Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

larry Miller wrote:
> Christina, rule of thumb.  Your training rides should be faster than 
> what you actually do at the ride.  If you are going to ask for an 8 mph 
> pace, train at a 9 or 10 mph pace at home.  

That's generally a good idea, especially as you aren't going as far on 
your training rides as you are at the event.

Another rule of thumb, if
> you plan on a 25 then you need to do 25 miles a week in training.  50, 
> then do  50 training miles a week.  Some even say if you want to do a 
> 100, do 100 miles of training per week.  I never did that for a 100 but 
> I sure did some fast training miles in preparation and probably about 60 
> - 70 training miles a week.  Then you have to remember that the last 
> week before a ride, you cannot get your horse in any better shape than 
> what he is already.  So you need to back off some and only check for 
> soundness before you go to the ride.  Jeanie

This is something else that depends on the horse, and your ride 
schedule.  I believe many people overtrain, to their horses' detriment. 
 I have never trained this much on any horse that I've had.  I agree, 
though, about resting the last week.  If I have rides only a week or two 
apart, the only riding I do in between is enough to limber up and check 
for problems.

Here's a bedrock "rule of thumb:"  do not ask your horse to do anything 
on a ride that you haven't trained for at home.  This includes uphill 
and downhill.  I train at ride-speed downhill to condition the horse to 
handle ride-speed downhill, for example.  I will also do some training 
on hard surfaces to condition for concussion.  I've used paved roads for 
this -- some stretches right down the center of a paved road, on the 
yellow line, rather than on the shoulder.  I ride the centerline so the 
horse doesn't think he can just move out onto the pavement when I want 
to ride the shoulder.  (Obviously, you can't do this on a road with any 
traffic!)



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