Re: [RC] This Joy You Feel Is Life - Barbara McCrary
Lovely message. Some of us ride
endurance for the experience of savoring the connection between a rider and a
good horse. Some of us ride to explore new parts of the world. After
all, who knows a given area better than the people who live there and put on a
good ride to show that area to others? I discovered the Great Salt Lake
Desert, Death Valley, the Pony Express route, and the pioneer
Applegate-Lassen trail from the back of a good horse, actually the SAME horse in
each case. The wonderful part of endurance riding is that it is different
things to different people. I will NEVER buy the idea that only the first
place team is the winner. It doesn't work for me. To some it
does, to me it will never be true. But then I like to smell the flowers
along the way.....
Congratulations to all riders who are
involved in this sport, for you have sought to satisfy whatever is in your
heart.
When I tell people I really enjoy running, they
say "Why??". When people find out that I ride endurance, I see the same look
on their face. How can anyone ride a horse for 25 or 50 miles? I usually leave
it at that, fearing that if I tell them 100 miles is the goal, they will try
to have me committed.
I quit getting all my horse magazines and started
picking up the Runner's World, Running and Tri-Athlete. Not because I know
everything I need to know about horses, but because I forgot
what competing alone (no horse) and goal setting for ones self was about.
And, let's face it. There is no magazine for endurance training like the human
training magazines. Why is that? So the running mags give me incentives for
speed workouts, hill work, LSD and those oh-so-important rest days. Both by
foot and by hoof.
But is competition really all it's cracked up to
be? I just read an article in Runner's World by John "The Penguin" Bingham. He
writes about a marathon that actually encourages runners to stop and enjoy the
day. Dancing at mile markers, runners in silly outfits, jugglers and
the people on the sidelines screaming and cheering them on. Of course the lead
runners aren't having that kind of fun, they are running hard and fast and
miss everything. They have clocks to beat, PR's to set and miles to count
down. He compares the front runners to stars, and everyone else are just
extras, like on a movie set. He says the extras run and walk the same course,
meet and exceed goals and push the limits, just as the stars. He says of
the extras, "We may not make headlines, but we do make headway.". Oh, so true!
A mile is a mile, no matter how you did it.
I guess I am more of an extra. That is not to say
that I haven't had my share of shinning moments both in running and riding.
And I certainly won't pretend I didn't enjoy those moments to the fullest. But
like the Penguin, I like taking the extra time to enjoy things. Late afternoon
into evenings at the beach, dinner with friends at our favorite restaurant,
getting a great massage! I get those same feelings from running and riding
without the competition factor. I can't wait for rides to come around so we
can pack up and spend the weekend camping and riding with friends and family.
I look forward to those long slow runs so I can come home and take
an extra long, deep REM, drooling on the pillow kind of nap. Now,
that's what I call a goal!
Goal setting, training, racing and doing
well at it certainly gives us all incentives and a feeling of accomplishment.
But the rest of it is the joy of life. Take the extra time
to do it, because you can.
