Can you put yourself in someones shoes, or boots as the case may be?

Lately I've been thinking that in order to be able to truly help someone else out we have to be able to understand where they are coming from. Sometimes I think that can be a little harder than it might seem at first. Here's an example of my own.

I've always been a fairly fit person. I grew up in a very active family and in college fell in love with working out. I know I'm crazy. Because of this I had a hard time understanding some of the people who would come to my water fitness class that I used to teach at the Y. They would tell me how hard things were for them, things that I hardly felt at all and I just couldn't fathom how that could possibly be so hard. That all changed after I had a C-section. I came back to class after all my abdominal muscles had been cut and for the first time in my life struggled with all those basic moves. I was amazed! It was REALLY hard and before I just couldn't imagine how under any circumstances that could be so hard.

I think at some level we can only truly relate to things that are only a few degrees of separation away from something we have experienced ourselves. So why have I been thinking about this?

As I listened to the panel of experts answer questions at the Pacific Northwest Endurance Riders Conference this last weekend (which was great by the way) it occurred to me that for a lot of these people they probably can't grasp where the average newbie is coming from. Think about it for a minute... Those people posses a lot of things that they have most likely come to take for granted; incredible fitness on their part, who know how many years on the saddle on countless numbers of horses, very athletic horses, a great knowledge of the sport, a great knowledge of horses and riding in general and I think you get the idea of just how long that list can be. By no fault of their own some of the giants in our sport probably can't fathom what it would be like to only know how to ride a little bit, to have a very average horse, to have less than stellar personal fitness, very limited time and funds and no idea what beet pulp is.

So where am I going with this. A couple places.

First of all, for the love of all that’s good please be nice to new people and do your best to understand where they are coming from. If you can't fathom where they are coming from try to think of someone who might be able relate to them a little better.

I came into this sport with 20 + years of horse experience, having ridden over 100 different horses (due to helping out on cattle ranches and working at camp), a fairly decent level of personal fitness, experience with horse camping and wilderness riding. All those things gave me a huge leg up, but I don't think I'm your average newbie. Now that I've been in the sport a few years I can really understand and get a lot out of advice from the Summer's and the like. But for some new people they might get more out of some advice from someone who's a little bit closer to where they are at. Someone who's figured out some of the basics but isn't so far up the totem pole that they really can't relate.

So how does all this philosophical banter relate to each of us?

If you have been in the sport for even a few years you probably have plenty of knowledge to help someone who is trying to fathom how to get themselves and their horse fit enough to go 25 miles. You may not know it all but you can also help them with the basics and point them in them right direction for things you don't know. In ways your advice may be the best because you might be better able to understand where they are coming from and help them without overwhelming them :)

If you are a newbie don't be afraid to ask questions of those who have been in this sport for 100 years but also maybe seek some advice from people who have only been at it for a few years but seem to have grasped the ropes pretty quickly.

We all have something to share and we all have something to learn (weather you think you do or not). So let's all be nice to each other, learn from each other and we'll be better off for it!

I will now get down from my soapbox :)

Conditioning: You probably don't have it all, so what, get creative!

Just after Tevis in 2012 I read something Kevin Myers wrote about getting ready for Tevis. It was a great little article that talked about feed, conditioning, electrolytes etc... Very inspiring and informative! But then the little voice in your head says, “Well if I could blow off my responsibility and spend my summer riding with the Reynolds and the rest of my time conditioning in the mountains at 12,000 feet elevation, well my horse would be pretty fit too!”

True! But since I can't really do those things I have a choice, moan and grown about my lack of transportation, free time, great spots to ride etc... or get creative. I choose the later. Here's a few things that have worked well for me. Maybe something will get you thinking about ways you can put a little more thought and creativity into your conditioning routine. I promise you the results are worth it.

Before we get too far into the creative part lets talk briefly about the basics.

Putting in the miles. Hopefully by now you've realized that there is no shortcut to a good foundation. Each horse is different and there are a lot of variables to consider, but the fact remains that you have to put in a certain number of miles to have a horse fit to go the distance. But what then...

The end of the summer of 2012 Bunny and I had kind of plateaued. Bunny and I were riding on average about 30 + miles a week at a good pace, honestly about the fastest pace that I felt was safe given that most of our miles are ridden on the shoulder of country roads. Now it was tempting to think of how nice it would be to have a mountain out back of my house and while I'm dreaming how about a great covered arena and flat track off to the other side but since that's not going to happen any time soon... what next.

Luckily I read Dennis Summers book 'The Fourth Gear', Excellent book, and became inspired. If you feel like you've got the basics pretty well covered but would like to progress to the next level, that's where to go. I've read and re-read it and have seen the results at work!

So I started by deciding on the kind of rides I wanted to include in my conditioning plan and then got creative on how and where to do them.

Depletion rides. If you only add one new thing to your conditioning strategy I would suggest this one. The basic concept is that if we do a ride that is harder than our typical weekly ride, your horses body says “Sheesh, if that's what she's going to do to me I better get a little tougher”. And it does, the body makes changes to better handle the harder work load.

So you cleverly plan one of these ride just far enough out form your next endurance ride so that your horse has recovered from your depletion ride and is stronger from it just in time to really ride! Following Dennis's suggestion of rides about ½ the length of your ride you are planning for and about 2-3 weeks out. I ride my depletion rides a little faster than the pace you plan to ride at the actual event. As you track this you'll learn more about your horse and fine tune your plan to really fit your horse and your goals.

First on my calendar I put the endurance rides I plan to attend and then I put the depletion rides and start planning how I will do them to fit my goals for my endurance ride. If you always make a point to get these rides in, you will see a difference!

As you think about your depletion rides think about the miles you need to go, the kind of terrain you should include (depending on the ride you are preparing for) and the speed you plan to do it at. Planning a depletion ride this summer I ended up doing three little loops including a pit stop at home and going over my best stretch of hills three times. I was able to include more hills and stay on roads where I could keep a better average speed. Maybe not as exciting on the scenery as a nice 25 mile loop but it suited my purposes and my mare was in top condition three weeks later for a 5^th place finish at Old Selam.

Intervals. I'm sure this isn't a new concept to most of you. I remember in college taking a swimming fitness class. The first couple weeks was easy, then we started doing intervals. The basic idea is that you have a short period of time (relatively) that you work at a pace that you can't sustain forever (anaerobic) and then you recover at a slower pace and then do it again. There's a million different ways to do this. The first couple times I did intervals in the water I was sure I was going to drown, but pretty soon I was a lot stronger and faster.

Start coming up with ways to push your horse and then recover. Here's a couple things I have done with my limited resources.

Hill intervals. Who says you have to have a great trail with lots of hills? Find one good one or just the best you have and use it, it's better than nothing. As I ride I'm always on the lookout for a good hill. Warm up for a while and then hit the hill with a good head of steam, turn back around and trot or walk back down it at whatever pace you think works well for your horse to recover a bit and then turn right back around and do it again.

One winter I wanted to have my gelding Quincy more fit for Home on the Range in March. I could really only get in longer rides on the weekend with the limited daylight hours, so one night a week we road up and down my driveway in the dark. My driveway is 550 feet of hill. Not glamorous but it made a big difference!

Speed intervals. Again I don't have miles and miles of wonderful trail to use for speed work but I have a mile here and a mile there. So I plan a ride where I ride to one of those places, do some speed intervals and then ride back. You don't have to go some crazy speed just fast a pace that puts them in anaerobic work and then a break. I like to do longer intervals with not quite so much speed. I'm not one for just careening around the place.

Steady state rides. This is a brilliant idea of Dennis's that my mare loves! Basically you work your horse for a relatively short period of time ( I started with 20 minutes, plus warm up and cool down) keeping them at that point right between aerobic an anaerobic exercise. It's the point where they can sustain working at that speed but just barely, if they went a touch faster they couldn't keep it up for a sustained period of time. My horse loves this! I've used a heart rate monitor to help fine tune and keep us right at that point. Again we don't have miles and miles of great places to do this so we do laps or go back and forth in the couple decent spots we have.

Don't overdo your 'taxing' rides (rides where you are pushing your horse above and beyond what he's used to). Be smart about when you do them and make sure to give your horse rest before and after a big effort.

When you can get rides to great locations to condition think about how to best use that in your schedule and make the most of it!

As you start to think about this season set some goals for yourself and then think about the kind of conditioning you need to include to get there. If your not a master at figuring out a conditioning plan ask for some help.

I think it's a good idea to look for an experienced rider who rides the way you ride, or want to ride. You will get advice that's better suited for your style of riding. For instance if you like taking it easy, asking for conditioning advice from a hot rod isn't going to suit you well. Also keep in mind that the same kind of rider won't always average the same kinds of speeds, depending on the kind of horse they ride. For instance my last season riding my gelding Quincy we rode two LD's at a fairly aggressively. The next year I rode my mare Bunny on those same two LD's at a more relaxed pace for her but her times were faster than Quincy's. She's geared different. Learn to look past the overall time or placing and look at how someone actually rides. Someone with a great track record of riding the way you want to ride will most likely have some great advice for you.

Make some plans! Even if they don't work out perfectly or need to be revised it will most likely end up serving you better than flying by the seat of your pants. Have fun and ride safe.

Maybe I'll see you on the trail this season!

Bunny and I last summer on a great conditioning ride. 

A friend and I hauled out to a great spot with 6 miles of continual climbing, 

well placed in our conditioning schedule it made a big difference! 

Picture by Shana Bobbitt

No relolutions, just goals

Around this time of year people start talking about new years resolutions. I've never really put much stock in it since I'm too busy setting goals year round so by the time the new year roles around there's not much left to do.

This seemed like a good time to share some of my goals though. I do think it's helpful to set goals. It gives us purpose and helps us to take stock of where we've been and where we want to go.

So without further adieu...

I want to regain full mobility and strength in my foot. About two weeks after I hurt my foot the swelling went down and the pain subsided enough that I could start to use it again. I was shocked at how quickly the joints in my big toe and connecting me big toe to the ball of my foot, had locked up. My PT friend says that's normal and it will come back, with lots of work. My balance on that leg is shot and my calf muscle shrunk, a lot. So I'm in the lots of work stage. It's helped me appreciate the health, strength and mobility I tend to take for granted.

Continue to learn more about the fine points of endurance and dressage. If you know me you know that I'm always striving to learn more, do things better, ride better, improve my horses etc... It's a never ending quest. That's part of what makes it fun. I've got a couple new books from Christmas, one dressage book and one endurance and I'm sure that won't be all. I'm also building a small network of endurance buddies and mentors who I can ask questions. In the past I've often hesitated to ask questions because I don't want to look foolish. I want to have my act together before I opened up to people, now I'm trying to just be brave and ask!

Improve Bunny's canter. Bunny can canter but it's not her strong suit, stands to reason since she spent so many years of her life not using it at all. I hesitate to work her in it a lot because I don't have a really great place to do it and to be honest she's really fast and that can be a bit scary in the wrong environment. I want her to develop her canter for a lot of reasons but the chief one being that I think that if I address some of the underlying issues as to why she's week in the canter ( she falls on her forehand and has a hard time collecting) that it will benefit her in all her gaits. So the quest continues and my husband is going to make me a set of cavaletti's to add to my set of tools.

Find out how Bunny and I feel about longer distances. I've always loved a challenge and I think that is part of why I fell in love with endurance riding. I'm really looking forward to completing a 75 and seeing how Bunny and I feel about that. I'm also starting to think about a 100 mile ride but one step at a time. I'm looking forward to finding out more about myself and my horse. Finding our true strengths and strategizing about how to put those strengths to the best of use. I love that this sport is pushing me to be more fit and want to challenge myself.

Improve my riding down hill skills. My new saddle, well new last Christmas, has some really great thigh blocks that I love. They allow me, when needed, to brace and have the upper body strength I need to remind my horse of her manners from time to time, particularly going down hills when she sees a dust trail. Somehow along the way this last season, however, I got in the bad habit of locking my legs a bit going down hill and it takes it's toll on my shins. I'm sure my horse doesn't love it either. So now I'm working getting back to gliding down hills.

Not be afraid to pass. Keep this on the down low :) And before you start leaving me lots of comments about not becoming one of those RACE people let me explain. This last season I had a ride where I kept catching a particular rider. I thought they would be going faster than me so I let them go. I was having a great ride and just wanted to ride by myself and continue my great ride. To my great surprise I caught them several more times and let them go several more times. I was riding a mountain ride, it was getting hot, I was riding faster than I had before on a 50 and although I was 99.9% sure my horse was going to finish in great shape, I wanted to see all those A's on my final vet check before getting to crazy. But later I had this thought. By nature I'm pretty cautious and it serves me well. But sometime the case may be that I'm a good rider, with a great horse and we are well prepared and sometime I might decide to pass that 'person' and see what happens. It just may be that they take one look at me and say, “Wow, look at that horses stride. I'm going to let them go.” If they don't and they chase me, I can always let them go again. If I'm working within my limits and my horses limits there is nothing wrong with going for it now and then, so long as I keep a level head and use some common sense.

Finding the perfect balance, or as close as is humanly possible. I'm always trying to find the right balance in my life. The bottom line is I don't have enough time. I work to find a good balance between time spent with God, my husband, kids, family, friends, horse, exercise, work and well you get the idea. The bottom line is I'm blessed, big time! I'm planning on continuing to work to find the right balance and in the meantime enjoy every minute of whatever it is I'm doing.

Speaking of balance in my life, my kids are in here complaining about me being on the computer so I'm that's it for now.

I hope you have a wonderful new year and work toward some great goals of your own.

Bunny is less than thrilled at my self portrait attempt.