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Re: [RC] LD vs. Real Endurance - Long - Joe LongI sure wish this thread would end. As do I, and as do most of us. LD has its place in the AERC. I always thought so. There are many reasons to do LD, and if a person is physically incapable of doing more than an LD, than God love em, do the LDs! Some people don't have the time to train for a 50 or a 100, so they choose to do what is best for their horse, which is an LD. AMEN! I couldn't agree more. ... The argument seems to be whether it is real "endurance" or not. Angie, the mentally handicapped girl that you sponsor, do you think an LD is endurance for her? Was it endurance for her first horse (I remember reading the great article on her in Endurance News)? I thought it was endurance. Oh, Lord, not this old chesnut! No, I don't think she completed an endurance ride. She endured at a challenge, for her, which is NOT the same thing. For some people, riding ten feet would be an equal challenge ... should we say that if they ride ten feet they've completed an endurance ride? My first wife was handicapped and it was more difficult for her to ride 25 miles than for most of us to ride TWO hundred miles. She literally had to *risk her life* to try it! She did it, though, and she completed an LD ride, once. Was I proud of her? YOU BET! Did that mean she'd completed an endurance ride, and should go into our records as completing an endurance ride? No, and she would have been the last person to ask for an exception for her due to her disablity. ... I love AERC & I love to ride. The distance I ride depends on my abilities, my horse's abilities, and how beautiful the day is! The nice thing about the AERC is that it supports distances for a wide variety of interests and abilities. Absolutely! Well said. We need to be supportive or each other and not nit-pick about awards & distances, and what makes "real" endurance. Ah, but the demands of some LD riders is not "nit-picking," it goes to the very HEART of what we are and what our accomplishments mean. No matter how short we define a "real" endurance ride, there will be those who want it shorter. When the AERC defined endurance as 50 miles or more, there were some who believed that was too short, that it should have been 100 miles. I guarantee you that if the AERC ever lowers the definition to 25 miles, in a year or two there will be people demanding to count 15 mile rides as endurance rides, using the same arguments you are presenting. As I stated before, there are many ways to measure endurance, and it doesn't start or end simply with the amount of miles you ride on a given day. In a sense you're right, "endurance" is only a word. But for the AERC's awards and records to be meaningful, the AERC must set the standards and definitions for our events. The AERC has defined an endurance ride as a ride of at least 50 miles or more in 12 hours or less. Personally, I'm one of those who believe that's a little short, but I understand the compromises behind it and it has stood the test of time. I don't think we'll redefine an endurance ride as at least 100 miles in 24 hours anytime soon. But if we define an endurance ride down to 25 miles in 6 hours, we will have lost something very real, not picked a nit. I've run Marathons, and am proud to have succeeded at that. Since my knee surgery last year, I doubt that I will ever be able to run another one. So will I ask that 10K runs be called Marathons now? Not on your tintype. Is insisting that a footrace must be 26 miles long to be called a "Marathon" nit-picking? I don't think so. Hey, if you're happy riding LD rides, wonderful, go ride them, I support you 100%. Lots of people do. I ride them sometimes, and enjoy them when I do. But for God's sake, just as a 10K run is not a Marthon, an LD ride is NOT an endurance ride. Can't we finally put this to rest and just go ride? -- Joe Long jlong@xxxxxxxx http://www.rnbw.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.endurance.net/ads/seabiscuit.html Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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