Re: RC: leatherwood

[Roger Rittenhouse <roger@vmaxept.com>]

Leatherwood - thought I would comment.
What a place - great facility. We had an outside stall, camped in a camp
ground with hookups. Best food I had at a ride for years.
Place is WAY back in the middle of no-where, in a valley with
mountains  BIG LONG pulls
A great place to ride.  I may go up there for a few days of
conditioning. Ride- condition here -and  the OD will be just be another
trail ride  - This place has NO real rocks.

Yep - one real tough ride -   sure glad I choose to do only the 25
miler. Was about the the toughest 25 I have done.
Time 4:39  Omni came through in good order.

This is one of those rides  where you just cant believe it can get
worse, the REAL MOUNTAINS never let up. At least at the OD you get
some flat. Not here all up and down.

You ride with a lump in your guts  - was this the right thing to do??
 Should we REALLY be going this fast with HR over 180?

Loop 1 - 10 miles took 2:11  the very difficult loop  with lots of new trail
and loose dirt and MUD. Took a well balanced horse. I was off more
then I planned  - as in 'well its only a 25' hehehe  - I was trashed
helping him work the down-hills. We go faster with me off and sliding-
falling etc.. Came in running along side - pulsed down to 64 within 2
min -- much faster recovery then expected. Vetted  All A

Second loop - 16 miles - very nice - could do that 3 times - was a
good work, not all that bad - had new trail and  MUD  but places to pick up
the pace.  Finished under power with lots of reserve - pulsed down to
60 in one minute arrived at 12:18 finished at 12:19  All A but a B
gut.
Guess we could have gone faster??

He really worked - working pulse rates were mostly over 150 all day
with high points 180 to 190. At a WALK. He sure got a good work at the
anaerobic threshold.
One thing about a ride like this - you really get a rush doing a hard
one, you get to test yourself and your horse. You find out what you
both can really do.    Sort of like last year at the NC50
Next year the 50

Had a great massage done on him after the ride.
  Also had a blood test
taken just AFTER we finished. Thought it would be good to get data - a
baseline- on him after a hard workout to see what the parameters
looked like. Also wanted to see what my 'alternative' feeding protocol
did. I wanted some data I cannot get other then  blood glucose. No- I won't
talk about it here...


Now hopefully nothing is wrong with him - so far so good - we are off
to the Million Pines next weekend, guess we move up to the 50 miler.
Will decide when we get there.

We have been only doing 25 milers so far this year- to work out the
shoeing thing and other issues.

Did Oconee 25  then BOTH the Greenway 25 Sat-Sun.
Really a great set of  rides with LOTS of MUD.

But here is a  note- Greenway -SAT RIDE time was ONE minute longer then SUN
-Ride time 3:43 Sat and 3:44 Sun over slightly different trails, hows that
for pacing, could not do that again if you paid me.

Did not think I would care for doing this many LD's  but HEY - my ride
is over FAST and then I get to hang out..not to bad
Now its time to see how he goes on the 50.  \

Wedding - was great - they will be (are) a great couple. Sure was nice
to see them get married. Best to both Nina and Duane


Roger