IRL – Feb 2014
| March 1, 2014 | Posted by Melinda under Uncategorized |
These “In Real Life” posts are designed to show how a conditioning program is being applied “real life”. It’s one thing to talk about the ideal program – it’s quite another thing to see how an actual person is applying it real life horse. Maybe you are a new rider that is trying to find the balance between rest and miles. Or maybe you are like me – you’ve been doing this for a while with varying levels of success and you are interested in seeing what other riders are doing.
To view previous IRL posts, go to the category “Conditioning” and look for the tag “IRL”.
Tig
Tig got out an average of 3x a week. Most of it was arena sessions with some trail sessions mixed in. The 2 most notable longer trail rides was a 5.95mi ride completed in 53 min (8.91 min/mi) that was done at the beginning of the month, and a 6.37mi ride completed in 2 hours (18.84 min/mi) near the end of the month.
Tig’s main conditioning “problem” is that she hits a mental wall at about 1 1/2 hours regardless of pace or terrain. (in the arena her mental wall comes in about 20 minutes) It’s a perfect example of how fitness is more than just musculoskeletal or fuel reserves!
Since Tig isn’t planning on being an endurance mount at this point I’m not overly concerned about extending total time – but it was something interesting for me to experience and keep in mind when I get my own baby horse (almost called her “little baby horse” but Merrylegs is NOT little!)
Farley
3 rides, all trail. That ride that was only 1.62 mile that took us 30 min? That would have been the day she had a complete mare hissy fit about going out and doing ANYTHING productive.
Mares *headdesk*.
In a pattern also reflected in my running I rode Farley half as many times this month, and about 40% less miles (not reflected as part of Tig because I have an agreement to ride Tig 3x a week). Chalk it up to a short month, some minor injuries on my part, and a wet weather system moving in the latter half of the month (and I have serious hang ups about riding in sloppy footing).
Farley has enough base on her that I’m not worried about our 50 in 6 weeks, as long as we get in a nice 3-3.5 hour trail ride in the next week or two. If I don’t get that ride in, I’ll do the LD instead.
Running – Let’s not forget the “Rider Fit” part of the equation.
Total: 7 runs
- 3 easy runs
- 3 interval runs
- 1 race
- 41.81 miles total
Average pace: 10.20 min/mile (note that when I report “average pace” it is a true average and NOT weighted average. I think the pace range reported below is more helpful).
Pace range: 8.15 – 14.77 min/mile
I definitely ran less in February than I did in January no matter how you crunch the numbers. It’s a short month anyways and I was plagued with small injuries and setbacks. I ran about half as many times, and did 20% less mileage, AND it was slower paced. However average run length was double what last month, and the average “difficult” rating of my runs in Feburary was a 4/5, as compared to a 3/5 in January.
Summary: I ran less often and did less miles at a slower pace, BUT when I did run I put in more miles, and did them at a higher perceived “difficulty” level.
Looking at my running logs I realized I have been making a HUGE training mistake. Look for an upcoming post on what it was and how I’m going to change it.
I love these posts!!