… 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.

No one was more shocked than me that I was doing pretty well with my treadmill routine — alternating jogging with maximum incline (walking) intervals.  That 5k in mid-March was looking very doable.  

I did a bit of reading about couch-to-5k plans and the cautions about orthopedic injuries, but I am a sturdy sort, and feeling quite solid, so figured I wouldn’t encounter that issue.

Who’da thunk such dedicated plans would go awry from a blister?

But alas, a fun little snowshoe jaunt around the farm with a small group and the wrong choice in shoes left me with a nasty deep blister on my right heel.  With work travel the next few days and needing to tromp around a plant in my steel-toed shoes, I can pretty well piece together what happened from there. 

Crookedness.  Or as we say in equine biomechanics, “compensatory lameness.”

Hindsight is an amazing angle from which to view such things.  You know, AFTER they’ve gone downhill.

Now, a smart girl would have used her forced-by-blister-treadmill-downtime to work on other fitness activities, such as yoga or weight training, but instead I skipped that and pushed to get back on the treadmill just as soon as the blister was adequately  healed.  (And a big thumbs up to Bandaid’s Blister bandages — these are da bomb … )

But something felt “off.”  My left calf felt tight, my hips felt wonky, I was asymmetrical all over and just generally sore.  Still, I pressed on through a walk/jog routine (was that a twinge on the inside of my left knee?  nah!) and spent a bunch of time stretching afterwards in the hope of loosening up.

Two days later, I couldn’t ignore the left knee twinge.  I shortened my treadmill workout a bit, lowered the incline, put the kibosh on the jogging and decided to listen to my body.

I had just become the equivalent of the endurance rider who says “gee, Smokey felt a little NQR on his left front during that 15 mile conditioning ride; I bet what would cure him is a fast 10 miles tomorrow!”

Duh.

So I’ve got an appointment with a local myofascial release therapist and may squeeze in a trip to the chiropractor too.   No further knee twinges but I’m smart enough about being middle-aged and chunky to have quit at the first sign of a repeat twinge.

I haven’t entirely slacked off.  Still riding where I can (if you can call it that, it’s really short trudges through deep snow but very pleasant and a good workout for the horses even if it is a passenger and scenic-viewing event for us), doing a bit of yoga, lots of stretching and a couple of fairly short snowshoes here on the farm.

But any of my horsey friends would tell you that I am a LOUD advocate for rest when it comes to our horses.

Have been blessed to not have that apply too much to the human part of it, but I am hoping to turn a tiny subclinical owie into a non-event before resuming my 5k training. 

Hoping to hit the treadmill for a little jogging and moderate incline climbing tomorrow.   If all the body parts hold up.

Happy trails.

My New Year’s resolution of “doing a little better” seems to be sticking pretty well.  It gives me some latitude for off-road excursions into the land of watching The Real Housewives or following up a long day of hectic training by meeting Anita for Mexican and ordering a second basket of chips.

Thank heavens I didn’t go for the “be perfect” resolution.  That would have been blown out of the water days ago.

Every day I’ve been squeezing in some sort of activity, riding if it’s above 20 and there is not snow blowing in sideways, snowshoeing where I can, and the treadmill for the remaining days. 

I’ve worked up to 7 minutes of jogging between intervals of walking and even then I don’t feel like clutching at my heart as I slow the treadmill down from my blistering 5 mph pace.  [I can nearly hear my speed demon friends rolling their eyes in contempt.  Suck it, people.  I've always been the tortoise rather than the hare!]

Yesterday my in-laws, Kathy and Fred, as well as my buddy Joanie, joined me for a snowshoe around the woods on the farm, along with the adjoining property.  Good times.  We all took turns breaking the trail and one of us would conveniently claim the need to fix some technicality in order that we all could catch a breather.

I got a nasty blister so will have to rethink my footwear/socks/binding set up.

Nothing like a little apples, cheese, chili and red wine following an hour plus of snowshoeing.  A little reward for being so virtuous on a blustery (but not bone-chilling) day!

Both Kathy and Joanie got some photos so maybe I’ll post them later.  We all looked positively gorgeous at the end — all red-faced and sweaty and disheveled.  So no doubt I’ll change my Facebook profile to a close up of my ruddy face and runny nose.

Happy trails, all!

 … and all seven of my faithful blog followers read it, I’m committed, right?

(Thanks for stopping by, Melissa.)

I am a goal-oriented person.  (One does not reach half their life expectancy without gaining some self-understanding unless they are trying really hard to avoid themselves.)

The notion of climbing on the treadmill simply because it is virtuous and healthy and might provide me with a smaller badonkadonk is not enough motivation for me.  I need a goal.

So I went to http://buffalorunners.com/calendar_2011.htm and selected a 5k race during the month of March.  It is advertised as “fast and flat” which of course makes me chuckle, knowing that for me this equates to “may be able to sustain jog-like shuffle without breaking to a walk and/or vomiting.”

I’ve found a little interval workout that seems to be manageable — x minutes walking with the incline set at maximum (10%), then the same number of minutes jogging/shuffling with the incline reduced to 1%.  Quick one minute recovery, then back to the intervals.

This leaves me huffing and puffing and sweaty but I find that I am already able to increase the duration of my intervals and my speed (incrementally) and that I catch my breath more quickly during my recovery minute.

Despite my hefty personage, I’m not having any issues with any aches or pains or joints that bother me, beyond the usual 40-something variety of owies.

And I have a whole new appreciation for my horses’ hill fitness!

I found this handy little article http://www.active.com/running/Articles/How-to-Train-for-Your-First-5K.htm?page=3

… which assures me that I, too, can do a 5k.

So, anyone with me?

–Patti

We had a weekend visit from Natty, a friend from Canada (and a “booger” for those of you who know the reference) and her new husband, Jeff, as they were interested to come to our home conditioning trails at Allegany State Park to do a conditioning RUN (yes, on their own appendages) for an upcoming 50 mile RUN in Hell, Michigan. 

(Do not think that the location of this RUN has escaped me.  Me, who would find a place to HIDE before she would RUN from an axe murderer.  Hell?  Really?   Um, yeah.)

Natty is an eventing and dressage rider from way back, and we’ve been internet friends for years, but only get to see one another in person on rare occasions, so getting to see her and to meet Jeff was fantastic!  I owed Natty for coming to a Canadian 100 to crew for me and Ned, so marking a measly 30 miles of trail for them to RUN seemed small re-payment.  (So I fed them too.)

As luck would have it, Ace succumbed to a stone bruise turned abscess (yes, his second one from the ride in WV, this on the other front foot) and I have learned the Life Lesson about Padding Ace For Rocky Rides deeply and truly well.  I think it will stick.  He would not be accompanying the RUNNERS.

Ned was still proudly wearing the shoes from his 100 on July 1st.  Proudly, I say, because he’d managed to keep three of four on as we waited for him to grow foot at his usual glacial pace, but one cursory look at his four feet made it obvious to me that he was not up to doing 30 miles or anywhere close to it with the RUNNERS.  Nope, not on those balding, out-of-alignment tires.  No way.

Which left me borrowing Sarge, my husband’s horse, for the task.  And leaving Richard at home, no doubt secretly gleeful he could work himself into a puddle on some yet-unnamed household/yard project.

While the trails at Allegany are officially “marked” it doesn’t take much to get one off-course on a non-designated trail or to miss a turn, or not realize that two trails that appear to intersect on the Park map really are, in fact, a good 1/4 mile from one another, so I planned to mark some critical corners for Natty and Jeff while doing our own 15-16 mile conditioning ride.  At no point did I have any plans to hop off Sarge and RUN.  You know, voluntarily.

I explained to Natty and Jeff that I had no intention to even RIDE Sarge 30 miles.  He was coming off a tough 50 mile ride two weeks prior, and a couple of hours of riding 15 miles at Allegany are challenging enough to equal several miles or hours more on a more standard trail with more forgiving elevation changes and kinder footing.

This is the sort of thing, however, that one must experience for themselves to appreciate, not unlike “lake effect snow.”  Something else we somehow manage to survive.

So I headed off on Sarge, yellow/black surveyor tape in our pommel pack, just a few minutes before Natty and Jeff set off on foot behind me, with their salted and boiled potatoes, PB&J sandwiches and overnight survival kit on their persons.  (I guess they were somewhat suspicious of my trail marking skills.)

I got the first several miles of the first of their two loops marked, and as I rode, up and down, and up and down, started thinking about what might be a more “forgiving” second loop for the runners.  I worked it all out in my head, calculated in my head the best way to mark that loop without actually riding all of the miles and was pleased to see Natty and Jeff, looking fresh and moving along at a healthy pace shortly after I turned back toward camp.

I told them of my plans, mentioned that I was “certain they’d get their money’s worth” out of RUNNING this trail, and set forth on the amended course, hustling a little bit in the hopes that I’d meet them in camp with the trail totally marked as they came in from the first of their loops.  (They were riding an entire section that I skipped, and which I believed was pretty clearly marked.)

Of all three of our competing horses, Sarge is the one who is the least attached to going home.  He actually pouted a bit when I turned back away from the loop that Natty and Jeff were to run, and happily turned AWAY from camp to mark the new second loop of trail.  That was not to say that he did not pout as we climbed what I like to call the “gnarly climb” from ASP 2 to Trail #2 near Thunder Rocks, nor is it to say that he didn’t get a happy fart-buck in when I let him gallop the last section of Trail #2 back to the Summit.  But it was pleasant to ride a horse solo who neither spooks (I thank the Morgan half for that attribute) nor seems to have an internal odometer that tells me when I am getting close to running out of the requisite quarters to continue the ride.

We’d all left camp about 9:15, and I completed what I figured to be ~15-16 miles (with lots of trail marking stops) at shortly after noon.  That was a nice ECTRA-paced conditioning ride on tough trail, a good final ride for Sarge before the VT CTR on Labor Day.  I cooled him out, let him graze and kept glancing toward the trail where Natty and Jeff would be returning from their 17 mile loop.  I’d figured a 12:30 return time, but when they hadn’t returned by 1 p.m. I left the note and map I’d highlighted for their new loop tied to their Subaru with surveyor tape and hit the road for home with Sarge.

Natty and Jeff arrived back at our house at roughly 4 p.m. and all smiles, looking as though they’d just gone to lunch and had a little antiquing excursion.  Honest to goodness, they looked fresh as daisies.  Turns out that they too decided 30 miles was more than enough conditioning at Allegany, so settled for climbing the BIG hill out of camp upon their return, then called it a day.  Ah, common ground!  Knowing to quit when you’re still having fun!

We immediately cracked open red wine (more in common!) , started in on chips and homemade salsa, and compared various notes about carb-loading, electrolyting, resting, BCAAs, tapering, chafing, and a new favorite rule that I am going to adopt from now on –

“If there was no eye contact, it didn’t happen.”

Critical stuff for people who spend a lot of time exerting oneself together out in the wilderness and have to deal with all manner of bodily function at one time or another.

It’s a keeper.  Bumper stickers, anyone?

Or maybe as a replacement for the politically-incorrect WTF bracelets that I wanted to manufacture to supplement the WWJD bracelets so many wear?

Rich, finished toiling away on the farm for the day, joined us on the porch with a cocktail.  Like us, he smelled bad.

Natty and Jeff, no strangers to idiosyncratic animals, put up with our — 1.) drooly and profoundly hairy, 2.) ancient and howling rather randomly, and 3.) black hole of need — canines as we sat on the porch, showing off bruises, past injuries (missing toenails, anyone?) and bragged in an entirely self-effacing way about the stupidest things we’d done “out there.”

I got my first experience using the little massage balls that Jeff swears by, rolling them under my feet and finding exquisitely tight and painful connective tissues that I didn’t even know I had!

More food, more red wine, and Natty and I had a good laugh (and a great photo) when Jeff headed for the guest bedroom at a rollicking 8:30 p.m. and fell into a deep open-mouthed slumber.

Jeff savors slumber after his conditioning run, a pound or six of pulled pork and wee bit of vino

Natty was visibly disappointed when my camera battery was too dead to capture a close-up of Jeff’s open gob, or the tragically funny moment where Echo (see above re: #3 “black hole of need” canine) discovered that we’d left the guest room door ajar and before we could stop him (no, really, we tried VERY VERY HARD) kissed Jeff with great enthusiasm on said open mouth.  (Jeff, the next morning, recalled none of these events, but Natty and I swear they happened.)

Natty and I managed to stay awake until 9 p.m., thus preserving bragging rights to our husbands that we were in fact the tougher and more ruthlessly partying better halves.

In the morning, more food plus COFFEE (mmmm!), more dog wrangling and horse observation from the porch, and I got to see the slide shows from Natty and Jeff’s trip to Cambodia, where they RAN and raised money for a well in one of the villages they passed through:

http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/One-Filter-One-Family/

Since most of my herd was retired, gimpy or operating on fewer shoes than actually required for a ride, we skipped our planned hack and Natty and Jeff headed back off to Oh Canada.  We did check to make sure they hadn’t smuggled Echo with them.

I’m pretty sure that it was the kiss that made Jeff fall in love.

So much in common with these other endurance sport fanatics.

But THEY are CRAZY!

Happy trails.

For years now, my horses and I have been getting myofascial release treatments from Doris Halstead, who wrote the book Symmetry in Motion and has also written Release the Potential and released a DVD.  Lucky for us, Doris has been a local gal, a physical therapist who found the myofascial release technique and then began applying it to horses as well as humans.

You can read more about the technique at www.myofascialrelease.com but the general idea is that the fascia are the guy wires that hold muscles and tendons and hard tissue together, and manipulating the fascia and releasing the connective tissue can help address body asymmetries and associated dysfunction and pain.

I am a crooked girl, largely due to a bad fall I took from Ned when he was 4, and subsequent crooked habits that I honed for years following.  In general, I tend to ride a straight horse as though it is heading toward 10 o’clock, so work from Doris and diligent practice in pretending I am riding a horse that is going toward 2 o’clock get me somewhere near straight.  Most of the time.  Unless I spend too much time on the computer, or in the car, or indulging bad habits like always crossing one leg over the other, etc.

Doris arrived to work on me and two (human) friends of mine.  Joan, who has had neck surgery resulting from a car accident over a decade ago, and Carla, who is a fellow endurance rider but also an aesthetician, a career which creates all sorts of opportunity for body pain!

Doris worked first on the equine boys.  Ace needed some work on his tongue and face, and  you could actually see how one of his cheekbones was set higher and further forward than the other.  Or, as I told Doris, I could see it AFTER she pointed it out to me!  Likewise, he had one shoulder that wanted to stay forward of the other. 

Doris worked on Ace for quite a while, asking him to lower his head and neck and open his throatlatch (something we’ve also been working on with him in his dressage lessons and just in general while being ridden) and as simple as it seems, he really struggles. 

The most amazing thing about Ace is in watching his eyes as he’s being worked on.   Half Arabian and half Saddlebred, he’s one firecracker of a hot little horse, but kind and earnest and very honest.  He’s a worrier too, and as Doris asked him to lower his head, you could see the little wrinkles of worry appear over his eyes.  Once she talked him into it, and told him how brilliant he was for working with her, his eyes softened and got dreamy.  Such an expressive child!

Ace is just plain not sure he wants to lower his head

Oh well then, all right ...

Ned got the equivalent of what Doris called a “well baby check.”  He came out, he was healthy and well and symmetrical, so mostly a myofascial thumbs-up from Doris. 

She did find a little bit of a gelding scar which needed some work.  Anyone who knows Ned knows that he is a rather penis-centric horse, so of course he found this wonderfully enjoyable.

Okay, for those of you who might be grossed out, let me explain the gelding scar thing a bit.  Some geldings get scar adhesions from their castration surgery; in fact, Rich’s older gelding, years ago, always seemed to be swishing and kicking at “phantom” flies at his belly.  It would be the dead of winter, and he’d be kicking and carrying on as though being swarmed.

Turns out that the pulling and discomfort of the adhesions were what was causing the behavior.  So the idea is to slowly draw on the skin of the sheath (essentially it feels like holding the excess skin in a fist) to allow the adhesions to release.  It takes some time, but what a marked difference in the comfort of the horse!  (Maybe I should have mares … )

The fun of having the adhesion worked on was second only to a good belly-scratching, which brought on the ecstatic wiggle lips.

Joan and Carla arrived, so we moved on to the humans.

Doris has a little massage table which she set up in the living room, and Joan was the first victim.  Joan has a long history of back, neck and shoulder issues and there was a lot of work for Doris to do, and a lot for Joan to learn about how to sit, walk, stand and work to address her body imbalances. 

Joan post-release work:

Carla’s shoulder blade asymmetry before being worked on:

After work:

Then it was my turn.  I’ve been feeling pretty good, pretty symmetrical, but have had a couple of neck issues since my overly exuberant shoulder stand in yoga a few weeks ago.  And of course the omnipresent tendency to have tight and sore psoas.

There’s something painfully wonderful about being worked on.  My joke is that Doris will find a sore spot, stick her thumb in it and leave it there for a year or two.  My response is often to hold my breath in response to the discomfort, so I’d get an occasional affectionate thump on the shoulder with the command to “Breathe!”

When Doris was done, I got up from the table feeling as though someone had shifted my entire pelvis to the right.  As crooked as it feels, I know my body is lying to me and that THIS is straight! 

So my job is to not lose that straightness a moment sooner than I have to!

Updated to add:  Doris is in the process of moving down to the Greensboro, NC, area.  She was up in WNY this weekend to pack her horses up and take them to her new home, and we were thrilled that she was willing to take the time to spend the day with us yesterday.  If you’re an endurance or dressage rider in NC, or the surrounding area, Doris is a gem.  If you’re interested in scheduling treatment or a clinic with her, drop me a line and I’ll help you get in touch with her.

Forecast is getting better and better for Thursday.  A lovely cold front coming through and hanging around, and it means I’ll be able to save some money on ice for cooling the boys down!  Hooray!

I love it when a plan comes together …   And so far, so good.

Yesterday did a 3 or 4 fast, hilly heat acclimation ride on both boys.  This involved tacking up when it was muggy and hot, then going as fast as we needed to go (and then some) to stay ahead of the carnivorous deer flies on the trail on our little 3+ mile loop.

When I got back from each ride, I stripped tack, hosed the horse for 3 minutes, and took their pulse.  Both down to 60.  Cross-tied them, put on hoof dressing and one minute later, both of them were down to 52.

So that’s a good sign, as they were both blowing and hot when we got back to the barn, but quickly recovered.  Rachel and I will have to take pains to ensure that Ned’s core temperature doesn’t get way up there if it’s hot, but he’s far more heat-fit and ready than I would have guessed.

I am in the process of making lists.  Lists of what groceries to buy, what to pack, what to wash, what we’ll need at the away vet checks, blah, blah, blah.

It helps to be the sort of girl who knows there is a hyphen in anal-retentive.

I’ve been joking that God wanted to help me with my own heat acclimation by causing the A/C to fail in both my Subaru and the F-450, and by preventing the estimator from returning our calls about the proposal for A/C in the house.  I’ve been making a point of walking when it’s hot and muggy, hanging out at my brother’s pool with my nieces (important work) and enjoying sweltering in my car as I run around hither and thither picking up the items on above, aforementioned list.

My most wonderful friend, Janet, AKA Sas, has volunteered, with no arm twisting whatsoever, to come and crew for us next week.  As you can imagine, I almost fainted with joy when she offered and have been trying to think of the ultimate crewing thank you gift.   She’s a DQ (dressage queen) rather than an endurance person, but she’s experienced with handling unruly horses so should be a welcome addition when Ace gets wound up at a hold and I’m feeling homicidal.

I sent her the “explicit and detailed” crewing instructions that my friend Zoe requested when crewing for Ned and me at Vermont a few years ago, but keep telling her we’ll both be ridiculously grateful to have a friendly face to say hello and hold a horse while we hit the porta-potty.

I’ve been checking the forecast.  Of course.  And it’s looking rainy and relatively cool for next week. 

Considering the alternatives (hot and ridiculously muggy) I’ll take it.

I’m stopping to pick up some Hammer Nutrition products from a bike shop tomorrow, including electrolyte capsules and some BCAAs that some of the other 100 mile riders recommend.  Will let you know how they work.  Have every intention of hydrating like a banshee.

Yesterday I tried an Ensure for breakfast (over ice) rather than actual food.  Must admit, the stuff felt a little queasy in my tummy at first, but I rode both boys and did barn chores in the heat and felt fine.

Whatever works!

Yesterday, after two days of being out of town for work, I decided I’d take my bike solo and head to the Clarence Bike Path.  Stopped to pick up a tube repair kit, a little bag for my keys and cell phone, and a portable pump.

I didn’t have the requisite tools so (yes, you can groan in disgust) I used scotch tape to hold the bag steady on the frame of my bike.  It sort of worked.

Managed to put a little air in my front tire with my new pump which is a real accomplishment, as anyone who knows me and my complete lack of mechanical aptitude can attest.

They’d just mowed along the bike path so there were lots of sharp rocks on the path, which I did my best to avoid.  I also managed to remember to unclip for each road crossing (there are several) and all was well until I’d cycled about 5 miles out and three miles back.  Must have hit a sharp rock because I got a flat rear tire and just didn’t trust my know-how enough to repair it with the kit, so just walked the bike the two miles back to my car.

No biggie, nice day for a walk, although I will tell you that bike shoes are made for biking and not walking!

So I have to have Anita teach me Tire Repair 101.  Rich says he’ll fix it, but I won’t ask him to teach me how to do it, as that would be WAYYYY harder than the actual repair job.  (See above re: lack of mechanical aptitude.)

I told someone it was like having an easyboot with me on a conditioning ride and not knowing how to put it on when my horse threw a shoe.  <embarrassed look>

Today I loaded up Ned and Ace and took them to Allegany.  It’s a Girls’ Weekend there, with our friend Jan visiting from Tennessee but things are busy so I could only manage to sneak away for a day ride today; fortunately, Ned’s friend and occasional LD rider, and my dressage instructor, Dorothy came to ride Ned.  So it was Dorothy, me, Carla, Nicole, Jan and her friend.

It became obvious fairly quickly that the trotting endurance horses were not pacing well with the two Tennessee Walkers so Jen and her friend headed one way, we headed another, and we enjoyed a wonderful, laughing, gossiping 11 or 12 miles.  Ace was polite but anxious to move out.  Ned was mellow and agreeable (one of the many Neds, and the one most of us love best). 

Dorothy hasn’t ridden on a conditioning ride for a while and was impressed with how straight and forward and fit Ned was.  Said he looked great, and he does.  She describes Ace as a little “endurance machine” and he’s just that, very focused and very earnest going down the trail.

The 100 mile ride is two weeks from yesterday.  Still no crew, which is fine.  We’ll manage.

I’ve got a ton of horse laundry to wash, a bunch of lists to make, and a great deal of pre-packing to do so that we’ll be able to simply settle in on Wednesday for Thursday’s ride.   Yesterday I picked up some Gu and Gatorade jelly beans and some Gu chews of some sort which are carbo-loaded nyummies that I hope I won’t have to eat to keep me going.

Ace’s eye is healing nicely, Jivus is making no moves to perish on me, and Tom the Farrier is out today to shoe Rich’s boys.

Ace gets reset next Friday and next Saturday, Doris Halstead (author of “Symmetry in Motion” and a myofascial release practitioner) is back in town to take her horses down to her new homestead in NC, and has agreed to work on my boys and me, and also my friend Carla.  That will be good timing and have everyone at their happy, most symmetrical selves!

In the mean time, I am sticking with the hiking/cycling/riding plan.  Won’t be doing much riding other than a dressage school or two and possibly a couple of quick heat acclimation rides.  Sounds more technical than it is.  I’ll just tack up one of the boys during the heat/humidity of the day, do a fast 3-5 hilly miles (a necessity to outrun our healthy fly population), come back to the barn and hose the horse until he recovers.  Heat acclimation is quickly lost, so while I don’t plan to make any conditioning gains on these little jaunts, I’m hoping the boys will maintain the heat acclimation they’ve gained thus far.  We’ll see how it works.

I’ve asked Rich if I can borrow Sarge to keep my own self legged-up as the 100 approaches and he’s agreed.  Good man.

Have a great weekend!

Friday was muggy and hot but I took Ace for a very fast hill workout in the morning.  Just five miles but we did it in 30 minutes, largely to outrun the flies as the human brain behind the operation forgot to liberally fly spray Ace and the little buggers are brutal (already)!

It is obvious Ace needs more workouts in the heat as he was huffing and puffing and hung at a HR of 60 for a good long time after I hosed him off.

Rachel and I decided against our potential plan to do the Pine Tree ride in Maine on June 26th, as she just has one too many social obligations to beg out of in order to get away.

So Canada on July 1st is still on the calendar as long as the forecast is not brutally hot, and as long as Rachel is able to get free from work.

I had a training class to deliver near Utica, NY, on Saturday, and it just poured almost all day on Sunday so no riding.

An overly exuberant shoulder stand in yoga on Thursday left my neck out of wack, so I gave the boys today off too but am planning on taking Ace to Allegany tomorrow (solo) to do our fun 11 mile conditioning loop.  Then on Friday I am meeting Carla and Nicole for a ride and will decide later in the week who will make that trip.

Biking with Anita this evening.

Had a little too much fun with red wine and dining out this weekend but am back on track and have almost my entire workout/biking/riding schedule planned for the week!

Travel and other scheduling issues have kept me from my yoga class the last month or so.

Boy, have I missed it!  Every time I attend I think to myself — why don’t I do yoga every day?  It feels SO good.

The skies are cloudy and changeable today, although I’m hoping to get a quick ride in today on one of the boys if we get some clearing.

Yesterday afternoon, Tom the Farrier came out to reset a hind shoe Ned threw in the pasture.  Tom explained that it was obvious he sheared the shoe off on a rock, rather than pulled it off, as he still had most of the nails/clinches in his foot.

When we looked at his feet overall, Tom expressed some real concerns about a deep horizontal crack that Ned had in his left front, grown roughly 2/3 down his foot.  Ned has gotten what I call “concussion” lines in his hoof wall in the past, but this one was more of a fissure than a mere crack or line. 

Similar to rings in a tree trunk, the line or crack can be traced back to a particular endurance ride, and historically, for Ned, these lines come from concussive, or what I call “poundy” rides.  Vermont, for example, which is extraordinarily poundy, and which Ned has finished four times, the 50 twice and the 100 twice, last year surprising me with a 5th place finish in the 50, which meant a lot of concussion down a lot of gravel roads at a fairly healthy clip.

I don’t see many similar concussion lines on other endurance horses, but Ned’s not the typical endurance horse.  At roughly 16.1 hands, 1120-some pounds, and with a size two foot, as one farrier explained to me, it would be almost impossible, from an engineering and physics perspective, for Ned to have adequate foot for his body mass and bone.

Seeing that line emerge after the Vermont ride last year put the kibosh on my plans to ever ride it on Ned again.  Four times entered, four completions, and the last one in the Top Ten.  Well done and I won’t ask that of Ned again. 

So back to yesterday …

Tom examined and poked at and pondered and ruminated over that LF foot.  We talked about my plans for my friend Rachel to ride Ned in a 100 on July 1st (on a non-poundy course) and our original plans to re-set him two weeks from now.

Finally Tom shook his head, pointed to the nails set just below the crack, and talked about the fragility of Ned’s hoof wall, and asked if we could reset him now.

“Sure, I trust your judgment.”  Tom explained that it was his goal to take back quite a bit of wall, leaving the nails carefully placed above the fissure (where they would not pull it open in any way, or cause the hoof wall to separate from the horn) and Ned with ideal angles for the 100 mile ride.  Ned grows foot fairly slowly (despite being supplemented out the ying-yang) but he also tends to grow out evenly, so I agreed with the plan, even though it will leave the big guy with four week old shoes for the ride.

He then set about trimming up the foot, checking and rechecking the angles, and then placing the nails oh-so-carefully, rasping a bit, then setting the final two nails.  In the end, Tom sweated a great deal, Ned snoozed and hung his lower lip (looking nothing like a horse who could even conceivably go, let alone RACE, for 100 miles) and we ended up with four beautifully shod feet.

I am under strict orders to call Tom immediately if anything looks or feels wrong, but he doesn’t anticipate any problems at all.  He said with most of his clients, whose horses barely work for a living, he wouldn’t have been concerned, but that he knows Ned will have some fairly significant physical questions asked of him in the coming weeks.

We talked about Ned’s decade of competition, and I know Tom knows that he has been one of the keys to Ned’s success.

Ace, on the other hand, will be reset as close to the 100 as possible, since that pony loves to push toe on his front feet and can get very quickly out of balance after a reset.  (I blame it on his calf-kneed narrow Saddlebred-y front legs. )

Onward ho!