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I had the pleasure of riding in the 25 at the East
Bay ride this last weekend and had a great time! The weather was very foggy in
the morning and a very nice 75-80 in the afternoon with beautiful scenery and
even beautiful views of some of the city of Oakland. It was kind of a strange
feeling, driving into a big city like Oakland for an endurance ride. We were
totally unprepared to find beautiful redwood forests right in the middle of it,
having never been through that part of the bay area.
My intentions were to get a little bit further
away from last in the pack to finish at this, my second ride, and we
started out well. I pulled in behind Johanna Constance whom I'd met at the
Fireworks and she had been looking for someone to ride with and it turned
out to be me. She said she was shooting for 4.5-5 hours. That was my goal also.
Little did she know that hanging out with me, she'd end up being second from
last! At least I think I was last, again! All I know is Trilby Pederson passed
me on her last 2 miles into the first loop of her 50. Johanna didn't seem to
mind even though I kept telling her to please go on if she wanted to make her
time. Her answer was "No! Whether it's 5 hours or 5 hours and 25 minutes, it
doesn't matter. It's the companionship and good time and conversation that
counts." In just two rides I've learned what a generous and friendly
lot this Endurance family is, and for someone just starting out again,
that's a great thing! By the way, my hat is OFF to Trilby ... 54,875 miles
recorded since 1985. She's just like the Duracell bunny. We can't even get
my mother-in-law out of the house to sit on the back porch, let alone get in the
car and take a drive and they're the same age.
We actually made good time on the first loop, at
least for my horse, reaching the first vet check of 11.6 miles in 2 hours
exactly. That really pumped my confidence up a lot. However, the second half of
the ride had some pretty steep downs which we walked and there
were what seemed like really LONG stretches of steady climbs up that just
didn't seem to ever stop. Every bend I would hope the "up" stopped and we
started going either down or flat and every bend fooled me. My Mustang (MC) just
doesn't do "up" very well. Poor Johanna was stopping for me a lot on her
beautiful stallion who was quite the gentleman the entire ride. I just
loved watching him climb the hills with his ears forward just like he was on a
walk in the park, while my poor little horse had her head down and her ears out
to the side like a mule trudging away. I got off and tailed several times and
even the last hill she didn't want to do that and I had to lead her. But then we
got to the top and she picked up her ears and took off trotting! We both decided
she was a real actress as she took it upon herself to trot in the last 2-3 miles
almost non-stop. Good thing, too or we'd have never made it in time. I've done a
lot of pondering of the last couple of days, trying to figure out of this
endurance stuff is actually going to be for MC. We have four months of training
in, 2-3 times a week flat 7-8 mile rides and on the weekends 10-15 miles of
foothill work. She does great on the flat and she's all heart. But she does have
to take what seems like two steps for every one of all those Arabian steps out
there at the trot. I think I will finish out the year on her and continue
conditioning as much as I can and make a decision then. I love this sport but I
love my horse more. She needs to be having a good time, too. It's very
tempting to want to purchase an Arabian to get up near the middle of the pack (I
actually fell in love with one that my daugher went to look before she
bought her new boy "James Dean") but I'm a softie when it comes to my animal
companions. Once I have one, they're here for life and some would call me crazy,
but it just wouldn't be fair to MC because nobody else would ride her and I just
couldn't bare to sell her. After all, she IS an American Icon. Hey, I know ...
maybe I can be the Trilby Pederson of the 25-milers!
I want to thank the Ride Management for putting on
a great ride and the sponsors for donating such great prizes for the raffle. The
raffle was a great idea. They used our ride cards as tickets and you had to be
present at the awards presentation to win. I won a great Numkah bridle donated
by www.CoolDownUnder.com, which
incidentally is where "James Dean" was purchased. Thanks Wendy! Thanks to all
the great volunteers who helped. Without you, we couldn't ride!
Jackie Floyd and MC
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