August rides

Have been fantastic! So we didn’t  really ride around PAFF much, no wonder there, I was so tired and stressed  out from PAFF.

The week after PAFF Penny asked me to go riding, we have been trying to get together to go riding for quite some time now, so it was great to finally be able to meet up!

Penny took me up to Pescadero Creek Park. I was fabulus! The trails are really nice, pretty much single track only, so Lucy got some practice trotting single track.

Getting to ride with Scout was awesome, not since riding with Gerti and Eddy have we riden with a horse that went the same speed as Lucy, or faster, which is fine for Lucy since she will match her pace to the horse if they are going faster then her, just not if they are going slower then her.

It was beautiful weather and Lucy did great!

 

Then on Tuesday of the next week Sarah and I went riding. We went to Henry Cowell which was pretty easy to get to. Lucy was very energetic as I think the ride with Penny was a bit shorter then our normal rides. Lucy left Reba in the dust a lot! We went up one trail that was very sandy and we trotting almost the whole thing. It was way fun because we were weaving in and out of the trees the whole time. It was deffinatly good to work in the sand.

When we got up on another fire road Lucy decided we needed to trot some more, so she kept picking up the trot on her own! Unusal for her!

Oh and I didn’t have to get off for a bridge once! Lucy even went over one in front of Reba, which really I think is best because Reba can be a wee bit slow and Lucy gets really impatient on top of worried about the bridge. I used my lead rope a bit to get her moving and suprisingly enough she went forward and sniffed the bridge and was ovously trying to make the effort to go over on her own. It was great!

I did get off to go under a bridge that Lucy got a bit freaked out about on our way up, so I figured for how good she was I would get off and make it less scary for her!

 

I did a good job of staying hydrated and fed, and non sunburned!

So I have been scanning all my maps into my computer so I can make smaller copies of just where we are riding, because the maps are too big to deal with on horseback, thats why I like bikemapdude maps! I am also outlining my favorite rides and will make notes on them so I can go over them before and after the ride.

Yes I over analyze my rides!

We are going on a new loop in Big Basin this weekend! Should be very exciting!

Must my horse destroy everything?

I swear Lucy is out to destroy everything I have to contain her. And the really funny thing is she rarely escapes once she destroys the fence, or as in the case of this morning, her gate.

Luckily she did not actually destroy her gate, no she just lifted the whole thing right up and off its hinges! And mind you this is not a small gate!! Its a rather substainal sized metal and wire gate!

Lucy has already offically broken a fence in every pasture or paddock at my house, now she can add bringing down a gate to her list. Although, come to think about it, it does seem like she torn up the gate in the first paddock at one time too. I remember having to repair it anyway.

Well, anyway, just had to be annoyed at her for that! My next blog will be an update of our last couple rides.

Why the end of August is so important

 

So the end of August is coming up, why is this important? Because back in May when I was trying to figure out what to do with Kezi I decided to wait unit the end of August and if she was still sound I would either turn her out with Lucy or start working her more. So now the end of August is two weeks away, Kezi is still  sound and I am very excited to be doing something with her!

Unfortunately PAFF kinda threw me off so she hasn’t been out for a walk in a while but she is doing quite well as far as running around her paddock with out any problems goes! She is gaining more muscle in her shoulder, which is fantastic, but its kinda lumpy, not smooth like her other shoulder. We shall see what comes of that, hopefully her muscles are just progressing at different rates.

 

So now the question is what am I going to do with her? Turn her out with Lucy or start working her? I think I will start  doing some more parelli stuff  with her, some ponying off Lucy and some walks for a couple weeks then see how I feel about turning her out with Lucy.

Turning her out scares me so much because she could go tearing down the mountain at full speed and completely mess her leg up again, but at the same time I feel bad for her being stuck in the little paddock when she feels good and seems to be doing so good, plus I think it would help her heal to be able to move around more. Of course hopefully she is already completely healed.

 

I shall update!

 

Since PAFF was this last weekend I haven’t gotten to ride since our long ride. I am hoping to ride Thursday, Friday or Saturday.

So our first longer ride since Lucy was sick!

So we got to ride yesterday, yeah!

And it was a fabulous ride! I am very excited about it, well I would be if I could move very much, haha! But I will explain about that later.

 

The ride set up:

So my plan was to ride from home, up Gazos to Johansons. Then Johansons to Middle Ridge Road, back to Gazos and then home.

Here are my estimates on mileage:

Home to Sandy point 3.9 miles

Sandy Point to Middle Ridge Road, via Johansons 2.5 miles

Middle Ridge Road to Gazos 3 miles

Gazos to Sandy Point 5 miles

Sandy Point to Home 3.9 miles

Total: 18.3 estimated.

I can’t say for sure how long we took since we stopped to talk several times and I did not check the clock as soon as I got home. But I left the house at 11.30 and got back in the house at 6pm. So I would say that total ride time was about 5 hours, maybe less.

Prep:

Well obviously I took Lucy! And her normal tack, Marciante saddle, Parelli hackamore, I had to use my baby blue breastplate on her since I left my good one in town :( It hangs too low on her shoulders I think. I packed the back saddle bag with a bottle of water, sunscreen (after applying two times!), hoof pick, map, twine (always in there), craisins (also always in there and probably a bit old at this point!), stethoscope (which I never use). But I defiantly need a new saddle pack as this one bounces around too much.

I got to ride my my trail stirrups! I hadn’t done so before because the fenders were wider then the stirrups, and I didn’t want to stretch out my fenders. So I wrapped my stirrups in cardboard then taped them so that the top part where the fender sits was wider. It worked pretty well but then my fenders could slip sideways a bit and not say straight on the stirrup, but I think that help my stirrups sit straighter and made it more comfortable for me.

Then I put my english seat saver on my endurance saddle, I don’t have one that fits it yet and seriously needed it! I was determined not to have a sore bum.

Here is Miss Lucy all ready to go! She looks annoyed.

 

So the breakdown of my ride!

Home to Sandy Point:

I walked her down my road as usual, its just much easier not to have to fight with her since she will try turning around to go home until we get a certain distance away from home. I think we were making pretty good time up Gazos until we met up with this guy and his dog, who I ended up talking to for a while. Lucy was happy since we stopped right at a big bunch of grass! She is defiantly doing better breathing wise going up that hill, I am very pleased!

At Sandy point we met up with Eric ( I bought Lucy from him when she was 5 months old). This was the second time I had met up with him I think Lucy is one of his nicer horses that he bred. I won’t go into  how he breeds his horses all that right now since it doesn’t have anything to do with our ride.

Sandy Point to Middle Ridge Road, via Johansons:

So at this point we started trotting some. Pretty much only on flat but I did start pushing her up a few small hills. I have been letting her walk up all hills even little ones so now I am reminding her that she is capable of trotting up the hills. I  think we did this in about 20 to 30 minutes. I did make her trot quite a bit, all flat spots at any rate.  Although Johansons is rather hilly, I knew it would be nothing compared to what was coming on the next trail!

Middle Ridge Road to Gazos:

So the middle ridge road is pretty much all up and down. Mostly down, but some up (going south east anyway). I got off and walked it all. I let her stop and eat quite a bit. I figured it would be our time to settle down and get our energy back for Gazos, or at least for Lucy to get her energy back for Gazos. I let her eat since it would help keep her hydrated, put some food in her stomach and give her a chance to stop and rest (and me too!). We met up with a rather large group of hikers on the middle ridge road.  I would say we took at least an hour on the middle ridge road.

Gazos to Sandy Point:

This was probably the best part of our ride, the walking and resting on middle ridge road really paid off  as Lucy was really refreshed and ready to go! Gazos is more or less flat so I knew we would be doing quite a bit of trotting. At first it was a little too downhill to do a lot of trotting, then it evened out and we started picking up our speed. We came up on the creek that I had remembered from before just when the trail started to flatten out more. I filled my water bottle and let Lucy drink. She did drink but not a lot.  We pretty much trotted at least 50% of the time if not more until we came to the open areas. Lucy was more into trotting at this point and would spring into the trot at the lightest touch, but I let her choose more or less when we walk again. She is still learning to trot longer distances.

When we came to the open parts I doused her with water and reapplied my sunscreen. She was trotting gaily when we got back to sandy point, I think physically she could have done more, and possibly mentally too. At Sandy Point Eric had water for us, she drank a lot more there!

Sandy Point to Home:

I walked her down Gazos as is my norm, mostly to save my knee which was killing me from my stirrup. The pain had gone all up into my hip! I got back on after the gate and figured we would walk up the hill, even though  Lucy felt like she could do some trotting. I let her choose what to do and she choose to trot a bit. I was ok with this because she was energetic and breathing well. We met up with my father, brother and his two kids at the spring. The kids of course wanted rides, Tyler as finally gotten over being afraid of the horses, and even remembered Lucy’s name! I was really surprised. So they got a short ride (was impressed that Lucy was ok with turning back around away from home) and then Kylie got to ride on Lucy up to the house. This is where my story goes a little bit downhill, not for Lucy or Kylie but for me. Lucy was a gem, I love having a horse that can go out and do endurance training so well and then come home and be safe for my 5 year old niece!

While Lucy did great going up the hill, and Kylie had a blast, I literally almost passed out! Lucy walks very fast, and Kylie kept talking with me so I got really out of breath. When we were almost to my driveway was when  I realized that I was in real danger of passing out. I have never passed out before but came really close once when getting stitches out. I made myself walk her up to the pasture then sat down  my the feed bins while Lucy munched on hay. If I had stood up at all I would have pass out for sure. A couple times when I sat up more my vision went all black. I sat for quite a while so my brother came up with Tyler to let him sit on Lucy while she was eating too. It was pretty cute, but I was too out of it to really care. I have no idea how long I sat there but even when I did get up to take Lucy down to be untacked I had to sit down on the ground every 50 feet or so. I had to drag myself into the house to get a piece of bread so that I had enough stangth to unsaddle Lucy. I was pretty weak the rest of the evening and even this morning I am still weak and my legs still really hurt.

So why did this happen? Very simple, I never remember to eat before going out riding. I ate like four pieces of cheese before I left at 11:30 then walked at least 5 miles on our ride which was rather long! I managed to keep myself hydrated but not fed. Loren was a bit mad since he keeps telling me I need to eat before riding. I am a bit strange in that I will often not eat even when I am hungry. I would probably have more energy and less breathing problems if I ate more.

I am defiantly going to buy some little packets of nuts and dried fruit for packing in my saddle bag for next time.

I think Lucy could handle a ride like this every two to three weeks.

I had some thoughts on interval training. I was thinking that I should work her up hills a bit more before doing much IT, use that as our IT for now and not higher speeds. We shall see what happens.

 

What did I learn on this ride?

I need to eat before and during my rides! I take better care of Lucy then I do myself!

I need sports bra for riding (I had some bra strap issues! hehe)

I need a better saddle bag, preferably one that holds more water bottles.

And Lucy is in great shape! Yeah!

Little tid bits here and there

So I guess first an update from last weekend!

I didn’t ride, I know I am horrible! but I did get Kezi out! yeah!

 

I lunged her just a little bit, we had been working on her just walking when she is on the line and she seemed to remember! I then went up to the trot and whenever she started getting too excided I would slow her back down and go back to the walk. It didn’t take very long before she was calmly walking and trotting around on the lunge, I am very happy!

She is a lot of fun to work with! Our walk went well too.

On Tuesday I trotted her a bit more and she really seemed to enjoy that! She is much easier to trot in hand then Lucy. Lucy feels no reason to slow down her normal speed just so I can keep up!

I don’t know if this is Kezi’s normal speed or if she is just being considerete of me.

 

I got my laptop over the weekend! Wowo I am excited, but I am been stressed that almost isn’t that exciting. But it still is at times.

 

So tomorrow I am taking Lucy for a much longer ride then usual. We shall see how it goes.

Three hurahs for Keziah!!

Soooo , miss Kezy has been going out for longer walks! Why? Because she needs it something bad! If I feed at all late, she throws a fit and runs all over her paddock, sometimes I don't even have to feed late for her to do that!
So I made the executive decition (isn't it great being the excutive of our own little barn?!) that Kezi either needs to get out more or be turned out with Lucy. Since turning her out with Lucy still seems like a scary proposition, I opted for taking her out for more walks!
I have been rewarded by seeing both her front feet chip a little on the rocks (really common where I live) which I liked seeing because it means that she is putting equal wieght on both legs when walking. Then this morning she did a little hop rear to face me and came down on her bad leg while holding her good leg up! Then when she was eating she was resting her good leg rather then her bad leg! Its all so very exciting!

So now the plan is for lots of walks down the local trail, a few up and down the road and some parelli sessions, which might include some lunging but I don't know about that yet. I would like to start walking her saddled up, but even though the Marciante fits her I might see if Lucy's old dressage saddle fits her and use that since I would feel better about her jumping around with that saddle on rather then my new pretty saddle! I might also do some long lining down the trail, but I would feel better if I had her behaving on the lunge first before doing that!

Right now riding isn't in the plan, but I have a feeling its one of those things that will just happen. Like one day when I am getting ready to go for a walk with her I will grab my helmet and hop on half way down the trail.
We shall see what happens, I am still very careful with her.

When do we train vrs. condition?

My advice is to train before your horse runs you over running away from the very scary bridge.
Unfortunitly I did not follow that advice! Not that she really ran me over, but just bumped against me, which even that she is well trained enough to know not to do. So I have decided that it is time to get her over this whole bridge thing, she is eight after all, she should be used to them by now!

So on Sunday (the day I tried my new saddle out, yes I did get it!) rather then heading off on a long conditioning ride up into Big Basin, I decided to end my ride at my bridge (that I have been getting off to walk her over) and just work her over the bridge for a while.

First I worked on her going over it without my getting off, she came really close to going over but she got so worked up that I held her back and didn't allow her to go over since I was concerned about what she might do that freaked out on the bridge. Once I decided that she was at least willing to consider going over I got off and walked her back and forth over it about six times. Then I got back on and rode her over it about four times.
She did great! She was much calmer about it after that.

In the end we did get some conditioning in when we decided to trot up most of the hill! We trotted about a third of the way up then power walked the rest of the way. I was very pleased because she is getting closer to being able to trot up the whole thing ( which will bring her back to the level of fitness she was at before she got sick).

So I need to remember that sometimes I need to train vrs. condition.


I might as well put todays ride into this post as well. It was fairly uneventful other then being my first real ride in my new saddle! Very exciting! Oh something kinda cool did happen. Lucy and I heard a tree fall. I don't know why its so cool, but I found it to be really cool!

I think I have hit upon our current conditioning regime. I don't really have one but was following one without realising it!
So currently our rides are roughly about 10 miles long, so they can be anywhere from 8 to 11 miles. We are riding from home so about 3/4 to 2/3 is walking. We walk down our road, then up Gazos into Big Basin then we do off and on trot for a couple miles (generally not more then 4) then we ride back possibly doing some trot up my road. So all in all we only do about 2 to 3 miles of trotting. So over the last couple of weeks I have been uping the langth and duration of trotting but not the over all langth of ride. I have to not only condition her body slowly, but I am also conditioning her mind to trotting for long periods of time.
So far its working well and I am very pleased!
I think once we start trotting almost all of the flat I will up our langth of ride to 15 miles (with some 10 milers still added in) and have medium langth walks inbetween longer trots.
I need to start cantering her more so she gets used to it so we can do interval training down the road.