Best Laid Plans...

Tomorrow Rhio and I head off to our first ride of the season - and our first time riding at the northern Kettle Moraine.  We're stoked!  I've been cleaning stuff (i.e. buckets, saddle pads, etc), 'erranding' to make sure we're well supplied, packing and repacking, forgetting and remembering stuff endlessly all day.  In short, its been a routine day-before-we-leave-for-a-ride day.  In the evening, I headed to the barn to give Rhio a pre-ride mash with salt and a new pro- and pre- biotic we're trying.  While he was chowing down, I was working on the endless process of shedding out his winter fuzzies.  Glancing at his right front foot - WHAT?!?!?!  NO SHOE?!?!?!  It (the hoof) is fine - no chunks missing.  It (the shoe) is nowhere to be found, even in just the drylot (which is a confined area to search, right?).  However, we leave at 3 pm tomorrow and I'm sure I can't get my farrier out to get that shoe back on before we leave.  And, so, what to do?  I do have my extremely worn Gloves, completely missing their toes from all our asphalt riding.  Putting one on the right front hoof will hopefully help even him out, since with the shoe still on the left front, he will be asymmetrical as he moves - both in height and in weight.  Asymmetry is generally an enemy when we do the number of miles and hours of movement that we do in endurance.  I will try the booted right front and see how it goes.  I was planning for a 25 miler each day, but I will now just *hope* for no issues and a solid completion in the first 25 miles, then go from there. 

Left front

Right front

I put so much time and effort into prepping for rides, both in conditioning my horse, but also in organizing life at home so that I can be away for a weekend, that the thought of having to miss one that I'm all set to go on is really disappointing.  We are going!  Let's just cross a few fingers, toes, and hooves, that Lady Luck will be in our corner this weekend. 

Practicing our smiles 

Light Bulb Moment

It's been over a month since I last posted; I have been riding, but not as much as I would like!  Our stats so far: March - 55 miles, April - 5.25. Yes, in April we have a mere one tenth of the miles we did in March!  How does this happen - when we're supposedly prepping for our return to distance competition this year?  Well, I'll tell you.  I was gone or had house guests for half of this month.  And apparently I've misplaced my Superwoman cape, and cannot spirit myself into two places at once. 

Our first ride is Kettles N Bits, coming up May 2 and 3.  We are going with a new endurance friend, and the ride is just over an hour away.  These will be entirely new trails for us, which is really exciting.  Given our significant drop off on mileage, we will certainly be competing in the 25 mile ride(s); if we're lucky and both feel well, we'll do 25 miles each day Saturday and Sunday.  This will be our first time on a trail this year.  Honestly, this is not too much different from some previous years and I always anticipate the first competition of the season is really just for conditioning, anyway. 

New shoes today!

To that end, I had a "light bulb moment" yesterday.  Rather than putting Rhio in the situation of a Limited Distance "race," where he channels his best and most intense inner Kentucky Derby winner x Fire Breathing Dragon cross, I will take him in the Competitive division!  Brilliant!  Why didn't I think of this before?  I have only completed (I think) two competitive rides so far in my career.  They are not races, as there is an optimal time to complete the course and you are penalized for being too fast OR too slow.  A small group of riders starts together, and generally will ride together for the whole ride.  Rhio loves to have buddies.  Rhio will be relaxed.  Rhio will travel at a nice pace.  We can have our nice time conditioning, and thoroughly enjoy ourselves.  We shall not race.  We shall not run fast (because we are not yet ready for it.)  We shall have a most lovely and enjoyable time.  Yahoo!  I'm so glad UMECRA offers the Competitive division right alongside the AERC endurance and LD rides.  I'm pretty sure Rhio won't do LD rides ever again; they are not a good fit for his "race brain." 

Happy Birthday to my first horse and first love!

In other news, Red just recently turned 20 and seems to be having some joint trouble brewing in a carpus ("knee").  When I did his routine spring hock injection,  I also put a little "juice" into his carpus.  And, he's just completed a loading dose 28 day course of Adequan.  He's been out conditioning a bit in March with S. riding, and we're hoping to get him back out there putting some miles on soon.  I am hoping he is sound enough to keep conditioning, because he does so love to move out.  If all goes well, perhaps he and S. will do a 25 miler sometime this season.  However, I am considering that his body may be telling me its time to scale back his riding to something more sedate.  I hope not, as he will be 'sad pony' if that's the case. 

The last photos are the boys on turn out in the outdoor arena after their two weeks stuck in the dry lot while I was gone and had guests.  They had plenty of energy to spare! 

Synchronized trotting

So glad  Rhio doesn't do THAT under saddle!

First Two Weeks of Spring Training

March 1, 2015.  Watching kids play hockey on their backyard rink.

March 1 usually marks the start of "spring training" for me.  Although we got two nice long rides in during January, this is when I really get serious about whipping us both into shape for the start of ride season.  Today, March 13, marked our fifth conditioning ride of the season, and a total of 45 miles.  In previous years living in Duluth, I would have right around 100 miles on Rhio before the first ride of the season.  We are on track to best that, for sure, which is good since all our miles are flat here.  I think that I will need a higher volume of miles in order to equal the conditioning we had over 100 miles in Duluth.  What should my pre-season goal be, I wonder?  I think I would be happy with about 150 flat miles before Kettles N Bits.  My plan for that ride is a 25 mile LD on Saturday, and then Rhio and I will take S. and Jay out on their first novice ride (12 miles), for a weekend total of 37 miles.  There will be hills, so that should make for an excellent conditioning weekend and set us up well for the rest of the season.  I'm hoping for a 75 mile weekend later in May (a 50 on Saturday and a 25 on Sunday), and then we'll go from there and see what rides we can get to. 

Time to get up from your lazy nap, Rhio!  We've got work to do!

I use my Runkeeper app on my phone to track our rides.  I used to use a wrist GPS unit (very old, and very basic), but it no longer works and since I always have my phone on me anyway, I have just used the same app I use for my own runs.  I have to set it to 'other' since it doesn't offer horseback riding as an exercise option, but it creates a map, records time, distance, and overall speed, and also gives me mile splits on speed.  I like this data.  I write it down in Rhio's log book.  I can compare my rides this way, and see that our last two rides - today and Wednesday - were both at about a 10 min/mile (6 mph) average pace.  This is adequate pace to finish a ride, and I would consider it to be a base pace for ride day.  While I would love to condition faster than this, being on roads is a bit limiting for a few reasons.  One, I don't like to canter on the pavement very much, as I am a worry wort and think about things like slipping, excess concussion, and, of course, the extra force with which I would hit the ground should something untoward occur.  I much prefer to hit grass, or dirt, if I'm gonna come off (knock on something wood, here, please).  Two, there are always extra challenges road riding - either traffic requiring slowing down, or scary things to navigate.  I just find it quite difficult to push up my average pace much in this environment.  So, we will hope to haul out for at least a few rides before May that are on a true trail, and at which we can up our speed to better prepare for race day (on which Rhio truly believes he is channeling the greats - Secretariat, Man O War, Seabiscuit, et al - and wants to run like the wind the entire 25, or 50, miles).  We will typically travel as fast as 10 mph average at a race, so I definitely need to get some speed work on before May!

An example of the maps courtesy of Runkeeper.  You can easily see I ride roads!  Look at that perfect square.

Speaking of scary things, today was a solo ride for us, and although Rhio is really quite brave and rarely spooky, dairy cows are his downfall.  He is utterly, completely, paralyzingly afraid of them.  He doesn't much care for beef cows, either, but we can handle them if needed.  Dairy cows - no how, no way.  IF we have a buddy horse along, he will be afraid (heart pounding in his chest, hyper-alert giraffe neck, prancy feet).  But if we are alone, he can't handle those black and white beauties at all.  Nope.  Not one bit.  Today I was planning an out-and-back of about 6 miles, but only managed 5.3 since we couldn't make it past the dairy cows (really, we could have, but in just a few tenths of a mile, we'd have had to turn around and come back past them - that seemed like too much to ask!).  I had a treat in my pocket, and once I managed to dismount spinning Mr. Rhio, I led him over to the side of the road nearest the monster cows and waited for him to settle the tiniest bit, then gave him the treat. He continued to giraffe-neck, alarm-snort, spin-in-circles around me, which the cows didn't help by rushing away from the fence, then back to the fence, en masse, several times.  Standing there wasn't helping, so once we'd hand walked far enough away that he relaxed a fraction, I mounted up and let him find safety in moving his feet down the road away from the cows.  I wonder when/how this aversion to dairy cows started?  He has never liked being around any cows, but I have ridden near and even through herds of beef cows without too much issue.  The year we were in CO is the first time I remember ever encountering dairy cows with him, and it was a disaster from the get-go.  I wonder if it is their behavior that is the issue?  They are generally curious creatures, and come to (rush) the fence to see us.  An aside- I remember riding my bicycle around the country roads near Northfield, MN in college and the pastured dairy cows would race my bike down their fenceline as far as they could.  It was kind of exhilarating, actually, but of course my bike wasn't afraid of them and didn't have a mind of its own. 

The insanely terrifying dairy cows.  You may notice I took this pic from the ground!

So I mentioned whipping us both into shape for ride season, which on my end means upping my running plan again. I had been running quite consistently, averaging above 15 miles a week and usually doing one long run of 7-9 miles in there somewhere.  Then, in mid-December, I sprained my ankle trail running.  Since then, I quit running entirely for a while, then slowly started back at only about one run per week or 10 days, and only up to 5 miles.  This week has marked my first week back on my "conditioning" program, with a pretty darn functional ankle (finally!) and 3 runs for a total of around 12 miles this week.  I got new shoes!  That helps a lot, as my only running shoes were for the trail and I am stuck with roads and bike paths until my ankle gets a little stronger and more stable.

I think there was only 1 day this week that I did not run and/or ride.  The weather has helped immensely, with temps in the 40s, 50s, and, today, 60s.  Bring it on, spring!  We are ready, willing, and able to enjoy you to the fullest.

Sunset after a quickie, solo ride. March 7, 2015.

Dramatic sky.  March 7, 2015.  Snow still on the ground.

S. rides Red one day.  March 8, 2015.

What a treat to have a pic of me and Rhio in action! March 8, 2015.

Our training buddy S. and her mount Jay.  March 11, 2015. Note there is still a smidge of snow in spots.

March 11, 2015.  A sweaty, hairy horse rolled in wet sand.  Bye, bye pretty white pony! See you next winter.

March 13, 2015.  We're serious about our conditioning today!

March 13, 2015

March 13, 2015.  A herd of miniature horses!  And no snow - just ponds, puddles, and icy bits out in the fields.

Gravel Road Haiku

 Oh surface of dirt
I long for your dark ribbon
You entice me so

Oh how I wish for a gravel road!  Really and truly, I do. I take back all the complaints I've made in the past about "only" having gravel roads to ride, and no trail.  At this point, I would weep for joy at having gravel roads to ride.  The only surface I have to ride on is asphalt.  I have miles, and miles, and miles of asphalt, on relatively quiet back roads.  I'm just not that excited about riding for miles, and miles, and miles on asphalt.  I think a little bit of paved surface is fine, and in fact controlled concussion is often used in conditioning of sport horses to build up tendon, ligament, and bone strength.  It's 8 weeks until our first endurance ride for 2015, and I am riding on the asphalt because I have to.  Rhio and I haven't completed a ride since May of 2013. (I had to call it quits halfway through our one ride of 2014, as the heat and humidity really got to me.)  We have work to do to get ready for our season (oh how I hope to have a season of rides this year!) and I feel quite conflicted about riding the roads here.  Rhio is already bored with it, I am bored with it, and I don't like the thought of all that extra concussion. 

Should I also write a paragraph about hills?  Naw, why just increase my depression?  Have I mentioned it's pretty much flat here? And windy? 

Okay, really, I am trying to be grateful that I am riding, anywhere and anytime.  Can I help it that I just want more?  And that I've been pretty darn spoiled in the past?

Rhio was napping when I arrived.

Riding out with our Thoroughbred buddy Jay.  Asphalt as far as the eye can see.

Yep, more asphalt.

Oh, hey!  Something interesting here - kids playing hockey.

Drying out after 7 miles - we are now officially conditioning!

The Unexpected

As with most of my rides, I keep a close eye on the forecast and try to match up my free time, friends' schedules, and good (or at least acceptable) weather conditions into the perfect triumvarate.  Sometimes it actually works out!  Saturday was one of those days - a winter storm was brewing, but this was the proverbiable calm before the storm.  It was warm(ish), windless, and peaceful, though missing a sunshiny sky that would have been truly fantastic (what a gray winter it's been!). 

The road was clear, and stretched before us as an endless ribbon through the farmland.  Two geldings, one mare, and three new friends set off together without an agenda, a plan, or a schedule.  At each intersection, we'd look at each other and choose a path.  This method lead us on an 11 mile journey, meeting a few unexpected things along the way. 

The landscape is so flat - I thought a crooked photo would be interesting.

The first was the ponies, terrifying ponies.  Why are ponies (or, heaven forbid, miniature horses!) so scary to "regular" horses?  I do not know the answer.  Giraffe-necked and with his heart pounding out of his chest, Rhio faced those curious, small equines with true fear.  Booker, who was our self-appointed bugler on the ride, found an inner well of utter silence, unfortunately.  If he had only whinnied to them, as he had been doing to various buildings, cars, dogs, trees, etc along the way,  and they had responded, I'm pretty sure our other two horses would have instantly recognized them as fellow equines and the fear would have melted away.  Instead, we found ourselves first frozen, then very warily creeping past the adorable ponies. 

The scary ponies

Next up in unexpectedness this ride was a snowy owl.  Yes, really - a SNOWY OWL!!!!  I didn't even try for a photo with my phone, but instead lived in the moment of pure wonder as that big, white bird swooped silently ahead of us, around a house, and back up to a telephone pole, where she(he) landed and regarded the landscape for her(his) next meal.  Incredible, truly breathtaking.  Owls in general are one of my favorite groups of birds, and I love to see, or hear, them.  But this was a sighting to be long remembered, for sure. 

Last on the list of unexpected adventures were the gunshots.  Yep, three loud blasts of a rifle, quite near to us, as we rode past.  The three humans all jumped, but our horses took it all in stride.  The same horses that were freaked out by the ponies, hardly flinched at a sudden, unexpected, loud noise.  Well, alrighty then!  Not that I'm complaining, mind you.  Good horsies! 

A few other minor unexpecteds occurred, like S.'s mare spooking at Rhio's snort, and the golden retriever who charged us down a long driveway. With her very embarrassed owner trying to get her to obey numerous commands which the dog blatantly ignored in favor of barking wildly at us, all three horses stood quietly, patiently,  totally unconcerned.  The magic word was "Kennel," at which point she promptly turned tail and ran for the house. 

The six of us were contentedly tired upon our return to the barn.  It'll be at least a week until it's warm enough to ride again, so our thoughts and memories of this ride, and plenty of hay for the horses, will have to tide us over and get us through the wintery weather. 

And just for the record, I don't think Rhio and I have ever had an 18 mile week in January before!  First ride of the season is 3 months away.  Let the conditioning begin!

The First Sweaty Ride of 2015

It was a dry dusting of fresh snow over dry pavement.  Not at all slippery.

January 26, 2015.  About 25 degrees, overcast, only a bit of wind, snow flurries in the air.  Hey, let's go for a ride!  When your riding buddy has a day off work, you ride, just with more layers! 

We're feeling rather puffy.

The horses moved paddocks today, in preparation for a new horse coming to the stable this upcoming weekend.  Given Red's being-left-home issues lately, and having just had a change of venue (yes, it's only just across the driveway, but still...), I decided to ride Rhio and pony Red.  We've been doing so much of this recently, that it has really become quite easy and relaxed for all three of us. 

The footing in the stable area is atrociously icy, now just dusted over with fresh snow, enough to mask the glare ice.  Perfect.  I very carefully handwalked the boys over to the woods, and then mounted up.  Well, actually, mounting up entailed using my arms to help my left leg bend enough to get my foot in the stirrup, then very ungracefully heaving myself clumsily up (thank goodness I have short horses!) and slithering, shuffling, huffing into an upright position in the saddle.  Darn those extra layers!  Dexterity of all appendages was severely curtailed during today's ride.  I even dropped Red's rope twice due entirely to my mittens (but my fingers were toasty warm!). 

Rhio set the pace at a nice, forward trot.  It's a good thing we all seemed quite happy with that, as Rhio wasn't going to take no for an answer, if I was going to try to tell him we weren't trotting!  He's not been out for a road ride in about a month, and he was one happy pony to be out there, that's for sure. 

We did an out-and-back, 7.2 miles total, staying on the secondary road, since I had Red in tow.  Turning for home, we discovered that yes, in fact, there was just a bit of wind, and now it was blowing into our faces a bit.  S's mare had a good case of the "going-homes," and thought the best idea was a race all the way home.  My boys were more than up for that plan, but us two-leggeds disagreed, and with some discussion, were able to contain the equine enthusiasm. 

Sweaty winter fur

Cooling out, drying off, and tanking up on yummy beet pulp!

Rhio and S's mare were all sweaty, but interestingly Red was only slightly damp on his chest.  I know from experience that Rhio is a good sweater, and Red takes much longer to start to sweat when working.  Even accounting for that difference, it is interesting to see visually how much more the ridden horses were working compared to the ponied, unridden horse. 

I'm so ready to start conditioning!  Ride season is only three months away. 

S. on her mare Jay.

The Cold Snap

Last week we had a bit of a cold snap.  I think there was a day or two it didn't get above zero at all.  And, of course, the wind.  Judging from the various posts on Facebook at the time, it seemed a large chunk of the country was having a cold snap right along with us.  It is all relative - a cold snap for, say, Tennessee, isn't the same, in real temperatures, as a cold snap here in Wisconsin.  But I think the ways in which we all cope with our cold snaps are similar.  A horse (or a human) used to the Wisconsin winter is pretty comfortable at the temperatures that are shiver-inducing in more southern climes.  As long as you, and your horses, have been acclimated to the local environment, a cold snap of reasonable intensity and duration is usually not too much of a problem.  For horses, that acclimatization actually occurs the previous year.  Horses seem to grow coat related to the daylight length and coldness of their previous winter climate.  Moving a horse from one region to another in the summer, before daylight really begins to shorten (the trigger to grow winter coat), is preferred, as that horse will grow a more appropriate winter coat for the new climate.  However, in my experience, it seems that many horses don't have a truly appropriate winter coat until the *next* winter after a move.  So, this year, Rhio has grown a coat appropriate to Colorado's cold, where he spent last winter.  Obviously, there is lots of variation between individuals, and many other factors, especially nutrition and overall health, play into this.  And Rhio's coat is adequate for Wisconsin, but it is certainly not as thick as it has been in previous years spent in Minnesota.  He is a bit of a baby about the cold, anyway, and is fairly routinely blanketed, regardless of his coat.  Red, too, was blanketed warmly for last week's cold snap.  And, I went out every day to pamper them with warm beet pulp mashes, extra salt, and some warm molasses water to drink.  "The Experts" say that the best thing you can do is *not* change your horses' routines during a weather change.  But we all do, don't we?  Extra feed, perhaps stalling them, decreasing turnout.  And, truthfully, if you watch your own horses, they change their routine themselves.  My guys spent time in their shelter, out of the wind.  They don't normally spend much time in the shelter at all if the weather is milder.  They hopefully ate more hay (the best way to stay warm), which means they hopefully were also drinking more water (though often horses drink less water in colder temperatures), as additional water is needed for digesting that additional hay!  So, my "pampering" becomes more rational and logical (or so I like to think).  Warm beet pulp is a great conduit for additional water intake, and a nice place to add some loose salt to further encourage drinking.  It's also a fiber-based way to increase calories needed to stay warm, much like hay does.  And, it gives me an excuse to bring them into the barn for a little while, giving them a break from the wind, and I can adjust blankets, check beneath to make sure all is well, etc.  Invariably, upon going back out after pampering, they immediately went to the hay and started eating, and/or went over to the waterer for a drink.  Yay!  It makes me feel good that they are doing great, and I find feeding horses one of life's greatest pleasures.  Really. 

Hiding in their shelter on a windy, cold day

Rhio knows good stuff comes from this tack room!

Bliss - both boys munching away while I perch on a bucket and soak up happy horse vibes.