Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

This past weekend, JD Fountain hosted a new ride here in the SouthEast called Carolina Moonlight.  The ride was held at a nice little ranch connected to the Sandhills Wildlife Reserve in South Carolina.  The ranch has quite a few electrical hookups among the trees and a bathhouse, with a huge field for over flow parking.  Due to a wicked storm that rolled in the Charlotte, NC area while I was packing the truck, we were put a couple hours behind and did not make it there until about 10:00pm friday night.  They were already directing rigs to the overflow, but we were able to squeeze our little two horse in to the shaded part of the camp. 

 

Lara and I had planned on doing an easy 25miler together as this would be the first ride for my 5y/o Quarab.  But the bozo had to twist his right front hock a few days before the ride.  He loves to run in the pasture which consists of rolling hills.  I swear this horse is self-conditioning.  Anyway, I was kinda bummed but decided we should go anyway and I'd just help out.  So I encouraged Lara to ride without me and to ride with someother friends of ours that we condition with.  So we loaded up just Lara's horse, Rapid Jazz, and off we go.  This will be a great experience for both Lara and Jazz to gain confidence in riding without their "buddies". 

 

I told JD that I'm there to help so he has me do pulse.  I wasn't too bummed about not riding cause I knew volunteering would be a great experience and something that every AERC member should do from time to time.

 

The 50miler started at 7:00pm.  The sun was getting low and the temps were definitely not as high as mid day was.  Humidity would come and go with the breeze.  25s started at 7:30pm.  The sky was mostly clear so the fullmoon would help the riders.  Though temps were eventually in the high 70s, humidity was still 80-90%.    Pulse had it's moments of lulls but then had moments where we were really busy with a large group of riders.  It was fun to keep track of the riders as the ride progressed.  Most of the 25s had finished by midnight.  By midnight though, things started to change.  Clouds were rolling in and lightning was off to the north and heading towards us.  On top of that, some rednecks in a white pickup where out pulling glowplugs from part of the trail.  I guess they even pulled up to pull one glow plug and didn't realize it was attached to a horse which shocked them.  They took off and the law was not able to track them down.  JD had put up 200some glow plugs and eventually had to use all 400 that he had bought to replace the ones torn down.  A few riders did go off trail, but eventually found their way back with out any incidents that I know off.

 

Between 2:00 and 3:00am the top 10 riders in the 50miler came in.  This was the first time I had gotten to see an actual top runner race to the finish.  But as the top 2 came to the finish they decided to go across hand-in-hand.  By 3:00am sitting at the finishline waiting I was not feeling well and lightning was giving us quite a show.  Stagg and Cheryl Newman crossed the finish to roundout the top 10.  JD came out to the line to relieve me as I was not feeling well and needed to lay down for a bit.

 

I forgot the total number of finishers.  No metabolic pulls that I know of.  Pretty much just lameness and Rider Option pulls.  The only treatment needed was to a rider who's horse spooked in the middle of the night and she broke or sliced her hand.  She finished the 50miles but went right to the emergency room.

 

What a great experience and a great ride.  Hopefully JD will be able to host a moonlight ride again next year and hopefully I'll get to ride it next time.  My last words of encouragement are for the AERC members to take a break once in a while and just volunteer.

 

Tim