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[RC] How many miles a week? - KarenJust curious how many miles a week you guys ride in order to condition your horse for 25/50/100 miler. On another list I belong to (not endurance-related), someone said that their vet recommended riding the same number of miles per week as you want to compete (so, if you wanted to do 50 mile rides, you would ride 50 miles per week). It probably is good advice to be able to do at least as many miles in a week as you intend to do in one day in competition. That probably becomes less important if you are moving up to multidays or 100's. I know that the most prepared I've been for any ride was the 01 XP, and I had the horses worked up to going 80+ miles per week, and I spent a good six months working them up to that level. That way when they started the ride, and were going between 100 and 150 miles a week for 8 weeks straight it wasn't that big of a stretch and they were built up for it. I don't think you need to go that distance every week, only that you want to work up to it. It is a good way to see if you are going to run into various types of problems, and correct or eliminate them before you do the actual event. Once you are doing 50's, then they are great conditioning for a longer distance ride (multiday, 100, etc.) It also all depends upon how you ride each ride and what your goals are as you progress thru the season. Also, once you actually start the competitive season, how much riding do you do to maintain your horse's fitness? It all depends on the base the horse has and how I am riding them. Usually one or two short rides a week, maybe about 7 to 12 miles, sometimes more, sometimes less is sufficient if you are on a horse that has a good base. I rarely ride Chief at all between competition this year, I think that would be too much. I tend to do a lot of arena riding lessons with him. I do take him out on the trail once in awhile, to let him graze and goof off. :-) I don't think I rode him at all between the 5 days at Cold Springs and the 2 days he did at the cross country XP. This frees me up to ride my other horses that aren't competing as frequently, so that they can stay somewhat fit. Riding X amount of miles isn't as important as building up to an increasing workload, either by adding miles or difficulty of trail or weather conditions. I run the horses around in a group a few times a week. I do this so that I can watch how they move and interact together. If something isn't right, this is where I usually pick up on it. The horses really get to running and galloping and for a half an hour or more three or four times a week it gets their heart rates up higher than I would be able to get them up on a training ride. This adds about another 20 miles a week (I've put the HRM belt and attached a GPS and measured <g>). Karen in NV =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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