March/April IRL 2015
| May 3, 2015 | Posted by Melinda under Mel's Life, Pregnancy, Uncategorized |
March and April blur together for good reason. I was gone for 2 weeks on out of town externships during both months. Gone for 2 weeks….here for 2 weeks…gone for 2 weeks…here for 2 weeks. It was mid-April before I realized I didn’t write my customary beginning of March posts and by then I decided to just combine them.
MerryLegs
Both months ML was sequestered away at Amber’s. Because of my schedule I wasn’t able to work with Amber and ML as many times as ideal. Even when I was in town, because of clinical rotations there’s no guarantee there’s any predictable times to schedule training sessions. Then in a *wonderful* stroke of *luck* the weather the one week my schedule WAS predictable it rained and was very windy. sigh. However in the last week I finally I got enough time to learn enough of the buttons and the training philosophy used that I *will* be able to continue the good work Amber started and I’m very comfortable doing so. ML came home last Thursday night and I can load her in a trailer, saddle her up, put a bridle on, and do walk/trot under saddle working off of the halter. She ponies, cross ties, ties to a trailer, wears a blanket if necessary, and has had hoof boots on. She side steps laterally over to a mounting block on demand (her favorite trick) and has a ton of other buttons. Between a senior banquet Friday and vetting at Cache creek ride yesterday I haven’t gotten a chance to do any practice at home, but that hopefully changes today. ML will feature prominently in future blog posts so those of you that are “Team ML” will get lots of updates I promise.
Farley
March
– 2 round pen sessions
– 2 trail rides
The round pen sessions were born out of necessity. I needed to do some muscle memory practice with some of the stuff I was doing with ML so Farley became my guinea pig. Turns out she needs a bit of refresher ground work both in roundpen and on the leadline. Silly pony. 16 year old mares don’t get to turn into b*tches just because it’s spring, they are fit, and they *can* boss the 3 year old around.
One of the trail rides was the fabulous 15 mile trail ride I did at Cache Creek with Funder. It was a training ride for Cache Creek Endurance ride, which I didn’t end up doing – which makes the memory of this conditioning ride so much sweeter. The wild flowers were in bloom, the horses impeccably behaved, and the company couldn’t have been better.
The other trail ride was a bareback 1.5 mile jaunt around the orchard where I discovered that sitting Farley’s big endurance trot bareback is no longer a problem.
And that was it for the 2 weeks I was home that month.
April faired a bit better – due in large part to going out on polo sets with a friend at the stable. The overall pace of polo sets is similar to what I would do for my short week day conditioning – 3-5 miles or 30-60 miles – but the gait breakdown is different, AND (here’s the fun part), everyone is ponying one or more horses.
SO MUCH FUN. Four riders thundering down the trail in a group of a total of 11 horses at trot and canter? YES PLEASE.
Farley really got into it. The first time she was bitchy. The second time she didn’t fight the walk segments, and actually went forward while cantering instead of mostly up and down…and the third time she was all like: “I WANNA TO BE A POLO HORSE”.
I <3 that horse sometimes most of the time. Smart little mare. Who I don’t do enough different stuff with to keep her entertained.
What did April look like?
– 4 rides: 3 polo sets (total 13.25 miles) and one arena bareback walking ride (15 min) that had a similar purpose to the ground work in March – practice muscle memory of exercises I was doing with ML.
So….if we count March/April as a single month (after all I was only home for a total of one month between the 2) I get the following statistics:
– 2 ground sessions
– 6 trail rides with one long conditioning ride
– 1 arena ride
That’s pretty dang good!
Rider Fit
I swear it was a big conspiracy to keep me from running. Despite my best efforts 9 runs total for the 2 months, including 1 long run in each month that was around 10 miles. Total of 40.11 miles. All easy/recovery runs except for the long runs – no speed work.
I haven’t ran at all in a week since seriously irritating my throat eating (and entire) fresh pineapple for dinner (and nothing else) on Tuesday. This apparently set me up for a pretty good iritation bronchitis/esophagitis, which has since turned into a nasty secondary infection of some sort. This is less then optimal since I have a 1/2 marathon next Saturday that is trail and hilly. Systemically I feel fine. But, I dare not run and risk setting myself back even 24 hours since it’s already a bit of gamble whether I’m actually going to be able to do Saturday without killing myself. It’s my sister’s first 1/2 marathon and I agreed to pace her through it. Otherwise I would have probably dropped out already. But I’m *pretty* sure I can put in a slow to moderate pace in the cooler bay area and not run into trouble. Plus it will be an excellent story and object lesson.
