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Whew wee,  was it warm and humid!!!  But still my FAVORITE ride.  
Beautiful trail all day long,  they have some climbs but not as long as 
at OD,  they have some rocks but not too many,  they have some sand but 
not too much or too deep and some gorgeous stretches along the river and 
with super cool gigantic rocks that you can envision Indians peering 
around.  Absolutely wonderful vets and tons of volunteers and a well 
marked trail until the day riders try to "help" and take them down.  Oh, 
and they have chiggers--nasty little beasties---bite you and you don't 
even know it until you are trying to sleep after 100 miles and the bed 
fells like you are still posting and your ankles are itching like crazy  
and your quads and calves feel like they are threatening to cramp and 
you(I was anyway) craving a steak and baked potato with all the trimmings.

Our day started early at 6am when it was still full dark and Jodi 
Buttram led us out on a controlled start(thanks again Jodi).  First loop 
was 20.6 miles to our first away vet check.  They kept our cards for the 
AERC research so I have rough guesses on our ride times--took about 2.5 
hours.  I vetted with Ken Marcella and he said he was proud of us for 
not blasting away on this loop.  Rode the first loop with Nicki Mueten 
and her great horse Fury who already has 5 100 mile completions this 
year including 13th at Tevis,  Ruth Anne Everett on Razz and partly with 
Mary Howell on Shiloh. A 40 minute hold where Sonny picked at various 
feeds and hay and mostly gawked at everybody else.  

Second loop back to camp was 19 miles and change,  Ruth Anne left 1 
minute before us and Sonny had a good ol' fashion temper tantrum for the 
full 60 seconds,  dancing around, threatening to stand on his back 
legs(he does this quite well) and finally because nothing else worked he 
resorted to swinging his head around to bite my right leg. I was way 
unamused by this new tactic so the 3rd time he tried I timed it 
right(missed the 2nd time) and allowed him to "run into my foot" and 
thus ended the nonsense and the 60 seconds that felt like 6 minutes! 
This loop went great with Ruth Anne, Nicki and myself switching off 
leading until about 15 miles out I was trotting along and realized that 
they weren't behind me, so I came down to a jog, they still didn't catch 
up, walked a little still no sign so I stopped and they popped up over a 
hill walking and Ruth Anne was on foot.  Razz had lost a front shoe and 
was foot sore with out it.  No problem, we decided to walk in,  well I 
was very surprised when Nicki asked "are you supposed to have a shoe and 
pad on your left front"  uhhh--yes, So now 2 of are missing a 
shoe--damn.  I hopped off and walked on the ground for a while with Ruth 
Anne we walked for about 30 minutes until Mary Howell(God Bless her) 
caught up and not only had a easy boot but hopped off her horse and put 
it on!! Service with a smile.  Nicki and Mary jogged off and I hopped 
back on Sonny and we continued to walk to make sure Razz was okay.  
Shortly there after we were passed by another group of 6 100 milers and 
we continued to walk and I was able to let Sonny "run into my foot" a 
couple more times.  Nicki and Mary were going to alert the farrier to 
our plight and we pretty much walked and jogged when the footing was 
good but managed to walk in and pulse right with that group that had 
passed 15 minutes earlier.  I always have several sets of shoes with me 
that are shaped to his foot and ready to nail on for this exact reason 
so it was simple for the farrier to get us done fast, I even had extra 
pads pre-cut down to the right size.  On a side note---my new favorite 
way to pad is to either buy pads with holes our have my farrier drill 
holes, then I don't worry about "stuff" getting in there and causing a 
problem,  I have friends that have been pulled due to "stuff" under the 
pad.  These are pretty much single ride use--they get shredded by the 
end of 100 miles but serve the purpose of protecting the sole from sharp 
rocks, after I get home I cut the pads out to keep the sole tough. Ride 
time about 3 hours I think

3rd loop was 14 miles back to camp--rode out with Ruth Anne,  Nicki and 
Mary had a 13 minute lead on us, we went out with no intentions of 
trying hard to catch them but did three quarters of the way through.  
The pack of 6 that we pulsed around were all walking out of camp and we 
trotted and never saw them again except for Wendy Mancini who caught us 
at a couple of water crossing where we were soaking our horses down, 
halfway through this loop at about 1/2 way I started my glycogen 
supplementation at one of the river crossings after Sonny drank really 
well.  I tried mixing elytes in with it and will continue to do 
that--simpler to carry less bottles and easy to dose. We finished this 
loop with Mary and Nicki and this was the only time I was concerned 
about the 10 minutes it took us to pulse but felt better because 
everybody else took 8-9 minutes also.  Out on trail it was quite 
pleasant, rarely were we in full sun but camp was in a brutal full sun 
with a faint breeze every now and again and very muggy. Sonny really 
chowed down on this loop and we were set to head out on another 15 mile 
loop to our 2nd away vet check.

4th loop was interesting--quickly caught Ruth Anne who wanted to do her 
own thing this loop and not get Razz too hot(funnily enough she was 
always just 2 minute behind us) and caught Nicki with in 5 minutes and 
rode with her,  I was not trying to catch her but Sonny was perky and 
bright so we cruised along, stopped at a grassy field and let them grab 
some grass, we both got excited when we saw a water trough at a 4 way 
intersection and completely missed the turn ribbons right before it. So, 
we continued straight on the trail that was marked for our return from 
the check for about a mile and 1/2--went "gee, what happened to our 
pink/black ribbons?"  Consulted the map and decided we needed to turn 
around, went trotting back and ran into Ruth Anne who had done the same 
thing.  Back at the trough we see the turn ribbons right where they were 
supposed to be and Ruth Anne waited there while we jogged on down the 
trail.  While we were mis-placed Mary took the correct trail and we 
caught her.  We stopped again at a nice creek about a mile from the vet 
check.  I know it was about a mile because while crewing for friends on 
Friday they mentioned the nice cool water  because the water truck that 
filled all the troughs had warm water and they said they wished they had 
stayed longer to sponge.  So--I actually sponged off of Sonny's back for 
the first time in a year and 1/2(whole 'nother story for another time) 
for a solid 5 minutes, really trying to keep them cool.  Started out and 
Sonny wanted to walk when Nicki and Mary started trotting, so we walked 
along(nice fast walk) and came to a intersection, there was no 
confidence marker after the turn but I was pretty sure this was the 
right way because of the forest service sign that was out there at the 
crossroads.  We are still walking along when the most prettiest ever 
horse popped over the hill coming towards us,  It was a liver chestnut 
almost hershey bar colored with a flaxen mane and tail so thick it hung 
to his elbows, split on both sides, forelock tucked into the browband 
and flowing in the breeze he created while gaiting along--a movie star 
type picture--mane flowing/blowing all over the place---tail dragging 
the ground and enough hair for 4 horses all flowing around like somebody 
had a jet engine blowing in his face.  Well, Sonny took one look at that 
beautiful picture and thought it was a dragon coming to eat him, he sat 
down on his haunches and was reversed and running back down the trail 
quicker than you can say "scat".  I yanked him back around and sat there 
on a 18.5 hand quivering mass of Arabian horse flesh while the cowboy 
had a good chuckle.  This really perked him up and he took off doing his 
big 12 m/hr trot and we ran into Nicki and Mary coming back at us, 
double damn.  They were very sure we were going wrong again---I wasn't 
so sure so I turned my now deflated 15.1 hand horse around and walked 
after them as they trotted out of sight.  Sure enough they come trotting 
back at us again and we continued on to the vet check,  Dana Kemmerer 
was walking down the trail looking for us(Ashley, her sister, was behind 
us) because even the vets were getting concerned that we hadn't shown up 
yet.  She made us feel real good when she said the vet check was just a 
5 minute human walk up the hill.  I opted to walk in and it paid off 
when I pulsed in first in 3 minutes.  This was our last 40 minute hold.  
Just 12 miles back to camp and 2 short 10 mile loops with 2 twenty 
minute holds.

5th loop, left out walking to wait on Nicki and Ruth Anne and when we 
started trotting Nicki's horse was very slightly off so she turned 
around to get a trailer ride back to camp.  This was a short uneventful 
12 miles, we stopped at the water trough and soaked them down good and 
just cruised into camp,  we never saw Mary again on trail.

Short 20 minute hold and we were back on trail for 10.6 miles in the 
full dark at 8:30, no moon and it was very dark in the woods and the 
whole loop was---in the woods. Perfectly placed glowsticks with orange 
and green on a turn and orange for caution places and green on trail. We 
continued to switch off leading and got around it in about an hour and 
20 minutes, one place Razz and Sonny both tripped, in hindsight it must 
of been one of those flat slick rocks you have on the trail at BSF but 
right then we both thought it was either erosion material or a concrete 
block!! 91 miles down and only 9.6 plus a 1 mile walk from the finish 
line!!!

Another 20 minute hold and off we went really feeling good about how 
perky and willing to move out our horses were, we caught lap traffic in 
Jonie Brucker and were doing great until Sonny caught his toe on 
something and almost completely wiped out, crawled on his knees and 
somehow managed to stay upright.  Scared the snot out of me, to go that 
far and risk my awesome horse's soundness over something that was out of 
our control.  Anyhow--we walked for a couple of minutes and when Sonny 
said he was ready we took of trotting again and thank goodness he was 
still sound.  We finished about 11:30 and Ruth Anne and I tied for first 
out of 24 or 25 starters, I think the 3rd place horse was 40 minutes or 
so behind us.  Ride time of 14 hours and change.  A very challenging 
ride but also very very doable.

They had the BC judging Sunday morning at 8am which I think is a 
fabulous idea, it really sorts out the horses that might be stiff or 
sore the next day and gives more people who might be interested the 
opportunity to watch the judging instead of having to stay up all night. 
Ruth Anne and Razz won BC, Joni Buttram's Cash Pony had high vet score 
and I will just say that little snot was dragging Jodi Buttram all over 
the place and really looking like he hadn't done anything or gone 
anywhere on Saturday. HE LOOKED FANTASTIC!! Sonny got 2nd in BC and 
deservedly so, he took a few lame step on his trot out due to the better 
than half dollar sized owie he had on his right front ankle from 'bout 
falling down.  

Kudos to management and all the volunteers--fabulous job, if you are 
within decent driving distance or from across the country you need to 
save that weekend on your calender for next year!!!

Happy Trails
Lynn and Sonny(3 for 3 on 100s this year)

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