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Blog contest
| November 4, 2009 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
I’ve decided to hold my first-ever blog contest.
The prize will be a hand-knitted, stuffed animal from yours truely. I’m almost done with it…..it will be very very cute – I promise. This will solve the very pressing question of what to do with the darling little animals I’m creating!
Here is the question to be answered:
- What will be my ride time at the L.O.V.E. 50 mile endurance ride on Saturday? This does NOT include hold times and will be based on the unofficial time on the timers sheet the day after the ride.
Here are the rules:
- The person that guesses the closest time without going over to my actual time wins
- Each person gets 3 guesses.
- Guesses have to be listed in the comments section.
- If you want to guess that I will be pulled – you only get one guess and you must list the reason why (Rider option, lame, metabolic, overtime). No hard feelings if you think this BTW! 🙂
- Edit: you have until Saturday at 6am (Pacific time) to turn in your guesses!
Here are your resourses and hints:
- You may search my ride records on AERC.org. My last name is “faubel”. You will be able to see all my past ride times, including the ones on Farley.
- You may look up past ride times from the LOVE ride from previous years. (edited: here’s the link to look up past years – http://www.doublejoy.com/erol/RideResults%5Cdefault.asp Search for the ride – it’s held in November every year in the west region. I would leave the name blank and just search using the month and region.)
- One strategy might be to look at where in the pack I usually finish and then see what that would correspond to in a “typical” LOVE ride.
Here are the factors that might affect my ride time:
- I’ve never ridden this ride before, but I (and Farley!) are very familiar with the trails because we condition there.
- It’s suppose to rain the day before and might rain the day of.
- I’ve been out of town all week.
- The ride is rocky and hilly with some wide gravel roads. A lot of the ride is on single track.
- This is my first ride in boots. If I lose a boot, the trail is not barefoot friendly and I do not have any spare boots.
- I haven’t been running lately and so I’m not in as a good a physical shape as I am normally for rides.
- I like to start ~10 minutes after the official start. (don’t worry – the time that we are going to go by is the “official start” time to the “official” finish time, with the “official” hold time subtracted.
If I do not end up doing this ride, then the contest will restart with the first day at Desert Gold.
Edit: Here is a spreadsheet where I’m entering everyone’s guesses.
Good Luck everyone!
BTW – your guesses are not in any way going to affect how I ride my ride. I’ll ride my horse according to the day.
Well, I couldn’t find the ride results from past years, but after looking at your times, I would guess 7:02. If you link to the LOVE rides past results, I may have a better guess!
Good luck!
Heather – I updated the post with the ride results link. Hopefully that helps.
Ok, second guess is 8:34. This has been a HUGE ride in the past!
Here’s another tibit –
It’s might rain this weekend. Last year at Oroville it also rained… I did wild west ride 2008 in the rain.
Ok, my guesses are:
7:40
8:15
8:30
As you can see I have narrowed it down to a certain time frame!
I think you will do great!
I have what might be a silly question- if you start out in boots, and loose one, can you make a temp. boot out of duct tape to finish the ride? Or do you have to scratch? Or just do as much as you can before your horse is pulled? (I have no knowledge of this area…)
Mrs. Mom – if I lose a boot I will continue barefoot (no duct tape required!). she’s sound barefoot with no boots over most terrain. The problem is this ride is quite rocky and I will have to be careful and have to go much slower because if I hit a rock just right, it tends to break large chunks out of my poor horsey’s hoof wall.
Same criteria applies if I lose a boot – I have to trot sound at vet checks or get pulled.
I have a picture somewhere of Farley at the place that this ride is (I think Matt went with me so the title probably has to do with boyfriends….). She was booted in the front, but bare in the back. Did fine on our walk/trot/canter 7 mile ride, but a chunk of hoof wall was missing at the end from one of her hinds. She wasn’t sore, but I still felt bad.
so this is a long way to say that, no, a lost boot won’t necessarily result in a pull.
Here’s my guesses:
8:24
8:50
and if you drop to the LD:
5:30
Best of luck! Have fun!
I’m linking a spreadsheet with everyone’s guesses on the side bar.
And last guess, should it rain and you lose a boot in the mud- is 8:59.
Hmmmmm…..
8:42
7:11
8:27
~E.G.
My guesses (am complete guesses they are..)
8:35
7:01
7:30
My mother e-mailed me and said that she had no idea what to guess. I could hear the waver in her voice as she perhaps covets another cute stuffed animal to keep her bunny company? Or to give as a gift to someone else?????
So, I’m guessing for her:
Pull – lame (since no one else seems to want to guess this, I’m throwing it out there! ) 🙂
Ok, yes! I did want to guess that, but it smelled too much of predicting, and I was trying to avoid that. So that is my GUESS, that you’ll pull.
And no, I won’t give the cute stuffed animal to someone else. I’ve gotten good mileage out of Voodoo Bunny, and wouldn’t mind another.
Nothing like the confidence of a mother!
I would like to point out that I have had ONE pull on this horse and it was at TEVIS!!!!!! (which as everyone knows has a 50% pull rate……). AND it wasn’t even related to a structural issue!!! (conditioning and an unfortunate rock. Hummph!
🙂
Now if we were talking about Minx….a lameness pull would have been a good bet.
What, are you trying to make me re-guess?
Your’re fine. 🙂 and it’s a smart guess considering it’s my first ride in boots.
7:59
8:17
9:02
I’ve done this ride before and haven’t gone back. Mainly because of recent years reports from riders who don’t normally complain about such things reporting back that the vetting was not to their liking. Especially when it came to how they handled horses in trouble.
Ride careful so you don’t need a vet for anything other than a check and be careful!
You should find somebody that you can borrow a boot or two from before the ride – lots of people have extras. You should carry at least one spare with you.
Good luck!
Ok!! When i go to a ride i always look at people that have ridden it, try to find someone i know, and look at their time cuz ii know how they ride!! My guesses are:
7:15
8:38
9:28
Hahaha…considering you didn’t guess in the first place Mumsy..
😀