Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I am sure that Terre won't mid me re-posting what I feel to be the most lucid, sensible comment on the true difference between distances of 25-35 miles, and distances of 50 miles or greater:

The extensive work done by Gayle Ecker and others at a large number of ROCs, WECs, WEGs, PACs, and the Tevis all indicate that by far the greatest losses of fluids, electrolytes, etc occur in the first 25 miles of the ride.  How the horse fares in the next 25 to 75 miles is determined by the degree of these losses, and the horse/rider management of them.  When the horse stops at 25 miles, he never faces this challenge.  In other words, we see "endurance" as the ability to recover and continue on.  When 'completion' is based on recovering, but NOT continuing on, you have another sport--a valid and legitimate sport, but not "endurance", per se.

Terre, that initial email was dated May 13, 2004 AND I will keep it and refer to it in perpetuity!

Kristen in TX

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ridecamp Guest
> Sent: Friday, November 18, 2005 10:18 PM
> To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [RC] novice class, LD taken seriously etc.
>
> Please Reply to: Stacy Motschenbacher msmots13@xxxxxxx or
> ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ==========================================
>
> In reply to Susan's post. 
> Why does the AERC define endurance as 50+ miles?  I can't
> quite figure out what would be wrong with including a 25 ro
> 30 mile ride as "endurance".  Other than maybe the rides
> would get too big?  Let's look at horse racing (track) there
> are many different distances raced and they are still called racing.