Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Had a great time at this ride last Saturday, even
if I couldn't walk at the end <g>. The pone looked
pretty cheerful, though.

Ride management were wonderful - providing tons of
water and sandwiches, etc. at the checks. At one
point we came down a steep mountain to a water
trough and the RM's husband was there. He came
over before we even got to the trough and handed
us each a bottle of water. Talk about service!
Apparently he'd been given strict instructions
to make sure the riders stayed hydrated, since
the RM knew that riders are quite good at watering
their horses, but not themselves :)))

(I drank 120 oz of water from my Camelbak/water
bottles, and was still dehydrated - yikes!)

The ride was *way* harder than expected. I was
lured up there with the story that it would be
a "nice, easy ride to start the season off with".

Not.

We don't train in sand and where they don't have
*rocks* in NV, they have lots of *sand*. My biggest
fret is Provo's tendons and I know that the tendon's
biggest enemy is sand, so I was paranoid all day.

There were also lots of ups-n-downs, big and little,
which made it hard to get into a good rhythm. So
it took it's toll. Provo was pretty sure he could
canter the entire ride, so by the time we rolled
into the 15 mile check, I was physically wrecked
from managing him :) <sigh>  (so tempting to say
"You want to break yourself? Go ahead!" and drop
the reins... and thereby ruin the last three months
of careful work <g>).

The views were gorgeous. We overlapped the same
landscape as for some of the National Championship
100 last year (at Red Rock). Lots of pretty coloured
mountains, lots of juniper trees full of berries,
lots of twiddly sand washes where you're going down
a tunnel almost.

The trail was very well marked - provided you actually
looked out for ribbons. We went off trail once,
enthusiastically zipping up a long hill, only to
discover no ribbons and no footprints in front of
us at the top. When we finally got back on trail,
we'd missed an easy turn off, marked with an obvious
ribbon and lots of white lime blobs on the ground...
hard to miss, really <embarrassed>.

There were lots of very shaggy horses out there,
and many people not wanting to clip because the
weather was due to turn cold again (after we had two
straight weeks of record high temps here in CA/NV).
On the day it was 80 degrees. Luckily for me, Provo
has been blanketed all winter and was totally
shedded out (someone asked if we were from Southern
CA <g>), but most of the other horses weren't so
lucky.

There seemed to be a fair few sore backs as well,
as the dips took their toll.

Provo n' me finished the last 15 mile loop on our
own, and I was getting worried about losing the
trail in the dark, since we were so late. Luckily,
we were scooped up by the last two riders in the
ride in the final three miles or so, and Provo
miraculously recovered from his funk (convinced
he'd die out there, from being on his own) and
was "somehow" able to power trot to the finish,
at which point he ran circles around me the whole
way hand-walking back to the camp... Didn't exactly
take the top off him, which was really gratifying
to see - even if we did have to finish in 11.5
hours to have him look like that.

Holding him back and making me suffer was worth
it - he had virtually no filling in his legs, and
apart from having a bit of a sore loin (probably
from me flopping about on his back... no surprises
there) and being a little dehydrated (it was nearly
freezing the night before, so he didn't drink well
at the trailer), he was in good shape.

So I've got some homework ahead of me. Work on my
trotting (went out and bought Ariat Terrains on
Monday, to replace my low-top tennies), work on
getting the pone to drink (warm water the night
before would have been good if I'd thought of it),
remember to empty the sand out of his splint boots
(stupid girl mistake, for which she shall be spanked
repeatedly), plus working on time-management would
be good. Finishing in 11.5 hours was good Tevis
practise for "being out there a long time", but
not good practise for "every minute counts".

We're now heading to try and do American River 70
next month, so I've got a month to work on my
weaknesses.

Thanks again to Tammy Rougeau and her marvellous
team of cheery volunteers for a well-run ride!


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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
elsie AT foothill DOT net
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, California
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Doesn't mean we won't go on trying to get better at what we do. Besides, if
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