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[RC] re: what is wrong with square one? - Michelle Aquilino"My personal desire to define endurance at 100 miles is because, it is obvious from the completion statistics, that that is the distance where it becomes difficult to achieve. ?Riding 50 miles in 12 hours is not difficult (if the statistics are to be believed) because routinely more than 90% of the people who try, succeed."I must interject here in my disagreement to the above statements.? Not to the facts, but to the connection between these statistics and the reasoning behind making endurance 100 miles, rather than 50+.? Just because 90%+ people are able to complete the task, does not mean that it did not take endurance to complete it.? I took (and passed) the first 4 actuarial exams, and I will say that even when the passing percentages were high, I would never claim that those who DID pass did not work hard to be able to pass, or that they did not have to work hard in order to successfully pass.? Also to consider... that endurance is not just the day of the ride, but the journey we take with our horses in order to bring about the highest likelihood of being able to succeed.? Maybe the higher percentages of success tell us that we are learning how to better prepare our horses for the ride and how to take better care of our horses?? Like someone else said (sorry, I forget the name), we don't need to raise the bar of what "endurance" is, in order for us to challenge ourselves.? Frankly, I also consider what makes me and my horse happy.? If she happens to tell me she is happy with 25s and does not enjoy the 50s, I'm going to do that, no matter what "endurance" is.? But if she enjoys the longer distances, then I'll persevere.? And even though at this moment, a 100 scares the daylights out of me, ha ha, I'm sure once I've done many 50s, I'll want to challenge myself with something more challenging. Though it is to be pointed out, that I am one of those people who tells people that we (my horse and I) do "endurance" even though she has only done 25s so far.? But when I am saying that, I am trying to put across an impression of the "type" of riding we do.? Oh well, don't need to get into that argument.? Actually, that got me thinking a little.? For me, I guess it is more a "type" of riding, a "style", rather than a certain distance.? But that is my own opinion, and it's likely to be very specific, ha ha.? I view endurance as riding a longer distance than you would otherwise do in a day (right now, I do 10-15 mile conditioning rides, so a 25 mile ride is endurance for us), at a pace of an average of a trot or faster.? But then I'm prejudiced, in that I don't think 50 mile horse/rider combinations doing a 25 mile ride at a flat out canter the whole time are riding endurance, they're like racing or something, ha ha.? I suppose part of my view of it, is pushing yourself beyond what you have done / accomplished before, and I don't feel like that example is doing so.? Once I do more regular 20 mile conditioning rides, then 50 mile rides will be endurance for us =) Anyway, that is that... -- "Don't breed or buy while shelter animals die"
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