Following the Vermont 100 and Sarge’s non-completion, I was quickly formulating an action plan. This is just what I do. Analytical to a fault.

Two 100 mile ride attempts with Sarge. One pull as a result of just plain bad luck. Second pull from an odd lameness that COULD be associated with the cruddy luck of the first pull (torqued shoe at 56 or so miles). NQR appetite with no significant change despite a course of Gastrogard. Loss of bounce in the trot.

This was a no brainer.

Sarge was going to see Dr. Ron Genovese at the Cleveland Equine Clinic.

Ace, who was sound as could be, was going also. He’d had some fill behind and below his left knee for several rides, not changing much, but combined with his calf-kneed conformation, I wanted an ultrasound of those front legs.

Ron is an amazing doctor. He’s 75-ish years old, sharp as a tack, amazingly physically fit (when he sits on this tiny stepstool 6 inches from the floor and does ultrasounds on lower legs with absolutely no discernible discomfort I am convinced he must practice a great deal of yoga during his downtime) and all he does all day long, in and out, for several decades now, is look at and diagnose lame horses, almost lame horses and horses whose owners are fretting they could be going lame.

As we drove the four hours to Doc’s new clinic, I made my predictions to Rich about what he would find. For Sarge, I imagined arthritic hocks and some changes in his right front sesamoid since he was initially x-rayed five years ago after two “iffy” BC trot outs. For Ace, I hoped and prayed for nothing. Just some anecdotal fill to watch out for during the years to come.

Boy, was I close.

Sarge had absolutely no changes in his RF x-ray and flexed sound on both front legs. Both hind legs were marginally off after flexion and Doc injected his hocks without x-raying them. “Why waste your money?” he asked. I worried over injecting him and keeping him going along if we should be slowing down, but Doc assured me this was the best thing to do for Sarge’s long term soundness and comfort.

Ace’s tendons were essentially normal, but the RF tendon was thickened more than the left despite more fill in the left front. Go figure. No real diagnosis but we called it a mild left front strain below the knee and the recommendations were for icing/cold hosing/bute after hard rides, to watch for deep footing, and shorten his toes when shoeing him/frequent resets (something we’d already been working on for quite some time).

Sarge finished out his stall rest and handwalking days mostly with grace and self control. His recovery was timed coincidentally with Rich’s clearance to ride following his hernia surgery. Apparently Sarge was feeling VERY good after his hock injections and gave Rich quite the ride and a near ejection when they made the turn on to the trail where we typically do galloping sets up a hill.

We elected to test Sarge by taking him to Maine for the multi-day ride with both Ned and Ace for company. Goal: Ride as much as possible, have a good time, laugh.

Goal accomplished. Sarge, two 30s with Rich, one 50 with Pam Karner. Ned, one 50 with Rachel, and one 30 with me. Ace, one 50 with me, one 30 with Pam. Much laughter. Good times.

Ace and me crossing the Saco River / Photo by Rene Mersereau

Rare photo of my husband relaxing at Western Maine

What was most remarkable, however, was Sarge’s appetite. We didn’t have to lay out the Sarge Smorgasboard. At all. He ate like crazy. Whatever was placed in front of him. At every hold, all of the time. Ceaselessly. All I can figure is that his hocks were sore enough, and equally so, that when he’d been coming in to vet checks and ‘letting down’ he just felt uncomfortable enough to affect his appetite. Poor kid. If only we’d known …

You will note that I did not ride Sarge at all in Maine, so it was a couple of weeks after we got home that I got to tack him up to go for a spin. To say that he feels different after having his hocks done would be an understatement. Not only was his bounce back, but I noticed that he immediately settled into a big strided walk after I climbed on, where he had typically been doing a sort of jigging, shorter-strided walk while warming up pre-injection.

With him looking and feeling so great, and so very fit, Rich let me borrow him away for one more try at a 100. Seouls Corners in eastern Ontario, Labor Day weekend.

The 100 was not to be, unfortunately. A cold front coming in to our area slowed way down, meaning the weather would be beastly hot and ridiculously humid, so I opted to downgrade (or as Stan Alkemade said, “wuss out”) to the 75. I wasn’t heat conditioned, Sarge wasn’t heat conditioned, and I’d had a couple of hellishly difficult weeks with family health things the previous couple of weeks, and all I wanted to do was have fun and get around. The 100 wasn’t sounding fun and I was seriously concerned that with the heat we would not, in fact, get around.

My friend Nathalie and her husband, Jeff, who live near Ottawa, were coming to the ride with their 14 year old son, Yannick. Natty to crew for me, bless her. Jeff to run 50 miles in preparation for a 100 mile race he is running in two weeks, bless his crazy self. Yannick because his Mom thought it best for him to be chaperoned for the weekend, bless his teenaged self.

The ride consisted of three loops — one 19 mile loop, all of it repeated and a bonus five mile loop added for the next 25 mile loop, and a final 31 mile loop. The first two loops had significant chunks of rocky and technical trail. The final loop included 10 miles of that, but then the last 21 miles of the ride were on almost exclusively gravel road and the TransCanada railbed multi-use trail.

There were holds away and at camp and Nathalie crewed the hell out of us. Between doing so, she checked up on Jeff and left him little love notes here and there at camp for when he checked in to restock supplies (he was running the 25 mile loop twice, just like the 50 mile horses). I’m dealing with some heel spur/plantar fasciitis thing so it was a tremendous blessing to have someone trot Sarge out for me.

To say it was humid would be a wicked understatement. I was horrified to find there was a MIRROR in the porta-potty at the away hold and announced loudly when exiting that that was something I really did not to see, my uber tomato face when the humidex was outrageous. I don’t know what it was in Celsius but the translation from Canadian to American was something like “$(*&#( hot!”

There were only three in the 75, and I think three in the 100 as well, which was disappointing, I know, to the ride management. This is not an “easy” ride but it was a very doable and lovely ride, especially with the flat and easy final miles.

I “bonked” in the second half of the ride. Jeff and Natty (read more about them on my blog post from last year entitled something like “Now THESE people are crazy!”) invited their personal trainer friend, Bruce Hamelin, to join us at the ride for Jeff’s training run, and he was a lifesaver to me. At mile 67 he met me at the Sharbot Lake vet check and while Nat doted on Sarge, he sat me down and forced me to eat some uber-calorie, fiber and protein-filled cookie, explaining that I was running at a deficit and that was why I was feeling so lousy. I was hydrated, I was electrolyting, I just wasn’t taking in enough calories for my expenditure during the ride. It feels ridiculous to write about a calorie deficit when I am always struggling with or lamenting about losing weight, but there you go.

The last eight miles in the dark were, as always, magical. The trail had been glowsticked and I met John and Rob, the official GlowStickers on my way out of the hold, so knew the corners were marked on the way back to camp.

The TransCanada trail between Sharbot Lake and base camp travels primarily through what looked (dimly) and sounded like swamp territory. The critters I heard calling and splashing in to the water were remarkable and I can tell you that more than once I thanked the gods that I had chosen to ride the horse who rarely spooks. At anything.

He was starving (hallelujah!) and also anxious to get back to camp, so we alternated doing the big trot and stopping for what seemed endless periods of time to graze. As night riders know, the horses see fine despite our tragically limited human night vision, so Sarge would be flying along and then would suddenly spot a succulent patch of grass, screech to a halt and resume chow time. I knew he was metabolically fantastic, every single footfall all day and all night was perfectly even, and so I simply enjoyed the ride.

My favorite moment was as we passed, or rather tried to pass, an apple tree that we’d found the day prior just a bit off the marked trail on the way back to camp. When we got to that point, I tried to turn Sarge off the trail as the glowstick indicated and he simply stopped. I urged him on. He backed up a few steps, when I suddenly remembered EXACTLY where we were and I headed him off trail in the direction of the tree. He was grabbing apples from the branches as I was picking them to give to him. (I did threaten to kill him if he opted to choke on one.)

Did I mention how hungry he was??

As we approached camp at about 9 p.m., the skies opened. First a sprinkle, then a rain, then something that pretty well resembled a downpour. Sarge vetted through beautifully. It was wonderful to be vetted by Stan Alkemade as he is a dear friend and vetted our Shut Up and Ride for years, and he’s had a bitch of a year with health concerns; it was so nice just to be around him again. Sarge’s CRI was 12/12 and he was all As.

Since we were first to finish and I knew he looked dynamite, I deigned to take my tack over to weigh in. Due to my 80# saddle and my saddlepad soaked with rain water, I’m sure my ride weight was just a little heavier than what I know everyone anticipated was Lightweight status. I threatened bodily harm to any fool stupid enough to announce my weight aloud. Best Condition judging was to be at 8 a.m. the next morning and in order to present, you have to weigh in. (Damn it.)

Headed back to the trailer, shoved wet tack into it, made sure Sarge had a huge pile of hay and was covered with a rain sheet (thanks Nat!), promised to join my friends in their EZUp tent just as soon as I smelled better and immediately showered. I was force-fed (kindly) some awful liquid called Recoverite and cold pizza while we all laughed about the day’s events, Jeff’s successful training run, Bruce’s theories on sports nutrition, and just what a terrific day it had been.

And then I was suddenly exhausted. I took my entire 3 oz of celebratory Merlot and hit the sack, waking at midnight, thirsty as heck and hungry for Pringles, which I ate.

Nat presented Sarge for BC the next morning and I knew it was going to be good. We warmed him up and I showed her how he presents (this was not Sarge’s first time trotting for BC; he’s won several with my husband Richard) and he was looking fantastic. Stan was also very impressed.

Was sad to hear that Monica, who was in 2nd behind me in the ride pulled at Sharbot Lake. Like me, she was riding a Morgan/Arab (hers a stallion!) and while I was tickled to win, I was hoping all three of us starting would make it around.

So Sarge was the winner, BC, High Vet Score (780, which is absolutely nothing to sneeze at), Top Ten, and also Turtle. He won a load of loot and I’m not even sure I’ve gone through everything in the bag just yet.

Uneventful trip home, even with the international crossing and holiday traffic, and I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I was entirely distracted from everything other than riding that wonderful horse down that trail on that day and taking care of him as best I could. It was exactly the weekend that I needed.

It was hot, it was miserable, it was tough and I have sore bits as I sit and write this, but the jigsaw puzzle has totally taken shape, and I am so incredibly relieved that we have finally figured Sarge out. The last piece just fell into place; we simply needed to re-arrange a few things and look at them in a different way.

Life is good. On to planning for the Allegany SUAR on October 1st. Did you get your entry in yet?

And then, hopefully, God and sound horses willing, the Spook Run 100 in Indiana on October 28th. Which horse(s)? Well, we’ll just have to see.

Anyone care to join me?

… but some times it takes a little time and introspection to see the pattern in the big picture that the puzzle creates.

Sit back with a cup of joe, boys and girls, this is gonna be a long one.

I hesitated to write about my VT 100 experience back in mid-July, largely because I was still sorting out many things in my brain, mentally and emotionally.  Here and now, pushing six weeks later, and with the advantage of evaluating it all through the rear view mirror, I’ve gained some perspective.

I’ve ridden the VT100 twice and the Moonlight 50 at the same venue, twice also, all on Ned and all with successful completions, some faster than others, of course.   It is my all-time favorite ride, shared, as it is, with roughly 300 runners more insane than the riders mounted on four legged flight animals.  Additionally, it is a beautiful course; one could stop dozens of times along the ride and simply stop and suck in the beauty, the vistas, the farms, the flowers, the stone walls, the gardens.  It is a breathtaking experience.

I’d decided a few days before the ride that it made sense for Rachel to ride Ace, and for me to ride Sarge.  I felt I knew Sarge best and could best feel if he was off in any way, shape or form, especially after his torqued shoe at the Pine Tree 100 which caused me to pull him at mile 65 (even though he was sound with a replaced shoe).  Ace is a pretty straight-forward ride, easy to pace, and I was confident he was physically ready for the challenge.  Besides, I knew Rachel, who is so tuned in, would take conservative and patient care of my affectionately-termed “special needs child.”

My friend Sylvia came up and met us on Friday with her friend Denny, who was new to endurance riding (boy, was he in for a baptism by fire!) and we set out to check out the crew/vet check locations on the sometimes-challenging-to-find route. Sylvia has ridden Ace and crewed for me before, and I was grateful, as always, for her resourceful and calm presence. I am blessed with terrific friends who are somehow willing to crew, some of them even willing to do it more than once, silly things.

Rachel/Ace and Sarge/I headed out politely and at a reasonable pace on Saturday morning toward the back of the 100 mile pack after accepting a last-minute girth-tightening from Syl. It wasn’t long before we started catching up with the runners, with everyone still chipper and bright-eyed and looking forward to the adventure ahead. Like the horses and riders, the runners get more quiet and energy-conserving as the day goes on, but in the wee morning hours there are cheers and fist pumps and runners turning around on trail to capture photos of themselves with the horses, smiling and celebrating the fact that they are participating in the only concurrent 100 mile ride/run in the United States.

The first stop and go was good, poor Denny got to learn the joy that is schlepping stuff and coaxing reluctant horses to eat, and just how much water gets dumped on hot horses at these events.

At the first hold, both horses were all As and Rachel and I were pleased with our pace and how the boys were feeling. Sarge has been a concern for me all season. We performed a one month expensive experiment with him, suspecting ulcers and dosing him with GastroGard for a thirty day period before Pine Tree, finding no discernible change in his appetite. I was hopeful that with ulcers crossed off our list of potential causes of his lackluster eating at rides that the learning curve would kick in. And in general, Sarge’s eating was quite good.

We had a magical trip over the section of mountains dubbed “Sound of Music”, laughing and sharing tales (and photos) with the runners, finding a runner who shared an alma mater with Rachel (UNH), determining what old haunts were still choice hangouts.

The morning was heating up, and we were taking care to drink and hydrate and mind the horses’ core temperatures, but it wasn’t heat that got Sarge that day.

At roughly 40 miles, on a gravel road, I thought I felt him take a couple of off steps in his right front. (This was the foot on which he torqued a shoe at Pine Tree, so I was hyperaware that something might go awry with that limb.) I sat up, adjusted myself and him for a few moments, making sure we were both even and straight, then felt it again. I asked Rachel to drop along beside me, did she see it?, and yes, eventually she did. We pulled up, checked shoes for rocks and walked for a bit, thinking maybe he’d stung himself on a rock or just had a bad moment, but alas, when we trotted again, there it was. Not every stride, not severe, but it was there, and another 60 miles would not be therapeutic.

Before we had much time to ruminate on it, I sent Rachel and Ace on. “Go! Have a wonderful ride! Take amazing care of my boy!” Rachel looked torn, was I sure? Yes, I was sure, and it made me both laugh and cry to watch Ace, so grown up, so game and fit and strong, simply canter away from us, over a knoll and out of sight.

Sarge called a few times, but he let me walk him in to the next hold, about four or five miles away. I pulled his interference boots, found a couple of small rubs on the hinds (geez, and he’d worn those boots before without incident), got on and trotted again to see if I’d found a sudden cure, but alas no, and we carried on our walk. I was hoping to be slow enough that Ace would be vetted, complete his hold and be gone again before our arrival, as Ace can be pretty attached to his herdmates (my friends know this is a radical understatement).

No such luck, but Ace was about to go out as we headed in on foot. Ace nickered and Sarge nickered back, but Ace, so very focused on the trail, left the out-timer without incident or drama and I headed Sarge over to Art King, DVM, to let him know we were pulling. I bet Art that Sarge wouldn’t limp but we trotted him out anyway. Perfectly sound, of course. It didn’t matter. I knew he was off, and that was enough.

Denny, bless his soul, offered to accompany Sarge back to the treatment area in the volunteer’s trailer (thanks Gaynor Coassin!) to be seen by the treatment vet (mandatory, and well understood) and back to camp, where the two could hang out for the remainder of the day and eat and drink (well, except that I entirely cleaned out the refrigerator of people food and drink) and relax and nap.

This meant I could join Syl and crew Rachel and Ace for the remainder of the day. Huge relief and despite the pull I was truly overjoyed to hit the road with Syl to meet Ace and Rachel at the next pit crew stop.

We had a remarkable day following my friends around the countryside, complete with the usual misadventures — what do you mean the water won’t flow out of the tanks? (No problem, Syl performs mouth to hose siphoning on the spot?) Careful with that knife when you cut up the carrots! Ow, cut. No, make that two cuts, one for me, one for Syl. (No problem, we dig bandaids out of the famed “100 Mile Box” full of every sort of med or item one could need during a 100 mile adventure in the back country.)

As the day wore on, the back of the truck got more and more disorganized; we lost a cooler lid out of the back along a country road. Luckily we spotted it and retrieved it immediately, not wanting to litter in Vermont and figuring we might need that lid later.

At one point we couldn’t fit all of our items in the bed of the truck any more and actually get the tailgate closed. We did rearrange, but in the end, we relied on brute strength and heaved the tailgate closed. High fives all around. Syl is a gem.

The one thing that went seamlessly was Rachel and Ace. Every time we saw them, Rachel was smiling and Ace was bright-eyed and up. He pulsed down beautifully, recovered great, was sound as the day is long, and ate like a champ. They each took good care of themselves and terrific care of one another.

At 88 miles, Rachel was joined by Austin Shaffer, since Deb elected to pull her horse and he needed a sponsor. This slowed Rachel and Ace down considerably. Denny and Syl called it a night and headed back to their B&B for some much-needed sleep while I crewed the last of the miles. I stopped to see the foursome on trail at Polly’s (95 miles or so), and I’m confident that I was looking wearier than the team I was crewing.

All along there were the runners, and when I saw one, I made it a point to cheer and yell and whoop. Having ridden through the runners’ aid stations, and being cheered myself, I know how important it is to hear that encouragement. There was one gentleman that I’d seen all day and every time I saw him I remarked “there is that guy that looks so great.” Truth be told, he looked a little less great as the miles wore on, but I told him every time I saw him how great he looked, to the point that I’m pretty certain he told his friends later that there was some chunky middle-aged chick hitting on him throughout the run.

I headed back to camp, checked on Sarge, who was enjoying hay and apparently dozens of peppermint candies that he and Denny shared throughout the day (as it was the only foodstuff I’d left behind in the horse trailer). Grabbed a wool dress sheet and some crewing stuff and joined the others waiting at the finish line, enjoying a band and the wild applause as each finisher, runner or rider, jogged under the lit-up banner. There were tiki torches and laughter and a lit-up scoreboard for the runners and much excitement, tinged with a bit of weariness, amongst those waiting for their loved one; I was in shared company, to be sure.

When Rachel and Ace crossed over that finish line at roughly midnight, I was full of tears and laughter and so much pride and relief. Rachel dismounted and we hugged and cried and thanked one another; there may be nothing better than bringing a young horse to his first hundred mile completion. But if there is, it is sharing your horse with a dear friend and watching them so easily conquer a 100 mile course. Rachel did it last year with Ned (they chaperoned me with Ace to Ace’s first 100 mile completion) and now with Ace. Life is good.

We settled Ace in, ate too much horrific for you food, and split a bottle of champagne, laughing and crying and enjoying an over the top mutual admiration party! We all loved one another, we were all amazing, and Sarge would get another opportunity.

We’d figure it out, and we did.

More soon.

This will be an unusual blog post for me.  It has nothing to do with horses or endurance or riding.

It has everything to do with families and grieving and loss and the life lesson having to do with learning to deal with the cards you’re dealt regardless of how fervently you wish you’d gotten an entirely different hand.

I’ve had plenty of death in my life, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve counseled friends and family, perhaps having the good fortune of having dealt with less of it, this simple fact:  People deal wildly differently with grief.  And that it pays to give the grieving a wide berth and to learn that their function (or dysfunction) has little to do with you, the other poor fool grieving somewhere adjacent to them.

Yes, well, as oft is the case with glibly handed-out advice, it’s a lesson the deliverer is still in the process of learning.

I hesitate to write about this lesson publicly, but then realize that those who have handed out the hurt are unlikely to be aware of it, so far am I from their radar screen, a limb neatly trimmed off the family tree by virtue of my mother’s death.

My mother’s death when I was seven left me with a chasm in my psyche.  A hunger, of sorts, to fill my heart with the essence of her, to KNOW her in the only way I could figure out how.  Through those who knew her and loved her.  Simple, right?

Not so much.  When an exceptional woman and mother and teacher and friend is snatched from this life unexpectedly, the emotional shrapnel is deep and scattered and leaves the victims who surrounded her with a variety of symptoms and scars.  For many of those who loved my mother, the answer was to close down, not speak of her, leave the scars and wounds untouched for fear of opening them again.  And who am I to judge that response?

But it left this person yearning.  Clinging to words and memories and little glimpses casually dropped as though they were pearls.  Little pieces of the mother that I had never had the privilege of coming to know as so many daughters know their mothers, the very essence of what makes their mother the woman, the wife, the friend, the artist, the teacher, the daughter or sister that she is.  And far too afraid to beg those who loved her to share that.

I am sure that I acted out in a million different ways, all of them unpleasant at best.  Angry?  You bet.  I’m still pissed to have been robbed of that person in my life.

So when someone would offer me a peek, I would listen earnestly, but not too earnestly, not wishing to upset the applecart, not wanting to pry, not caring to open a wound that was perhaps on the verge of healing.  Almost.

And oh, but I wanted to know her.  Wanted to know her and imagine her as she aged, wondering what she would have been like as a fixture in my life as I grew older, and with her two sisters, who physically resemble her so closely, it was as if she were almost there.  Almost.  The pain and pleasure it would give me to see my mother’s sisters, the very definition of bittersweet.

But that was me, and that was my way of coping.  Clinging to my relationship with my mother’s family, hoping and praying that they would want to keep me close in the same way I wanted to keep them close; to hold my mother’s memory alive, to see her and feel her and know her through our intrinsic similarity. 

Wanting them to grieve and handle the loss in the same way that I did.

Ah, but that life lesson, the one so casually imparted to others about the vast differences in how others grieve.  About our need to respect that and understand it, and most critically, to not take it personally in the least, lest it tear your heart apart.

For my mother’s sisters, I think I am a painful reminder of their profound loss.  I can see in our shared features the passing look of pain when they see me.  I know it too well.  But for them, and I can only guess this to be true, the pain outweighs the yearning, the need to know, the desire to remember.

And so, slowly over the years they’ve severed the branch from this part of their family tree.  I search in my heart for the thing that I did, the hurt that I caused, the extended hand that I did not take, or the hand that I did not offer, but in the end, it’s not about me at all.

It is about them, and their own pain and loss, and their need to heal those wounds in the way that causes the least suffering in their heart, free from the reminder of the sister they might have had if the driver of a car had not failed to stop at a stop sign that night.

In my less emotional moments, I actually have the clarity to see these things for what they are, and to cherish, in the oddest possible way, the gifts that these losses afford me.

I am blessed to cherish life, every minute of it, to know in the most profound way that there are no guarantees of a tomorrow.  I’m gifted to realize that it is profoundly critical to love those whom you love, to tell them you love them and to keep them close to your heart.   That we are blessed with the gift of choosing our friends, and how doubly blessed we are when those whom we dearly like and love and know and share our daily struggles with are also those to whom we are related.

Life is so very, very short.

And as my brother, years ahead of me on the way to learning this life lesson said to me yesterday, “you know, Patti, it’s not being related to someone that makes them family.”

Almost thirty-seven years from that car accident, and I think I am finally catching on.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.

Look on the bright side.

Statistically, our weekend at Pine Tree was a bit of a bust.   Ned didn’t even start the 100; Sarge and I rider optioned at 65 miles. 

So why did I find myself crying tears of gratitude as I hauled my boys out of the North Waterford Fairgounds facing a 12 hour haul home? 

The endurance weekend began as they all do, loading horses and heading down the driveway, full of anticipation and a tinge of anxiety.  Sarge and Ned jumped on the trailer just after dawn, covered with the mud they wore in from a rainy, stormy night spent turned out in the pasture; based on the forecast, there was plenty more mud to come and I wanted to beat the Buffalo morning rush hour to get to Vermont for the evening.

When I arrived at Gene and Dale’s mid-afternoon, I knew something was wrong the moment I opened the back door of the trailer and glanced at Ned’s legs.  His left hind pastern was swollen.  The mud had dried, revealing a cut on the front surface of his pastern about an inch up from the coronary band.  Not good.  Gene and I hosed it off, applied some antibacterial gel and waited for my friend Pam (who just so happens to be a veterinarian, a gift I exploit regularly) and Rachel, who was to ride Ned in the 100, and were also overnighting at the farm.

At first the wound seemed superficial, but Ned was off and ouchy about it.   Ned is actually rather stoic, and sure enough, it turned out to be a pretty deep wound.  Probably a result of a clinch during some scrambling in a stall (our boys can come and go from their box stalls when turned out) during a t-storm.  Far from his heart, but there was no way he’d be doing the 100.   As Gene said, it was a diabolical way for me to get crew!  Rachel, now without a mount, was pressed in to the job of crewing for Sarge and me in the 100, and Pam and Prin in the 50.

As always, spending time with Gene and Dale on their farm was wonderful.  We got to see the new foal, the foals that had become yearlings, a new stallion in for training, all the other horses, and had a terrific dinner out at a local steakhouse.

If only the weather was better.  It rained and then drizzled, then poured and then misted.  Miserable.  It seems every time Pam, Rachel and I are in the same place this season, it rains.  Sigh.

It was still raining when we arrived at the North Waterford Fairgrounds on Friday just before noon.   Fortunately, we were able to get stalls for Ned, Sarge and Prin very close to the vetting area and our trailers and got everyone settled in.  We joked about the low ceilings and how we were parked in the Goat Barn.  It looked like Ned, at 16+ leggy hands, could easily step over the outside wall, but thankfully he didn’t.

In the just-when-everything-seems-to-be-going-fine category, I was shocked to discover water pouring in to my living quarters through my air conditioner shortly after we arrived.  The aftermath of this incident involved much hilarity with middle-aged women and tarps and bungee cords and a broom and a call to my husband at home to ask stupid questions.

Okay, so my veteran horse was lame and could not start the ride.  On the bright side, I had crew for the 100, he had his own personal vet to doctor him, and he’d be just fine in pretty short order.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my trailer was leaking and my carpet was soaked.  But hey, I had a bunch of throw rugs to use to soak up the water, our tarping job had slowed the leaking to an occasional drip, and my bed was completely dry.  Not so awful.

Well sure, the weather sucked, but the horses were tucked away in nice dry stalls and it was going to be perfect half-Morgan riding weather.  And according to Irving McNaughton, a lifelong Mainer and the original Boiled Owl, it was going to clear up as ride day went along.

Surely nothing ELSE could go wrong, right?

The start at 5 a.m. for the 100s was unremarkable.  There were 13 of us and the crowd headed out at a sane pace.  Sarge has grown up considerably and while he lengthened my arms a little bit, there was no plunging about or bucking, so I was pleased.

Within a few miles, we linked up with Char Jewell on Nickle, also going for his first one day 100.  The boys paced nicely together, and we both wanted to ensure they were eating well, so we stopped frequently to insist they grab a bite of grass before moving along again.  This loop had the notorious French Hill climb, and the 17.5 miles took us a healthy 2.5 hours, with us coming in just behind Claire Godwin and Courtney Walker, who went on to finish 2nd and 1st in the ride.

Sarge walked in, pulsed down and vetted through with all As.  That was the easy part; getting him to eat well was what I knew would be the challenge.  Turned out this hold was an apple wafer treat, sweet feed and oats hold.  He would have nothing to do with grass, hay or his slushie.

[For a little tangent, I have a funny peeing story.  Not unusual for a 100.  Not unusual for me.  This hold was at the McKenzie Farm, and with no visible portapotties, I went off in search of a private place to relieve my bladder.  I went through the barn, found a tiny little corner behind the barn, looked both ways and did my business.   As I looked up from the classic squatting position, I noticed a little wooden shack directly in front of me, tall, narrow, why it looked a lot like ...   Yes, you guessed it, I managed to seek out a place to pee and peed about six feet BEHIND a perfectly fine outhouse.]

Rachel was a wonderful crew, attentive and calm and reminding me quietly to sit down and eat and drink.  She coaxed Sarge to eat and worried over him a bit as, like me, she has Kholee, who like Ned, has never met a feedstuff he didn’t like.  I assured her that this was Sarge’s “normal” and set off on the 2nd loop. 

This one had significant climbs as well, and we were passed by Steve Rojek and Kyle Gibbons, and we allowed them by, knowing we were keeping a smart pace for our horses. 

In to the second hold at the same farm, where I enjoyed using the actual potty, and Sarge noshed on grass, and was delighted to find someone’s dropped carrot.  It was a carrots-and-grass hold, and no other food was of interest, so I borrowed some carrots (thanks, Linda!) and Sarge munched for the duration of the vet check.  He’d interfered on a hind fetlock so I added some boots and Char and I headed out to return to camp.

Rachel was waiting for us there, having just returned from the hold and crewing Prin and Pam, who were doing nicely in the 50, despite a pulled and replaced shoe.  Phew!

It had stopped raining, and was actually brightening up a bit, so that was a plus. 

Rachel had put out the most hilarious spread for Sarge — a smorgasboard of little buckets.  One with sweet feed, one with oats, one with a sloppy slushie, one with carrots, another with apples, and finally, one with apple wafer treats.   Sarge vetted through (all As again) and went in to his stall and did the most amazing thing.  He put his head down and he ate.  He moved from bucket to bucket and had a little bit of almost everything but he only stopped eating at the very end of the 40 minute hold, and then quietly stood and had a brief nap.   At this point we were at roughly 45 miles, with a 22 mile sandy loop ahead of us.

Rachel set up quite the tapas spread for Sarge at Mile 45

Unfortunately, Char’s horse Nickle had a gait re-check, and since we’d pulsed in ahead of them, we were heading out as they were heading back up to the vet.  I told her I’d wait and her Mom indicated she might rather ride alone, so Sarah Jack (who’d caught up to us at the end of the last loop and pulsed through with Sarge) headed out at a jiggy jog, unsure if we should wait or go. 

Within a mile or so, Nickle came cantering up, with Char relieved that Art had seen nothing odd in his gait at the recheck.  Hooray!

Char knows this trail intimately, so we knew exactly what was coming, and Nickle happily lead, trotting and cantering, slowing to a walk for the nasty sections of rock, and taking time for all three horses to graze when we found nice patches of grass.

Sarge discovered his “inner hungry horse” and just devoured every bit of grass that he could.  We passed the crewing area, did a bit of spongeing and then headed along, finding another grassy patch shortly thereafter.

Mmmmm, apple wafer treats! Thanks, Auntie Rachel!

It was at that point, I suppose, that I sealed our fate.  I looked up from Sarge’s frantically eating head at Sarah and Char and announced (like a total idiot, in retrospect) — “You know, even if we don’t get around, THIS makes this whole thing worthwhile.  THIS was why we were doing a 100.  To teach him to eat and take better care of himself.”

The fates, listening closely, took things into their own hands at this point.  We left that grassy area, trotted and cantered along the sandy trail when, bam, Sarge stumbled just a bit, caught his hind toe on his outside front heel, and wham, bad step, bad step, bad step.  I called out an expletive (of course), pulled him up, and Char said “he pulled a shoe.”

Oh, okay, no biggie.  Unfortunately though, he hadn’t pulled the shoe, he’d just sprung it.  The outside heel was torqued about 3/4 of an inch from the rear heel, but the inside nails were tight and clinched and there was absolutely no give when I grabbed the shoe.  Zero.

Sizing up my situation within about ten seconds, I sent Char and Sarah along, “Go, go, go, this is NOT coming off.  We’re going to walk in.”  Char shouted some information to me about the upcoming trail and indicated it was shorter to head along the marked trail to the repeat crew spot than to turn around, and headed off.  Shortly thereafter the rest of the pack came along, asking if they should stop to help, and I sent them on along, as there was really nothing anyone could do for me unless they happened to be carrying shoe pullers and a rasp.

I grabbed my Leatherman and half heartedly tried to work the shoe off, but I knew it was fruitless. 

Sarge, surprisingly, handled all of this with a great deal of maturity.  He’s a VERY competitive horse, but he seemed to realize he had a flat tire, and about 5 minutes after the pack exited stage left, he cheered up and walked along on a loose rein, grabbing grass and swishing flies and cheerfully walking the four or five miles back to the crewing area.  He asked to trot a few times, but quietly aquiesced when I said no.  No one at the crew area (I’d half-hoped someone would have sent someone back with tools, but knew that was a long shot) so we continued along the marked trail at a walk.

Within a half mile, I heard a vehicle up ahead.  A truck and tagalong trailer, driving along the sand road to come get us.  How sweet!  I didn’t expect a TRAILER to come for us.

“You lost a shoe?” Kathy Brunjes’ brother asked. 

“I wish!  I torqued a shoe, and I have an easy boot, but this shoe is not coming off without some tools.”

He indicated he had tools and I turned and followed them back to the crewing area where they could safely park and we could work on Sarge.

Sure enough, a rasp and a shoe puller and a few grunts later, he had the shoe off and I had the easy boot on.  Kathy’s mom, Janet, assured us that they “didn’t mind at all” coming out to help me and that we should “go and finish the ride.” 

I got back on and we headed off, trotting and cantering for a couple of miles.  However, I could feel something not quite right.  Not that Sarge was uneven, but that he wasn’t striding out quite like normal.  So I pulled him up, and once again, we walked.   He was voracious, grabbing leaves and grass and anything that looked edible, actually stopping to eat and having to be prompted to continue to walk on.  He would ask to jog, in the world’s loveliest western pleasure sort of way, but this is a big bounding road trot sort of horse, so I knew that this was not his normal.

I wondered then if the easy boot was rubbing him or otherwise bothering his foot, so after a couple more miles of walking and a few fruitless visual checks of the boot, I dismounted and pulled it off, knowing we had a sandy trail for his bare foot most of the way back to the Fairgrounds.

A couple of 50s passed us so I asked them to let everyone know that we were just fine and walking in, not wanting Rachel or Pam to worry.

And that’s just what we did.  Walked back in.  Sure enough, Sarge was off on the right front when we arrived back at camp, but I’d already decided we were done for the day.  Sarge has a bit of sesamoiditis in his right front and there was no way I was going to test his resilience by asking him to go another 35 miles after he stumbled and spent 5 miles walking on a sprung shoe.

We did get the shoe reset immediately and Sarge re-presented during his hold time perfectly sound, but we rider optioned out anyway.  Pam and Nick had a lively discussion about whether it was a RO/Lame or a just plain RO, and I inserted a colorful clarification of which was which that I will not share here as it was rather, errr, descriptive and not terribly technical.  What I was most tickled about, other than the fact that Sarge was indeed sound, was that he was eating like a pig.

All of a slushie, then an entire bucket of carrots, then some sweet feed, which we finally took away from him, suggesting that hay was a better idea.  Ned was tickled to have his friend back and displayed his joy by biting Sarge, grabbing his halter with his teeth and refusing to let go, and generally pestering the crap out of him.  Sarge ate and ate and ate, and looked just grand. 

We had front row seats in our little corner of the barn to everyone coming in to the vetting area, so I showered and we grabbed some food and cocktails and offered all sorts of delectable goodies to our fellow riders as they came in.

It was a very good group in the 100.  Seasoned riders and horses, and Courtney and Pica finished in first well before dark.  Claire came in,  hmmm, roughly an hour later, followed by Steve and Kyle as darkness fell.   In a heartbreaking turn, Kyle’s horse, who had looked so amazing all day long, was lame at the finish.  All a part of the game, but just rotten.  Hopefully nothing serious.

By this time, Pam and Rachel and I, joined by Ranelle Kohut (who’d gotten her thousand miles by finishing the 50 on Luke) and Doug Bejarano, were swapping tales and laughing and just generally being rather obnoxious.  At some point during the weekend, when things weren’t going so well, Pam and I had looked at each other and queried, “Why do we DO this, anyway?”  I looked at her at some point between all the laughing, and said, “Hey Pam, THIS is why we do this.  This.”

When the rest of the pack all came in together after 10 p.m., we whooped and hollered and helped to cool/hold a couple and then watched them trot out.  They all looked rather good and the riders looked relieved, and everyone got their completions. 

Got all packed up in the a.m. with the help of Rachel and Pam, and heading out of the fairgrounds, I was worried about the long drive home and hoping I had all of the truck/trailer parts properly deployed for travel, I stopped to say thanks and goodbye.  I needed to thank the Brunjes once again for their on-trail rescue, and Tom Hutchinson, who managed the ride, for just general reasons and for putting up the foot on my trailer because I was too mechanically retarded to do so on my own.  I was feeling a wee bit anxious and a little defeated.

Steve Rojek inquired about Sarge, so I told him what happened.  He looked at me, shook his head and smiled and said, “you’re just too good of a horseman.”

I am not a terribly good rider, I could be considered “challenged” when it comes to all matters mechanical, I have absolutely no killer instinct competitively.

But to be called a “horseman.”  Well, that’s right up there with the nicest things anyone has ever said about me.

I’ll take it.  (Thanks, Steve.)

And as I drove out of the Fairgrounds with Steve’s words replaying in my head, with the new truck dependably humming along, and Ned sporting a minor wound that would be healed in short order, and Sarge sound and having discovered the joy of a vigorous appetite, both ready shortly for another wack at a 100, I found myself getting choked up and teary.

Not tears of sadness or frustration, but tears of gratitude.

Even on a weekend that might look rotten on paper, there was a great deal about which to be thankful.

Happy trails.

–Patti

I worked hard this week to shower my three horses with benign neglect.

This close to a 100 there is really no point in “conditioning” them.  They are either fit or they are not, and my preference is to take them in to a ride super well-rested and with a nice opportunity to heal any sub-clinical soreness or injuries. 

I resolved that I would not make a decision about which two horses to take until all the puzzle pieces started to fall in place.

The forecast is showing VERY Ned-friendly weather (i.e. cool) so taking him is a no brainer.

Rich came thru his surgery quite nicely so it looks as though staying home to care for him will not be necessary (although I’m sure it is what a Good Wife would do).

So the decision hinged mostly on how Sarge’s feet looked (he ripped off a front shoe on his last conditioning ride) after his reset, and how soundly he trotted afterwards.

Tom did a lovely job with Sarge’s feet; we elected not to pad him for Pine Tree as he ripped up a bit of side wall on both the inside and outside and we didn’t want to add any extra play in that space.  We then headed out to trot him.  Sound and even on a longe circle, sound and even out and back, and pretty durned good even after a flexion test on both hinds.  Thumbs up, Sarge is going to Maine.

Which allows us to wait on resetting Ace rather than trying to squeeze in another shoeing before Vermont where he will (hopefully, fingers crossed) be going for the 100.

Will Sarge get through his first 100?  Ned didn’t, nor did Ace.

So as Julie Suhr told me before Ned’s first hundred several years ago (paraphrasing) — “you just ask that ultimate question, and you ride that day knowing that if the horse says it is too much on that day, on that trail, you simply stop and call it a day.”

I would so much rather ask and find out the answer is “not today, but please try again another time” than to never have asked the question at all.

If nothing else, I am going to learn so very much about Sarge on Saturday.   And really, isn’t that the Ultimate Goal anyway?

Happy trails.

–Patti

Let me preface this blog post by saying that I realize how wildly blessed I am to be faced with this dilemma!

It’s ten days out from the Pine Tree 100 endurance ride in North Waterford, Maine, and I am working hard at NOT trying to speculate as to which two of the three horses Rachel and I should take to ride.

I’m open for votes, but have decided that I will not make the final call (thank you, Tom Hutchinson, Ride Manager, for being kind and patient about horse changes) until this Saturday or until I can compare all three boys on equal footing, literally.

Here’s the details:

Ned, 17 this year, and a veteran of 7 100 mile rides, has come back into fitness like the slow, steady gifted athlete that he’s proven himself to be over 12 seasons of competition.    He has blessed us with scattered moments of overt enthusisam, and has also shown Rachel, for the first time really, Pouty Ned.   One must always tread lightly on Ned’s attitude and sizeable ego, and Rachel has a unique gift for cajoling the big boy into otherwise unexpected cheerfulness.  I tease her that it’s because she’s a tiny little sprite of a person (comparatively, anyway — when I climb on Ned these days he looks back and says “one at a time please”) but I think it is more her appreciation for his cranky quirkiness and gruff exterior which indeed houses a generous and kind soul.

That said, Ned does not really owe me any more 100s in the heat.   Heck, he doesn’t owe me any 100s at all.  But the big guy proves over and over again that he is up to the task, albeit not at a blistering pace.   And not in ridiculous heat and humidity.  And not over a super-poundy or rocky course.

Ned gets to stay home if the forecast shows a Ned Unfavorable Forecast.

On to Ace.

Ace is 11 this year, and proved himself a 100 mile horse last July, handily finishing the Canadian National Championship 100 in 15-ish hours, accompanied by Ned, all As and piaffeing with nervous energy even at the finish.  Physically, this sport is easy for Ace.  We’ve got his feet balanced the best we have in years (an ongoing challenge), he can go faster, he can go slower, he eats and takes good metabolic care for himself despite the fact that he sometimes finds it absolutely impossible to simply be still.

Anxiety oozes from every pore of Ace unless he is moving.  When he’s on the brink of meltdown he will suspend himself in space in an earnest effort to behave (Ace is nothing if not earnest) but trot in place, a  move dressage folks call “piaffe.”  The part that makes me giggle is that, a former dressage-only person, I’ve finally landed a horse with a gift for the movement, and it’s not even, technically, a good piaffe.  (Heavy sigh.)   When reprimanded to keep all four feet planted, the anxiety leaks out of his face, causing him to yaw his mouth and twist his head and neck around, eyes wide.   (I have a gift for collecting the Special Needs Ones, I know.)

Despite Ace’s General Anxiety Disorder, he’s competed quite nicely.  He manages to pulse down handily, even in the heat, while looking like he’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown, eats with nervous reckless abandon, frantically checking to see who is watching, coming, going. 

The issue with Ace was that my hope was to save him for VT100 on July 16th, my absolute favorite 100, and just a wee bit too close to Pine Tree, time-wise, to make me comfortably plan on both with him.  The good news is that, accompanied by Ned, Ace would do a slower-than-he’s capable 100 at Pine Tree, leaving him with plenty of gas in the tank at the finish and hopefully the capacity to go back out and compete three weeks later.

Sarge is the wild card in all of this.  He’s my husband’s horse, a complete rock star of an Arab/Morgan – just ask him.   He’s 13 this season and despite a bunch of Top Ten finishes and BCs with my husband in 50s, he’s never done a one-day 100.  Last fall, Rich offered him to me for the VT 3 Day 100 CTR when Ace was suffering a series of abscess from a rocky ride, and he handily finished, proving to me that he’s ready for a one-day.

Sarge’s issue is that he’s just not seeming quite “right” to me this season.  He had a vaccination reaction, then Rich pulled him from the Bare Bones 50 in VT in May at the halfway point because he had a cut that seemed to be bothering him, sore and with more underlying trauma than we realized when we took him to the ride.  He got a bit colicky once more  at home  after that, prompting me to try the expensive experiment of a 28-day course of Gastrogard to see if perhaps ulcers were the root cause of some of this.   He’s always been a fussy eater at rides and part of me hopes that doing a one day 100 will, in fact, make him a better eater on 50s.

Two weeks in to the Gastrogard, this is looking like it was an expensive way to find out that, no, Sarge does not have ulcers, as I’ve seen no great changes in Sarge, but his symptoms are so subtle that the actual 100 mile ride would probably be the test.

I also believe that Sarge’s hocks are getting a wee bit arthritic, necessitating a conservative ride (not Sarge’s favorite) where rather than doing his big, huge trot and over-taxing those hocks, I ask him to step under and straight and far less extravagantly.  We’ve not made the move to inject the hocks, but that may be in Sarge’s future too.

Last weekend, Sarge decided to further muddy the waters by getting a nice laceration on the front surface of his hind cannon bone and then pulling his right front shoe, pad and all, and taking a nice chunk of hoof wall with it.  Not shockingly,  he seemed NQR behind on the day after our last conditioning ride.  I’m waiting on a call from our busier-than-busy farrier to call in yet another favor and ask him to come out sooner than our Monday re-set appointment because Sarge refuses to keep an easyboot on as he gallops up and down the muddy lane to our pasture.   (The good news is that it’s really not rocky or hard in the pasture, so hopefully no more damage to that hoof wall or a stone bruise.)

Sarge will go to Pine Tree only if he seems 100% right on when that shoe gets reset.  Hocks and all.

The other twist in this equation is Rich.  He agreed to let me steal Sarge away for this 100, and then recently discovered he has a hernia, necessitating (day) surgery and a 30 day no riding/no lifting recovery, which will mean that he will, if following his surgeon’s orders (always optional in Rich’s mind), miss the VT Moonlight 50 with Sarge, his favorite ride.  Disappointing for both of us.

It also means that I will be abandoning Rich a couple of days out from his surgery, possibly packing up his horse and another and heading off for a 12 hour haul a few states away to ride 100 miles.  For fun.

I’m the first to admit I’m a control freak.  Having so many uncertain factors, so many balls being juggled in the air, makes me terribly uncomfortable.  I have learned, finally, that I cannot control the weather.  Despite checking the ten day forecast for a ride about fifteen days in advance.   And praying.

So I am considering this another life lesson.

Wait for a call for the farrier. 

Wait to see how Sarge looks.

Wait to see how the weather forecast is shaping up.

Wait to see how Rich comes through his surgery.

And then decide. 

A life lesson in patience and making the best choice possible with a trio of animals who do not say outloud how they feel about my plans for them (although honestly Ned can be read like a book), and a husband who will say that he is fine, just fine, for me to leave, rather than tell me to stay home from a ride.

I’m blessed.  I get it.  Here’s to hoping that I get this one right …

Happy trails.

–Patti

I apologize again for being so silent for so long. 

I was emailing someone the other day, one of my birth mom’s dear friends in fact, who had sent me a note, and telling her that no one told me, as a teen, that those were the good days, where funerals were few and far between.  No one told me that at some point I’d find myself edging in to the bittersweet days where my parents were aging, my friends were getting the diseases of mid-life, and where there were far more funerals than weddings on my calendar.

I told her that I would be making an announcement to this effect to my nieces, 14, 13 and 11.  It was only about five minutes later that, over my initial righteous outrage, I realized the futility of such a conversation.  They would not “get” the magnitude of the speech — what, my nieces rolling their eyes at me?  again?!, and why interfere with the joys of the teenage years, where the dramas are limited to cleaning one’s room, failing an exam, boys on whom you have crushes and what clothes to wear.  I imagine this is why no one ever took me aside to have a similar conversation.  What a waste of breath.

Some wisdom is best earned over a long period of time.  I will stick with telling them, frequently and with great verve, that life is not, in fact, fair.

One of my favorite declarative statements (and I have plenty of them!) is that, being self-employed, I either have not enough money, or not enough time.

I have a new local consulting client.  To say that they are keeping me busy would be an understatement.  They are keeping me, and FOUR OTHER CONSULTANTS with whom I work gainfully laboring on various compliance and safety projects.

That Dodge pick-up will be paid for in no time.

I am being diligent about not neglecting my already-existing clients.  You can’t add a massive number of hours and energy to your workload, not sacrifice your quality control, without something falling to the wayside and for me, it’s been me.

One afternoon, on a weekend just a few weeks ago, with a massive to-do list sitting before me, and having sacrificed several weekends and evenings to consulting work, I said to Rich, “It doesn’t matter what I do, whether I work or ride or do paperwork or laundry or exercise or go to meet a girlfriend for lunch.   It will be the wrong thing, because that time slot could have been filled with something else.  Anything else.  I cannot possibly get it all done.”

I’m coping.

As with most life events, I realize there is a life lesson in this one for me.  The lesson that I cannot fix what I did not cause, that there is little point in caring more about this or that than my client does, that no one will take care of you unless YOU take care of you, and that, as always, there is nothing more healing than horses.

One evening, after a drainingly long day during which I vascillated between feeling homicidal and suicidal, I told Rich that I *wanted* to do evening chores.  It seems so silly, but I turned up the Top 40 tunes on the barn radio, grabbed a pitchfork, gave peppermints all ’round, nuzzled several noses and cuddled with a barn kitty or two, and felt entirely, amazingly renewed.  There is nothing like the simple act of shoveling shit to help me find me.

When the going gets rough, the horses are there.

While I haven’t taken the time to write about it, we had an amazing time in Vermont doing the 50 mile ride.  Rachel and Ned and Ace and I got around the 50, breaking no land speed records, and getting sprinkled, misted, rained, poured and whatever other adjective describing liquid precipitationed-on you can imagine.  It was a wet weekend.  Our friends Gene and Dale came out to crew, and the miracle of the weekend was that despite the absolutely horrific weather, I cannot recall laughing so hard or so often in a very long time.   My friends are incredible.

Sarge and Rich did not get around.  Sarge had a cut on his forearm from several days before that had more trauma below the surface than was immediately apparent, and at 25 miles he was NQR.  Before, during and after the ride, he had moments of uncomfortable wrinkled-nose not-eating displeasure, seemed a little colicky, and so we’ve concluded that he probably has ulcers.

We are doing a one-horse study on our theory with Gastogard this month to the tune of nearly $1K.  (Sigh.  Thank heavens for the new client.)

Still, we are conditioning for the Pine Tree 100 with Sarge (Rich has agreed to lend him to me) and Ned (Rachel willing to pilot him around, despite the big lug pretending he was near exhaustion in the VT then pulling her arms out as he approached camp at the finish).  I’m saving Ace for the VT 100, my all time favorite ride.  Thank heavens they are all seasoned beasts with an amazing fitness base.  We are doing what we can to keep all of them legged up.

Best to go in to a 100 underconditioned and well-rested than the inverse.  I keep testing that theory, and it keeps holding true.

I’m sitting here in a hotel room, traveling for work, grateful for some captive time where the laundry, the vacuum, the kitchen and a couple of my client’s work is out of reach.  It’s given me the time to share all of this with you.

Life is good.  A little too much loss of late.  Which, somewhat strangely, makes the days seem that more precious.

Happy trails.

When I looked in the direction of the heavens in late December, when we found our Dodge truck on a sales lot, and told the powers-that-be that I needed more consulting work, I had no idea how quickly and in what volume that prayer would be answered.

Old clients, new clients and one BIG new client means that squeezing in riding has been a challenge.  Never mind housework.  Forget relaxation like reading or writing or watching reality TV of questionable taste.

Around the same time, I agreed to pick up chairing of the AERC Ride Managers’ Committee, which means, at a minimum, a monthly column for Endurance News.  These between new rules and discussions and any ride manager drama.  I’ve managed to fly under the radar screen on drama and did manage to get my first article submitted.  On time.  Just barely.

So you’ll pardon the lack of blogging, I hope.

The boys are well, fit and ready for the Bare Bones 50 in Vermont this coming Sunday.  Rachel is riding Ned and we will have to figure out how to either keep up with Rich and Sarge, or send them on their way and lag behind.

First ride of the season, way late for us, but such is life.

First 100 next month, we hope.

Life is good, just too busy to write about recently!

–Patti

… or so I’m told, you forget the pain.

So my husband and I, after two years off, are resurrecting the Allegany Shut Up and Ride endurance ride.

October 1st.

30/55/75 mile distances.

I sent in the sanctioning applications today.

Hope to see many of you there!

–Patti

PS  Back to my insane work schedule for the month of March.  Goal = survival.  So far, so good.  <smile>

 … just how good it feels when I drag my carcass on to the treadmill or haul my layered-in-clothing butt out to the barn to climb on a horse.

It is safe to say that I never regret the time and effort it takes to do so.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who procrastinates or puts off the actual last few steps to working out — setting aside other chores, getting into the workout clothes, turning up the stereo, etc. — and ends up sweating and jogging and thinking “why did I put this off?  It feels great!”

Am happy to report that my little knee twinges are no longer an issue and this week I went to see a local myofascial release massage therapist who found my psoas and piriformis completely in knots, just as I suspected.

She gave me a few new stretches to add to my repertoire and I carefully tried to maintain my alignment during yesterday’s 3 miles on the treadmill. 

It’s not unlike being self-vigilant in the saddle during an endurance ride. 

“Right shoulder back.”

“Left leg long.”

“Belly button to 2 p.m.”   (My torso doesn’t actually twist to the right as a result, mind you, this is my way to make it straight because it naturally twists to the left.  Oh my lying body!)

In the end it feels good.  Cooling down, red-faced and wet-haired.

Not sure if that 5k is going to work out, but it’s still written in my calendar, and I’m still shuffling along on my way to that destination.

So far, I’m plugging along with the New Year’s Resolution. 

Doing just a little bit better.