out on the 16 mile loop and then take an hour break at the trailer to untack, offer water and food, eat and then trot her out by hand. Then tack back up and head out on the 9 mile loop trying to maintain an endurance style pace throughout.

That would give us a 25 mile ride and while it won't be at a real endurance event it will simulate it well enough to give me a good idea of how we are doing. Hopefully I can convince T and/or S to join me :)

There is no need to go beyond 25 miles in a conditioning ride so if we handle that just fine we are in good order to just back off a bit in the heat and work on maintaining. Pick it back up a bit again in late summer and then head off to our first 50 in September! :)

Trailer Loading 101

If you recall, last weekend Gem and I had a difference in opinion when it came to the importance of getting into the trailer. She won. Not good.

Saturday was D-day. I headed out to the barn around 10 am and planned to spend the entire day if it was needed to make her understand that while I appreciate the fact that she has an opinion, in this case it doesn't matter.

I tied two 20' lunge lines together (although I really only needed one), hooked it to her halter, up through her side of the trailer, around the center divider and back out to me. I grabbed a borrowed dressage whip and started tap tap tap on her big brown (and shiny :) buttocks. She stood there and took it. I thought we were in for a loooong day.

Apparently the tap tap tap is pretty annoying because it didn't take long for her to react by rearing up and scooting off to stand beside the trailer. The lunge line got snagged on the hinge of the back trailer window and this ticked her off. I unhooked it and led her back to facing the trailer. Tap tap tap. She reared again and again ended up beside the trailer. I unhooked the snagged up line and brought her to face it again.

Eventually I gave up on bringing her around. The rope prevented her from ever facing away from the trailer and kept a constant pull toward it, so I didn't care really where she stood. I didn't appreciate the rearing though and so when she did that she got a whack. Any forward motion or really any hint of forward motion and she was told she was good and given a break. But if she refused to moved when asked, it started again.

40 minutes later and she was on the trailer!

She stayed put for about 3-4 minutes while I told her how awesome she was and gave her treats which she refused out of principle. Back out and I walked her around and headed back to the trailer.

Nope. Wouldn't get on. This time it only took 10 minutes before she gave in and got on the trailer. I did this for 2 hours until she got on with only a lead rope and no whip.

Lunch break then an hour later I returned.

You should have seen the look she gave me in the pasture when I went to get her! It was priceless. But she stood there and let me drag her back out. She loaded just fine the first time, but not the second and so she got hooked back up and we started again. But she went on just fine in the end and all was well when I left her.

Sunday I went out alone with my big girl panties on and hooked up the trailer, grabbed Gem and she loaded great. No whip. No ropes. She walked right on.

After the ride she had attitude. I'm not sure why she is worse to come home. You would think she would want to get her butt home and be put back out. I just don't get it. So I gave her two chances. Nope. I hooked the lunge ropes back up and by the time I walked over to grab the end she decided it wasn't worth it and just walked on by herself. Good girl!!!

I know we aren't perfect and she will fight again, but at least now I have the tools to out do her.

More Than One Way To Skin A Cat

That's a much better title than "Data", don't you think?

I met up with a new riding friend, T, on Sunday. She has a seasoned 50 miler gelding who is a little on the pudgy side right now and is getting into the season. He acts just like Gem used to on the trail....looking for monsters everywhere, sudden stops, spooks, turns etc... Except for one big difference. He is blind in his right eye. He has a good excuse. What was Gemmies??? :)

Sunday's ride taught me two very important things:

1.) My mare rocks

2.) You can get to the end goal in very different ways


Why does my mare rock??? Because I said so. So there.

In the not so distant past, she was...hmmm...obnoxious out on trail. Alone she would spook and move at a snails pace. With another horse, don't even think about asking her to lead unless you want to literally go 1 mph and stop every 2 feet. Behind another horse she would bury her nose in their butt, annoying the horse to the point of nearly being kicked while blinding her to the trail so she would stumble on absolutely every little thing. Not the most fun ever.

Ever since I started to ride her out solo she has vastly improved in confidence and this has resulted in a calmer and better behaved mare. She has now led at a trot two weekends in a row with another horse. Actually, Sunday was even better than last weekend. When following, she has kept a wonderful distance between her and the horse in front, has not stumbled and is on a loose rein. It is awesome and a ton of fun.

It makes me wish she was 10 again because I know with just a little more time she could be a 100 mile horse. But not at 17. I won't ask her to do that much at 17. I even worry a 50 is asking too much at her age, but she doesn't act 17 and she will tell me when it becomes too much and I know I will listen.

Point #2. I am getting better at remembering my Garmin. While it isn't perfect, it gives me a lot to work with.

My ride with S: we walked quite a bit. When we trotted Gem kept up for the first 5 or so miles, but wasn't able to as well for the last 3. Which is a conditioning problem and we can fix that with time. We also got some canter work in. Some by mistake as she tried to catch up to S (whose horse just glides at the trot and eats the ground up!) but S also cantered some as well. At the end we finished with a 3.5 mph pace.

My ride with T: we trotted pretty much the entire thing. We did my usual green loop although we took a couple different turns which shaved off about a half mile. We walked maybe a half mile total, if that. Gem did really well, even led at a trot and was not tired at all in the end. She didn't even break a sweat. Guess what? We averaged a 3.4 mph pace.

Huh.

This makes me think. I am not even sure what all implications this really has.

I like giving Gem's trotting muscles a break. Whether that is through cantering short sections or walking, either way her muscles get a break from the constant action of trotting down the trail. So in theory, the ride with S sits better with me. You don't actually have to trot the entire 50 miles. (Which I knew anyway, but this proves it to me). In fact, during my ride with S I mentioned my first ever LD and how we trotted the entire 25 miles. She commented that she doesn't like to ride like that and prefers to mix up the gaits more.

Of course this works super well when you are on a magic carpet of a mare whose walk is nice and fast and trot is even better to make up the miles and keep a better overall pace. Gem may be able to get better though with time.

But then when I look at how Gem fared with the two rides, it seems she prefers the ride with T. Slower, but steady trotting. She wasn't nearly as tired and didn't break a sweat.

Two other factors to bear in mind: this weekend we went 5.6 miles versus closer to 9 miles last weekend and it was 50 degrees and cloudy versus 65 and sunny with S. Also, the ride with S had a lot more hills in it. So that makes a big difference in her attitude, energy level and sweat at the end. I would wager than had we done 9 miles of trotting she would have been equally as tired at the end.

Maybe this all means nothing. Maybe it means a lot. I think more time, more miles and more tracking are in order to figure out how Gem actually likes to go down the trail. She is an all star eater and won't ever pass up the chance to nibble on the trail. I'm a little worried that she passes up every single creek and won't drink. She used to drink super well in the past, but then again we were going farther and faster. Hopefully she starts drinking more when she needs it.

Data

Aren't my post titles just so stimulating? I bet everyone wants to read one titled "Data". My brain is on overdrive though and so that is all you get. I close on the new practice in just 1 week and officially open it the week after that and I have so much to do and so little time to do it all. I work at my current practice, full time, right up until the Thursday before I open the new one. I need to get carpet, paint the entire 1700 sq foot building, and go through all the inventory. Oh and train my employee. Don't ask me how on earth I am going to get it all done by myself. The hubs will be of minimal help because he too is working full time and someone has to watch W. My parents were going to come down the week before it opens and help take down the old wallpaper and paint, but something came up and they can't anymore. So that just leaves me. I see a lot of super late nights and early mornings in my future.

I have been good at remembering the Garmin on my last 3 rides. Unfortunately I forgot to reset it between trail rides, but it still gives a decent idea of what we have been up to.

Trail ride # 1 (solo) was our usual 6 mile loop. My goal is to get her moving at an average 5 mph pace. Why? You have 12 hours to complete the 50 miles. Figure on 2 hours of hold time and that brings the actual riding time to 10 hours. 5 mph will get you there in just barely enough time as long as nothing goes wrong along the way. Unfortunately for us Gem has an incredibly slow walk. So while other horses that power down at a 4 mph walking pace and 10 mph trot have plenty of time to dawdle and can walk a lot of it and still finish, we need to keep our butts moving.

We averaged 3 mph on this solo trip which stinks, but is an improvement on the typical 2.5 mph pace we have. Slow but steady progress is the name of the game.

Trail ride #2 (with S) was just over 8 miles per the Garmin. I think it ends up dropping 0.5-1 mile along the way as it loses satellite connection and just connects the last known spot to the current one. But it is close enough. We managed a 3.5 mph pace on this ride which I am happy with because it had a lot of hills.

Looking at my map with the two trail rides combined we had a total 1,818 feet of elevation gain and just under that in loss (still have no clue how that works when you start and stop at the exact same spot) which is quite a bit for my mare. Up north we travelled on mostly flat trails and of course the arena is flat, so this much is a lot for her.

Our max pace was 15.5 mph which was when she went crashing through the woods to get away from the speed boat.

Her average trotting pace is creeping up to the 7 mph range which is awesome. If we could keep up a nice steady 7 mph trot and just bump the walk up from 2 mph to 3.5 - 4 mph I think we would be in business.

I also find it really interesting to look at the pace map in conjunction with the elevation map. While I am out on the trail I ask her to trot what I view as flat sections or easy hills. I don't ask her to trot downhill ever and I don't ask her to trot up the longer and steeper hills. Yet. When looking a the two maps, apparently either I am asking her to trot or she naturally goes faster up every single hill. Seriously. Every time there is a spike in her pace, there is a spike in the elevation. I know I am not that mean to her, so I believe at least some of those times she is doing it herself. And then it drops way slow every downhill which I am fine with.

I do think that part of our slow pace is that these trails are basically all up and down hills. There are practically no true flat sections. If we head off to a flat 50 miler I think we would do great. The 50 I am planning for is not this hilly, but still has some hills to it.

Arena ride: We kept our 5 mph average pace!! :) Actually our average total pace was 5 mph, but our average moving pace was 5.2 mph.  Of course we only went for 22 minutes and covered just over 2 miles, but that is exactly what I want to use the arena for. Speed work. Slowly increasing the length of time spent at the faster pace should correlate to an overall faster pace out on the trails. She was breathing pretty hard after the canter sets, but she kept asking for more.

I am really happy with the way the last 3 rides have gone. I am hoping to get back on her Friday night for another arena work out. This weekend is going to be spent with trailer loading so no trail ride.

Sunday...A Tale of Two Emotions - Part 1

Sunday was absolutely amazingly beautiful out. 65 and sunny without a cloud in the sky. It was a day made for the trails.

Nobody tells you how hard it is to make friends as an adult. Especially when you move a lot. We have always made friends and really enjoy hanging out with other people but since we moved down here we haven't found anyone. I got tired of always riding alone and so I made the brave move of posting on a couple facebook group pages that I wanted a friend. And got a few responses one of which invited me out to the trails on Sunday. I admit I was a bit nervous. I've been on both sides of the bad riding pair coin. Either Gem wants to go faster and the other person just wants to walk the entire thing or Gem is heaving heavily and can barely keep up with the speedy other horse. Neither are fun, but until you ride with someone you just don't know what their definition of fast or far is.

Part one of this story is going to focus on the positive. I am tired of being frustrated, so I will save the bad for tomorrow.

We planned to meet at the trail head at 10:30 Sunday morning and I thought ahead well enough to hook the trailer up Saturday afternoon to save time. We got to the barn at 9 am with plenty of time to get Gem, groom and load.

Fast forward to getting to the trail head and tacking up. We were a little late (part 2) but S was super nice about it and didn't mind. Gem was oddly subdued while I got her tacked up. We introduced ourselves and our horses and mounted up.

S lives close by and has been into endurance since 1991. She has done 100 mile rides with her previous horse and has a lot of experience. Her current mare is 11 and had some issues at the end of last season which she is working through and is hoping to get back on track for a successful ride season this year.

Her mare is very pretty. A dark bay purebred Arabian with spindly legs and a trot I could die for. She looks like she just floats down the trail. We started off down the hill into the woods and S asked if I could lead. Apparently her mare also thinks the entry bridge is the bridge of doom. I said sure and Gem actually strutted her stuff over the bridge without a problem. Go Gemmiecakes! We led for a little bit, but S's mare didn't really like the slogging pace that Gem picked up so they went out in front which I was fine with. I have been in the back for 4.5 years and Gem is happy to be back there. My only concern about being behind is sometimes Gem likes to run up the other horse's butt which the other horse tends to not like. But I needn't have worried. I think working with her out alone has helped her confidence a lot because she just hung back a nice distance and went along. It was perfect.

We ended up taking the red trail (because I was out front at a trail crossing and made a wrong turn - go figure!) which I have not done before. I think it is 9 miles. Unfortunately, while I remembered the Garmin I never reset it from before. When I glanced down at it about 30 minutes into the ride it said we had gone 7.25 miles. Um...no. But I know we ended the last ride at just over 5 miles and we ended this ride at just over 13 miles. Plus the Garmin drops distance in the woods. We did it in 2 hrs 20 minutes or so which was a nice pace. We trotted a good bit and even did some cantering, but I never felt the need to ask her to slow down. There were enough walk breaks to allow Gemmie to catch her breath.

Anyway...we walked along chatting it up about rides, work and life and S is just a super nice person. She has the best trail etiquette too. When she was out in front she always waited for us to get off the hill, out of the mud, over the rocks before trotting again. And while her mare is shod on all four feet, her last horse was barefoot on all 4 without boots and competed successfully for 8 years that way. She understands footing and was aware of the super rocky bits and walked them without a problem.

Gem was a super star. She never spooked, tried to turn around or acted up in the slightest. She was forward and seemed happy to have a trail partner. She got along well with S and her mare and I barely touched her mouth the entire ride. We led a little and Gem moved out nicely. She isn't the best at trotting up in front yet. She tends to go slow, look at everything and then speed up and slow down and speed up. Oh and she is very picky about her footing so if the person behind is too close she ends up cutting them off a lot as she zig zags to find the best footing. S's mare isn't so great at following. I think she is in the lead a lot and it didn't help that she moves out at a naturally faster pace than Gem does and I know how annoying it is to try to hold your horse back the entire time. We led through a particularly muddy area and Gem will bushwhack through the trees if she thinks the footing is better. I don't mind. Her job is to pick her footing, get down the trail and not kill me. But I think it is hard to be behind that.

We ended back at the trailers in good form and I know I had a smile plastered on my face. S's mare was covered in sweat and S made the comment that Gem was barely even damp. I have had Gem sweaty so I know she can sweat, but it takes a lot. Her mental game is the hardest part. At the thought of exertion she shuts down, but we are working through that. S rides in a Freeform treeless saddle and when I asked about it she let me jump on up and try it out. It was very cushy and comfortable, but I like my solid tree for stability.

All in all it was a fantastic ride. We meshed well for pacing and I never once felt rushed, too slow or nervous. Gem was pleasant and happy to have a friend. She has been to Biltmore and gave me some pointers on the ride. Maybe I can convince her to go in September. I know she is planning to do the 25 there in May. We have each other's numbers so hopefully we can meet up again and ride up there for more conditioning. It was one of the best rides I have had on Gem in a while and it was definitely great company.

A Slow Walk in the Woods

It has rained almost every day this week. Like down pour making everything soupy rain. The good news is that it has been in the 70s (in December...I love the South :) I'd bet the Dynamic Duo was happy for the rain. It probably kept them cool.

This Saturday I was determined to get out on the trails again. Sunday was supposed to be a hunter pace, but it was on private trails and they postponed it a week to hopefully have things dry up. I am not too optimistic though because this week is supposed to be equally as rainy, but colder so things probably won't dry up all that much. We will see. The other problem with next weekend is that the hubs has signed himself up for a 54 mile race up a mountain on Saturday. I'm not so sure he will be up for a pace on Sunday. We will see what happens.

Anyway....the hubs worked in the morning and W's nap schedule worked out that he woke up as the hubs was getting home so we made it to the trail head about 3 pm again. Not enough time to do the entire loop. Some day we will do that darn loop!

I used the old fleece Ovation girth on her that's 22". I have no clue how, but it fits on the same hole as the 18". It has a ton of elastic in it - runs the entire length instead of just the ends - so I would have thought it would be way too big. I kept it a little looser and it sat pretty nicely on her. I decided to give it a go.

I have a tiny worry in the back of my head that I'm asking her to do something she hates - riding in general. She is such a tough cookie to figure out. She is very aloof but if I miss seeing her for a while I can definitely tell she is unhappy about it. Well, once I started to tack her up her ears pricked forward and she started to paw which is her way of saying "lets get going here!!" Its a good signs that she is enjoying herself. She remembered to pee before I got on. She hates going with me on her and I think she may have only done so a handful of times in 4 years. If she forgets she ends up holding it the entire ride and as soon as I get off she goes for a very long time.

We headed down the hill to the trail head and entered the woods over the same wooden bridge of doom as before. She hesitated but got over it much easier than the last time.

Last week the hubs had turned left almost immediately into the woods and said the trails were very nice. Knowing my time was too limited to make the entire green loop, I decided to head left and check it out. We stayed a little ways in front of the hubs, W, and the two dogs and wandered through and over a road crossing.

The trails after the road were really nice. Double wide and open. The only issue was the footing was rocky. It was an access road and while it wasn't gravel it had quite a few rocks. Normally Gem doesn't mind that type of footing, but it has been very wet out and her feet looked a bit soft when I cleaned them out pre ride. I think she got a little foot sore for the first time.

Sorry, all my pics today are blurry. She didn't want to stop for picture taking

There was a big, long hill that had me thinking about hill repetitions once things dry back out. We wandered up it with the rest of the crew not too far behind us. She wasn't really wanting to stretch out much and the trails were wet in enough spots that I didn't mind taking it easy. There were sections that had no rocks and were fairly dry and we trotted those.

There was a lovely looking side trail at one point and I headed down it. No rocks. The footing was mostly pine needles and the trail was single track and winding just like Gem like. But it was very, very soupy and this Carolina red clay gets slick, so I quickly turned her around before we got hurt and went back to the double wide trail. The boys caught up to us at this point, but the trail got less rocky, so I let her trot again until the top.

Once at the top of the hill we came across the greenest patch of vegetation I have seen in a very long time. As I got closer to it I found out it was a patch of clover. Gemmie had her eyes on it so I let her wander in and have a quick bite and waited for the rest of the crew. It was very hard to get her to leave her buffet.

We travelled down the trail some more, but it started to go sharply down hill and got rocky again. My saddle slid all the way over her shoulders and she got cranky. I slid off and jogged her down and then we waited for the crew again. Once they caught up to us I noticed we had been out for about 45 minutes so we decided to turn back around and go home. I adjusted her saddle back to the right spot and got back on.

My boys

Hero - the best dog ever. 14 years old now.

Well, I don't know if it was the footing, her soft feet (made me really, really, really wish for that money tree so I could get a pair of boots for her to ride in) or the saddle sliding forward and pinching her shoulders, but she was done. She slid in behind the hubs and just wanted to follow him the rest of the way back..

At one point the hubs started to jog (W loves it when he runs in the backpack) and I just stayed quiet on Gem with a loose rein to see what she would do. She picked up a nice little trot and kept up with him until he walked again and then she did too. I bet it was a little unnerving having her breathe down his neck!

I tried to get her around him, but then she spotted Hero and tucked in behind him. Literally. She walked right behind him, lowered her head to hide her nose behind his butt almost dragging it one the ground, and happily walked along. It is a very sad day when your "endurance" Arabian mare walks slower than your 14 year old 1 foot tall corgi. But there it is. My Gemmiecakes.

We wandered along chatting with the hubs. Well, I chatted. He basically spent the rest of the hike laughing at my pokey slow horse going 1 mph and taking a video to post online. I got off again down the large hill we came up because the saddle slid way too much down hill for me to be happy. I got back on and we crossed the road and made it back to the trailer on our own.

The only bad spot of the entire ride was at the very end. I untacked her and she rested a foot as is her norm. But then she absolutely, positively refused to get into the trailer. She has never, ever, ever done that in 4 years. When I bought her I was told she did not trailer well and give her an hour to get on, but we never once had a problem. The last 2 solo rides she did fine. But not this time. She reared, she backed, she stopped. We tried a butt rope to push her in. No go. The hubs literally lifted up her hind legs and butt and pushed. No go. Although her incredibly shocked expression was well worth it. Finally I opened up the divider all the way to make it a huge space and she got on into Pete's spot. I don't know what was with that, but hopefully that doesn't become a new issue to deal with. Of note, she did end up actually peeing with me on her on the trail and then again back at the barn. Maybe she is in heat. I don't know if that would make a difference or not.

So....here are some thoughts on this:

1. I think in the end Gem does enjoy these rides. She is eager to go down the trail and only acts up once I make her turn around and head back home. But not in a trying to run off back to the trailer way. More in a "but I don't want to go back yet" way. Yay!

2. She knows those trails. When we made the left instead of going straight at the very beginning she kept trying to tell me we were going wrong. Once we were headed back and we got back to the original trail and she tried turning left to go longer instead of right to go back to the trailer.

3. She is pokey. I don't know why or how to help this other than keep riding her and trying to get her butt moving. I know she can go faster for longer. With 62 completion miles as well as the two hunter paces under our belt I know she can. I just don't know how to pull that out of her solo.

4. I think she needs a break from the solo rides and ride with a buddy. I really hope the pace goes next week and that the hubs can ride after his race. She enjoys going out with Pete so much and then he could also be in the trailer with her so it would be a nice mental holiday for her.

5. I have a tough decision to make. Well, the obvious decision is probably to stop riding her until I get things sorted out, but I am not ready to do that yet. So....I have 1 girth that allows the saddle to sit farther back (not ideal spot but best I can some up with right now) to the point where she isn't sore, but causes rubs. I have another girth that does not cause any rubs at all but allows the saddle to pull very far forward and I think is why she hates the girth so much. It seemed to bother her on this ride. Which do I use if I do go on the hunter pace?? I think I will do the anatomic one and try to slather a butt load of Vaseline on her armpits to see if it will prevent some of the rubbing. I don't like how she was reluctant to move out with me on this ride and either it was her feet or her girth. Since she has hated this girth in the past I am going with that being the culprit.

6. I need new tack. Period. I absolutely adore this saddle, but it just isn't working out. It isn't made for Gemmie's body structure and I keep fighting it. I wish it wasn't so incredibly comfortable for me or it would be easy to get rid of. But here is the kicker: I have yet to find anything better. I have tried literally dozens of saddles of all makes, models and brands from cheap to $$$ and not a single one has fit as good as or better than this one. I refuse to sell this until I find one that is better, so on the hunt I go again. What I would really like to do is pick up a used saddle that works and then give mine to the hubs and Pete who has more of the body type for the saddle. That way we can keep it and if by chance my next horse 10 years from now fits it, I still have it to use.

Chirp...Chirp...Chirp...

The silence from my blog this week has been deafening.

Why have I been so quiet? Because I have little to write about. W has been sick, so I have been making trips home over lunch and then to the doctor yesterday to get him some antibiotics. Poor little guy has another ear infection. Time to talk tubes!

My new girth came in the mail yesterday. :) The 18 inch I had ordered was on back order and won't be available until next week. But then I emailed them and asked if the 18 was too big, could I return it and order a 16? The wonderfully nice lady said not only could I do that, but they happened to have a 16 inch available. Would I want them to ship that to me now and I could test it out before the 18 arrives? You betcha! If I had my money tree, I would definitely buy more stuff from County Saddlery. They have been really great with such a relatively wimpy purchase (everything else on their site is $$$$$). And actually I may end up purchasing the shim pad they have some day.

I excitedly opened the box and took out this wonder girth that would solve all the problems of the universe and.....it looks pretty identical to my current one. I'm trying not to judge it without using it, but it really does look awfully similar. For over twice the price. Of course this one should actually fit (or at least one of the two sizes should) and that should solve the girth gall issues, so that's one thing. It also lacks any elastic. Most girths these days have elastic on the buckle straps so that when you inexpertly over tighten it, it can expand some when the horse breathes. I have read online that the elastic makes the forward slide of the saddle worse, so maybe this one detail will make all the difference. I will really need to be careful about over tightening it.

Also, I looked up my girth that I already have. The name has changed to the "Shoulder Relief Girth" and the price went up from $90 to $125! Ha!! Suckers! Out of sheer stubbornness and principle I wouldn't buy a shorter version of that. I refuse to pay more for a name change.

The hubs went out to ride Pete last night for his first ever nighttime ride. He hasn't been to the barn since the Pace two weeks ago (Bad Rider!) so it was time. Pete was happy to see him and I think they had fun. Pete took off at a merry hand gallop (kinda like a gallop, but more controlled - more like a really fast canter) around the arena. He was super sweaty so the hubs borrowed Gem's fleece cooler to help dry him out. The boys always have fun.

I am planning to head to the barn tonight to try out the new girth. I am going to try it sans (that's for you hubbybear) fleece girth cover to see how it really fits her. I like the cover in general though, so if it works I will probably still use it. I do like how the edges of this girth are rounded and softer. Even if it isn't perfect, it may not rub as bad. Time will tell.

Plans...plans....plans....how I do loathe you. There is another Pace this Sunday that I had my eyes set on. Multiple problems have come up that makes this seem unlikely to happen :(

1) Our babysitter is potentially unavailable due to a surprise birthday party they may or may not be throwing for her grandmother. Even if they don't have the party she said she wouldn't be comfortable coming to the ride and watching him there. So that would mean a 7 hour lapse of W and I don't know if I want to do that.  Plus he isn't feeling too well.

2) My back up plan was to have the hubs come but not ride. He would watch W while Gem and I ventured out on a solo Pace together. Fun and nerve wracking. The hubs wasn't too keen on missing the ride, but oh well. He has his running hobby. Plus W isn't feeling too well.

3) Remember that puppy we had show up at our doorstep a month ago? She had found a nice home locally with a mom and twin 2 year old boys, but the mom returned her saying it was too much to deal with a pup and the boys. Hmmm...who would have saw that coming? The hubs has a friend in Ohio who has been wanting her from the beginning but getting the two together has been an issue. With the pup needing a home again, we contacted her and she can make it all the way down to Knoxville TN this Sunday if we can meet her there. It is only a little over 3 hours for us, so we need to make it happen. Now, being the way I am I figured that her leaving from OH could put her in TN late afternoon/early evening. If that is the case and the ride last time took us until 2, there might be a way to sneak the ride in and then send the hubs off to TN afterward.*Diabolical laugh inserted here*. But that probably won't work because then the poor girl won't get back to OH until super late. I can't just go to the ride solo because I don't want to put W through a 6+ hour round trip drive for no reason, so the hubs is travelling alone and I will be with W.

Sooooo.....my new plan is to head to the trails at Fants grove Saturday afternoon after the hubs is done with work to ride Gemmie solo. The hubs is going to bring the pups and W and go for a hike. Why Fants? I didn't really like the trails much. But..it is a nice 5+ mile loop that is super well marked and extremely hard to get lost on. Keep all trail markers to the left (or right...I can't remember but it is listed on the sign) and you are golden. Or as golden as you can be when you are prone to getting lost. While I would prefer Isaqueena, the trails are poorly marked and I would easily get lost up there. A nice, hilly and technical 5 mile loop should give Gem something to think about so she doesn't decide to try to kill me instead. I need to start putting more miles on her and the weekends are going to be my only chance. If I can't make it to a Pace to use for conditioning, I will have to go hit somewhere alone. The only problem with that is that the Pace with Pete along keeps us moving out at a nice trot, but solo I think we will be working on her mental game more than speed.

Back up north, everyone is getting settled in for the winter. Rides up there end in October and don't pick back up again until May. Mentally I am still thinking like this. But down here the rides begin in February with a lull in the summer months due to heat, so she needs to be 25 mile ready by then if I want to get in a multi day prior to a single day 50 in the fall. EEEK!

Night Riding

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  

J.R.R. Tolkien

 

We went back Sunday morning to check on them and ride a little. I took her out of the pasture and led her to the barn which is the most airy and open barn I've come across. I swear I will get pictures soon. I felt weird taking them in front of the owners on day 1 and they were there again Sunday and then Monday it was too dark. This weekend I will get some pictures up. I put her in the cross ties like I have done in 5 other barns over the last 4 years countless of times. She lost her mind. She reared. She tried to spin. She splattered poop everywhere. I tried to calm her, but she wasn't having any of it, so I just tried to tack her up and move on. I put her saddle on and was stupid enough to turn my back to grab her girth and she pranced in the ties and stepped on a sheet of plastic that scared her even more and I watched as my saddle flew off her back and landed on the cement. I have just decided to sell the stupid thing and now she flings it onto the ground and scratches it! (It turned out to be ok though. I took it home and saddle soaped it up and polished the leather and you can't even tell now, but what horrible timing!) At that point I decided this wasn't so smart, so I clipped the lead rope on her and walked her out to the arena. I let her walk around and look at things and then unclipped her and clucked her up. She is sooooo beautiful to watch and she pranced around and even took off a few times bucking and snorting. After about 10 minutes, I hooked her up again and we returned to the barn where I commenced the tacking up process. She was not behaving super well, but she was a lot better and I was able to finish without incident. Darn mare!

 

I took the ride easy - we just walked around with the only goal of getting her to be calm and stop shaking. It took about 20 minutes, but she eventually relaxed and I called it a day. No sense in pushing her too much.

 

Since Sunday wasn't exactly aerobic, I figured she could do with another ride Monday night. It is getting dark so early now. Back in the crossties she went and this time she only pranced a little from side to side. No rearing. No trying to bolt. Progress. Off to the arena we went and I was so happy that the lights are bright and light up about 75% of the arena. The back light belongs to the city and it is currently burnt out, but the owner said it should be fixed this week. I have never really ridden in the dark before. Up north there are indoor arenas, so even at night it feels like day. Down here the weather is nice enough to not need to be inside, so indoor arenas are rare.

 

It was incredible!!! Gem was spooky and tense for much of it, but she deserved to be. A new barn, a new arena and now it was dark. Poor thing. We walked around as the stars came out and I was in heaven. It was peaceful, relaxing and exactly what I needed. She was fairly calm at the walk, so I asked her to trot. There was one spot where a gate panel was laying up against the fence and there was a bright blue barrel about a foot away from that and it was in the darker part of the arena and she was scared to go past it. I let her take her time and eventually we trotted on by with only a sideways glance and a snort of disapproval.

 

My only negative comment on the arena is the footing. It is sand and it is deep. They used to train western horses for reining, roping and barrels and you need deep footing for those. Deep footing is harder work and even at the slow pace with a cool night (low 70s, upper 60s by the time we finished) and barely working she was sweaty. Now some of that was nerves, but it was like running on the beach in the dry sand. She will get used to it and it will be ok, but I don't want to push her too much right now and risk straining a ligament or bowing a tendon. We will take our time to get acquainted with the footing and surroundings before I push her too much.

 

As I walked her back to the barn, I was so happy with the move. It was nice to go to the barn and have peace and quiet with time to bond with Gem and work through our problems at our own pace. I really enjoyed riding at night which is  good thing because I will be doing it most of the time from now until spring. 

Heart Rate Monitors - Final Part

Have I dragged this post out long enough for you? Can you tell nothing exciting has been happening at the barn lately?

Surprisingly enough the heart rate monitor lasted through several rides both on the trail and in the barn's outdoor arena before I gave up on it. The plethora of data I had expected to gain from it just never materialized. I had numbers and more numbers and even more numbers, but in essence they either meant nothing or just confirmed what I already suspected.

So what did I learn?

For starters I learned that the authors of those training plans are full of crap. I'd love to meet one someday and see if they even follow their own plans because I don't see how it is possible. I couldn't get Gem's heart rate even close to their suggested level and even if I could there is no way to maintain it for any length of time. Maybe if I lived in the Rocky Mountains and attempted to gallop her up them full speed. I don't know.

The more important thing that I learned from my experiment was that paying attention to my horse was more important than paying attention to my watch. I had read that the monitor could inform you of when your horse needed a break or if pain was ensuing because you would notice an increase in the heart rate. That is true. But it is also true that just knowing your horse and paying attention to them easily does the same thing.

When Gem is doing a power trot and gets tired she jumps to a canter. I had always figured it was because the canter was easier for her then the fast trot. She is inherently lazy, so I highly doubted she would choose to do a gait that was more strenuous than the one she was already doing. It turns out that I was right - her heart rate would drop considerably in the canter. It was the same on up hills. She chooses to trot hills rather than walk and I let her. Again, it turns out that walking up a hill has a higher heart rate than trotting up the same hill. Her heart rate recovered pretty quickly with the change in gait too. It didn't take a very long walk break before it was back to almost baseline. A long canter stretch would get it pumping, but dropping to a slow trot would cover ground and allow her to recover. Unfortunately, I had already inherently known these things, so it really didn't tell me anything new. It did reinforce my belief that Gem is exceptionally good at taking care of herself and that I really need to listen to her. If she asks to walk it is  generally for a good reason.

So the monitor found a new home in the back of my closet. I did really like the GPS to see how far we had gone and a basic idea of how fast, so I replaced it with my Garmin which I love.

Heart Rate monitors - Part 3

After all that trouble getting the monitor situated and all set up correctly, I was excited to get on and get going. It being winter in Wisconsin, riding outside was "at your own risk" and since I didn't have time to deal with frostbite to all my extremities I headed to the indoor arena. My incredibly bright "pat myself on the back" idea of trialing it at the barn first quickly became a very dumb idea. I hadn't spent a whole lot of time inspecting the construction material of the indoor arena and that lack of attention to detail became my downfall.

I jumped up on Gem, hit the "ON" button and strode off staring down at my watch waiting to see her heart rate data. Nothing was showing. Either her heart rate was so incredibly low that it wasn't registering or something was wrong. I got off and inspected the electrodes. They were well saturated with cold water and pressed firmly against her body. I turned it off and then back on and tried again. Still nothing. Now I knew my horse had to have a heart beat of some sort, so obviously something was wrong. And that's when I noticed the building I was riding in. It was made out of metal. The worst type of material to allow a satellite signal to come through and hit my watch. Darn. All that work for a whole lot of nothing. I was deflated, but rode on anyway and just ignored the monitor. When we were done I untacked her and looked for rub marks and was happy to note it did not affect her at all.

I spoke with the hubs and the weekend was supposed to be sunny and not deathly cold, so we planned to hit the trails to try the thing outside. I made sure to wet the electrodes at the barn before we left and the drive was only 20 minutes, so they remained nice and wet when we arrived at the trail head. This time I noted that we were in a nice free and open spot without cover and when I turned it on I got a nice read out. Her heart rate was low - in the low 40s. Great! We walked off down the trail and I made note to look at the watch periodically to see what it was telling me. It told me that at a walk her heart rate remained very low - upper 40s to low 50s depending on the terrain. Ok, great! I was excited about all this new data. When we picked up the trot and I noticed it was still low it began to dawn on me that I had actually no clue what these numbers meant. I had no actual reference point to compare them to and so while they seemed interesting they were in fact useless.

I did remember a training guide that used the monitor as the main focus of all rides. I recalled a data point that was frequently used - a set of intervals of 10 minutes at a heart rate of 180 bpm. At the time I didn't take much notice of it since I didn't know anything about heart rate, but as we picked up a canter up a hill and I noted that her heart rate remained below 100 I began to question the possibility of hitting that mark and maintaining it for 10 minutes. What would I need to do? I asked her for a faster canter. Nope, nowhere close to 180. I finally asked for a full out gallop and we still only got to 150. The only time during the entire ride that her heart rate came close to 180 was when she spooked at a tree branch on the ground. Ok...I get it...the way to get her heart rate up is to scare the living crap out of her for 10 minutes straight.

With that idea thrown out the window I began to play around with different gaits and looking to see what it did to her heart rate. Was a fast trot creating a higher heart rate than a slow canter? How quickly did her heart rate recover at the walk after a long trot? How about after a canter? How about going from a canter to a trot? Hills? Jumping over logs? I kept track of the impact of terrain and gait on her heart rate as we went down the trail. I found it all very interesting.

Heart Rate Monitors - Part 2

The monitor came in two parts and really simple instructions. Like most things in life, however, it was not so simple. There was a watch for me to wear with a display of the heart rate, speed and distance travelled. It worked ok, but lost the signal to both GPS and the electrodes easily. The second part was a strap with an electrode on either end. The distance between the two was astounding - I swear it could have wrapped around a bull elephant. Ok, maybe not that big, but much larger than any horse wearing a monitor would require. My small Gemmiecakes could have had it wrapped around her twice and still had excess.

I decided to try it out at the barn first which was both very smart and incredibly stupid at the same time. My first problem was that it was winter in WI which in general is a problem, but for this specifically it made applying the electrodes difficult. They needed to be against the skin. Gem in winter looks more like a yak than a sleek endurance machine and there was about a foot (ok...maybe 10 inches :) of hair between her skin and the electrode. I stubbornly refused to shave her, so I just cleaned the area super well and hoped for the best. The one electrode was to go under the girth and the other on her shoulder under the saddle. I was concerned about anything being smushed up against her causing rubs, but in the end I needn't have worried. She never had a sore from it. The main difficulty with this set up was the aforementioned long strap. With both electrodes tucked safely into place, I still had a large amount of strap to deal with. With no good solution coming to mind I ended up just placing it under the saddle and as expected it ended up coming loose about 30 seconds into the ride and annoying me the entire time. I never did come up with a good solution for it.

Once I had the entire thing set up I decided that it might be a good idea to turn it all on and see if it worked. It didn't. Huh. Apparently the instructions were missing one key element to the entire thing: a medium through which the current could work. Theoretically a horse wearing a monitor works hard enough to sweat. Sweat just so happens to be a great electric current medium with the salt and other minerals in it, so I suppose the manufacturer just assumed it would be ok. They overlooked one main fact: a yak horse just starting to work is not sweaty. Gemmie was drier than dry. Nothing was flowing through those electrodes. This is where my idea to ride at the barn was a smart idea: I had water readily at hand. Had I been out on the trail I would have been SOL. Go me! Unfortunately, this meant that I had to undo the tack to get the electrodes off her, soak them in a nearby bucket of frigid water, and then replace the set up and the tack. A major pain in the butt.

Once it was all back in place I turned it all on and was excited to see a signal from the strap to my watch. Now I could have information galore!

Heart Rate Monitors - Part 1

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.”  

 

- Edgar Allen Poe

 



Oh, the joys of being naïve. You know that point in a new interest/hobby when you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous? You are gung-ho about it and want to do it right, but you actually have no clue what that really entails or means? What do you do? You turn to books, the internet and friends who have been at it longer than you (not hard since you just started) and ask so many questions that they are no longer your friends. The onslaught of new information makes your head spin and you pick a spot and jump on in head first hoping that the pool is filled with water. Later, you look back in disgust at all the money and time you wasted on useless things, but it is all necessary to help you figure it all out.

That was me in the winter of 2011. I was a newbie to the endurance world, but I was hooked and I wanted to do it right. Endurance places a unique amount of responsibility on the rider - you are not only responsible for your own fitness and nutrition, but that of your horse as well. You don't have to worry about that with a bike or running shoes. I take that responsibility very seriously. If Gem gets hurt, it is my fault. She didn't wake up that morning and decide to trot for 10 hours. She wanted to bask in the sunshine eating herself into diabetes. It was my idea and because of that I need to make sure we do it right.

I went to the internet and books for help and found a whole world of useless gadgets that were deemed absolutely essential for proper endurance riding. Never mind the fact that we completed 50 miles without all that stuff. Now that I knew it existed, I had to have it. I could no longer plead ignorance. One gadget that seemed promising was a heart rate monitor. Many touted the usefulness in both training (use target heart rates as goals) and monitoring how the horse is doing during a ride (a sudden spike in heart rate may be an early warning sign of pain or fatigue). I got a basic, entry level unit for starters and prepared to be inundated with charts full of useful data that would get me across the finish line in tip top shape.

Big Girl Panties

Well, that title should land me some nice Google search hits :) Won't they all be surprised when it is just a boring story about Gemmiecakes?

I had an amazing ride Thursday night. We didn't go far. We didn't go hard. We didn't go long. But we went somewhere new and it was all Gem's idea.

If horses wore panties, Gem would have had her big girl ones on Thursday night. She never ceases to amaze me. The arena is always busy on Thursdays and I generally avoid it and just go on Friday, but I have other plans and so Thursday it was. W was a super sleepy baby and went to bed at 6:30pm (he even slept in on Friday morning too) so I had some extra daylight to play with.

The hubs had surprisingly given the BM the green light to use Pete once a week and Thursday turned out to be his first ride. The girl on him is super nice and has a gelding who could be Gem's twin (only he is a Quarter horse and not an Arabian) in both looks and personality. I feel for the girl. Pete was a nice change of pace for her and afterward she was beaming and had a ton of fun. Go Wonderboy! I'm nosey even if my horse is not, so I took longer than usual to tack up as I watched Pete over her back. Sneaky, aren't I?

I decided that spying was more important than going off on the "trails" and so once I got up on her I steered her toward the grassy area next to the arena. I figured we could still get a decent work out in while getting a good view of the Pete action. Again, aren't I sneaky? Gem apparently had other ideas. The grassy area is bordered on two sides by the gelding pasture which is huge. I generally turn the area into a small arena and ride it in a circle like pattern and so we headed out toward the pasture with the plan to make a right turn once we reached the fence. Once we got there though, Gemmie strutted out through the gate and into the gelding pasture like we had done it multiple times before. Huh? I asked Gem where we were going and she just kept trucking out into the pasture. Ok. I'm game for that!

She rode super well out there. A little slow and look-y but we walked the perimeter without any major occurrences and then made our way back. If she became tense, I let her turn back toward her comfort zone and then slowly widened the oval back again the next pass. We made it almost clear down to the woods at the bottom of the pasture. Once down the hill I figured we could work on some hill work and so I asked her to trot back up to the top. She did, although she was tense and spooky at nothing. Once back to the top we turned around and went back down. I asked her to trot up again and this time she took off! We rushed up the hill at a 14mph pace and jumped over a small ditch in the process. It was a ton of fun!!! I did make her go back down and trot up again just to let her know she actually did have to listen, but man was that fun :)

All in all it was a great night at the barn :)