Red Pony Farm: A journey in motion

Pine Tree 30 / 50 / 100

Temps were in the low 60's. Visible mist fell most of the day. Standing around helping the timer I was chilly often. A huge change from Friday, when it was 80 degrees with 70 % humidity all day!

The timer has the official clock and has to write the time of entry into each hold* on every riders card, then record every riders entry time on a form. Once the rider is in at the hold they receive an official Pulse time.

Pulse time is the time recorded when the horses pulse rate reaches at rate below 60 beats per minute. The hold time (30 - 45 minutes depending on the hold and distance being run) is measured from the pulse time rather than the time of entry into the hold.  This also has to be recorded on the form, along with the release time for each rider and finally the actual time that rider left (to aid in keeping track of riders who may become excessively overdue at the next hold).

It can get confusing for the timer when there are riders coming in to a particular hold from all three races, many of them in race mode and all wanting to get their official pulse time ASAP.

Then in the midst of riders coming in there are always riders who are waiting to be released after the Vet has cleared them to continue. The timer has to check the official time on the form and then yell, " Number xx , good to go!" " Have a safe ride." And record the actual time out.

Some riders will take more than their 30 or 45 minutes for a variety of reasons and leave well after their official release time. It is too easy to lose track of those riders actual time out if your not really focused.

It can get chaotic. But, I enjoy the challenge, and always get caught up in the excitement.

It is important to understand that tones of voice in these circumstances do not necessarily reflect an intended annoyance. I never take it personally and am just as eager to get riders on their way as they are to be on their way. To me it is an exciting and fun atmosphere. I remember a woman who trained me once saying that to do that part of the 'job' well one needed to be a cold hearted bitch and not let the abuse get to you. I have never seen it as abuse. It has never felt like abuse. And I always find that a smile and an acknowledgment along with the visible proof that I am working as quickly as possible, makes it all OK.

I love volunteering. I have a blast. 

I didn't get to this ride until 8:30 ish and we had to get back by 7:00 so I didn't see the 100 milers come in. I was just sort of a helper, which was fine, but I missed a lot.

It seems like every time I volunteer for a ride rather than crew it somehow removes me from the action on the ride itself. I get so wrapped up in the task at hand I lose focus on the ride details! My tiny little brain can't stretch that far. And having to leave so early I didn't have time to take notes.

The next ride is The Vermont 50 / 75 / 100 Endurance Ride July 19, where I will be crewing for a rider, then the Fryeburg 25 / 50 Competitive Trail Ride July 26-27, where I will be volunteering for the ride manager from set up to clean up.

Perhaps I'll do a post on the differences between endurance and competitive trail.

Time to kick off the New England ride season!

Pine Tree 30 / 50 / 100 mile ride is this Saturday:

Quoted from Ride Details:

"The ride is run out of the James and Caron Long farm on the McIntire Road. Last year, we ran it here and the quiet road and gracious hosts gave us a wonderful weekend. James and Caron had as good a time as we did. There are no hook ups.

Maps and directions will be provided for the riders and the pit crews. There will be 1 or 2 places to meet your rider on every loop. The trails have some moderate hills, and consist of dirt roads, trails, pipelines, and a couple of miles of tar road or shoulder."

More Ride details

I  will be working the ride and not riding. My first choice transportation is uncommitted at the moment as she so far behind on her farming chores due to inclement weather. But I have a plan to get there one way or another.

I also received an e-mail from Patti Pizzo, she is competing at the Vermont 100 Moonlight Ride again this year. She was second last year on her horse Hot Spot, And I had the honor of crewing for her. I will be crewing for her again this year July 19th.

There will be pictures and better stories this year.

Conditioning for Endurance

AERC President Mike Maul wrote a short piece in the latest Endurance News on lessons learned in conditioning horses for endurance. You can see it at the link provided. His words of wisdom: "It's easy to over condition  . . . (and)  . . . save the downhill trots for compitition . . . there are a finite number of them in every horse."

Maine Equistrian Trails Alliance

           

               

                     Bridge Materials Grant Program

                The Bridge Materials Grant program is designed to foster mutual benefits for the grantors    (equestrians), and grantees (clubs or organizations including but not limited to Snowmobile, ATV,          and Land Trusts).

The benefits to the equestrian community are twofold

1. Written permission to use all trails associated with the bridge location.

2. A guarantee that the bridge is safe for use by equestrians. You may already be using trails managed by other groups that have bridges of questionable quality.

The benefits to trail managers are also twofold

1. Any new resource available to a trail manager allows existing funds to be shifted to other needs.

2. With the inclusion of equestrians in their trail planning and annual land use consent documentation a trail manager would have a new source of volunteers to assist with trail construction and maintenance.

  We will be purchasing bridge materials in bulk. The funding will come from grants, fund raisers, philanthropic, and corporate support. And, most importantly, $20.00 from every

META

membership will be dedicated to the bridge material grant program. Management of this program will be handled by a sub committee of Maine Equestrian Trails Alliance.

     The materials available will consist of 8x8 bridge stringers, and 3x6 decking. All materials would be treated to 4 atmospheres of pressure. The life span of a bridge will be 20 years. Bridge stringers could be produced up to 30ft. By ordering 12ft. 3x6 bridge widths could be either 6ft. or 12ft. Railings would be constructed from 3x6 where needed. (see drawings)

     A $5000 tractor trailer load of material, will produce approximately 350f.t of 6ft. wide bridge. To have 3 or 4 distribution sites statewide with a full truckload at each site would give us the ability to handle close to 1000ft of bridge per year.

     If a 10ft bridge opens up ten miles of trail the investment will be well worth our while. Many trail management clubs have large volumes that would be available to us in there entirety. We would be replacing existing bridges as the need arose thereby spreading out our investment in a shared use trail system over time. 

(As of this printing, the first load of lumber has been sawn and is ready for shipping to the pressure treating processor. We now need new memberships to help pay for the cost of this treatment)

            Scott Hatch V.P.

META

         

I have a New Goal

I need to be this fit.

Karen over at Endurance Musings posted pictures from the first day of the Eastern Mojave ride. This is a picture of Dave Rabe picking p someones dropped whip from his horse Thunder. I looked sort of like this a couple of weeks ago when I came off Lucy upside down. I had on my Kerrits Sit Tight and Warm so when I came down (after her leap and spin) on my inner knee rather then my but, the very sticky material grabbed the saddle while my too weak and top heavy body less than gracefully flopped to the wet ground. I will not be happy (never mind safe) till I am this fit!

United Arab Emirates President Cup

Malaysia's King, HM Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin finished (the 160 km or 99.4 mile ride)with a ride time of 10:26 to be the first Malaysian to fully qualify for the 2008 World Endurance Championship!

Image and news taken from Endurance.net

Check out the dozens of photos of the ride they have posted, along with detailed reports by our own Kathy Brunjes, Steph Teeter. Kathy rode Theatric, John Crandell rode HH Saba Shams, Stephen Rojek rode Savvy. None of the US riders were to finish the ride this time. Big disappointment after Malaysia went so well! Read Kathy's Retrospect.

I just this past week registered as an Endurance volunteer for the FEI 2010 World Equestrian Games. The games will be held at Kentucky Horse Park. 2010 is my 15th year at IDEXX Labs. Inc. and I will get my second personal growth leave, one month off paid, besides my regular vacation time. Yippee!

A Bin Laden Promoting Peace-Most Excellent

Karen over at EasyBoot posted this: Bin Laden Son Wants to Be Peace Activist - by doing a 3000 mile endurance ride. It's very interesting. Take a minute and check it out.

Feed myself as carefully as I do my horse?

(Excuse please the cut and paste mess this turned into--they are ignoring my attempt at added spacing! and I am out of time.)

Endurance News magazine this month has a lot of good stuff, but it has one thing in particular that excited me. A new book describing a method of feeding myself that could result in there being less of me to feed! It's called "Riding For Life" and is written by Rallie McAllister, MD an avid rider herself. Signed copy's will be available at the AERC 2008 Convention in Reno in February. There is more about the importance of our own fitness for riding as well as information on feeding ourselves like athletes. I will tell you more once I have scored a copy and read it. But here is the basic method for a balanced human feeding plan. Ralie mentions the fact that we often so carefully scrutinize everything we feed our horses in competition while paying little attention to our own food consumption.

Theory:

Feed only the pounds you want to keep (a balanced diet) and the remainder will fade away.

Formula:

Goal Weight multiplied by 11 (for women, 12-14 men) = daily calories

Based on 50% Carbs, 30% Protein, 20% fat balance

Daily calories multiplied by .5 = carb calories

then carb calories divided by 4 (# of calories per gram of carbs) = grams of Carbs each day.

Multiply daily calories by .3 to get total Protein calories.

Divide protein calories by 4 (# of calories per gram of Protein) = Daily Grams of Protein

Multiply daily calories by .2 to get Fat calories.

Divide fat calories by 9 (#of calories per gram of fat) = Daily Grams of Fat

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For me it works out thus:

146 * 11 = 1606

1606 * .5 = 803

     803 / 4 = 200.75 grams of carbs

1606 * .3 = 481.8

     482 / 4 = 120.45 grams of Protein

1606 * .2 = 321.2

     321 / 9 = 35.7 grams of fat

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I chose 146 pounds because it is the least I have weighed in the last 15 years

And I liked being at that weight visually and athletically

However, I was counting calories and not balancing carbs, protein, fat

So perhaps that contributed to how weak I would get during workouts (?)

I want to know if eating this way at 146 pounds “feels better”

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GOAL:     To Weigh 146 pounds   

Carbohydrates: 200

Protein:               120

Fat:                       36

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I'm giving it a try and I'll let you know how it goes. Oh dear I don't want to own up to how often I'll be using my dinner time grams of carbs on This Stuff.

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ALSO:  HELP TRAILS FUND and treat yourself to an inspiring read:

Quote from the side bar at AERC site:

"LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT AND A GREAT WAY TO HELP TRAILS?
Every sale of Julie Suhr's superb book, "Ten Feet Tall Still" brings $24.95 in donations to trails funds. Call the AERC office at 866-271-2372 to order your copy. The total price of $29.95 includes tax and shipping. Thanks to Julie and thanks to all who purchase the book!!"

Riding in the Clouds

Monday, Karen over at the Easycare Blog Posted some amazing pictures of riding in the Seria's. I love riding in the winter! I would just be beyond happy to ride thses trails! Karen and her Arabian Chief are such an inspiration to me. I am planning on keeping My Lucy barefoot. I can't wait to have some extra money for these new snow treads Chief and Tigger are sporting in these pictures.

Karen has also added some links to great articles on the care and conditioning of horses in Endurance this week.

The Sultan's cup

Maine: Local woman takes 5th place in the Sultan's Cup in Malaysia. Here is a partial list of the results:

#	Time	km/hr		Rider
1	138	10:31:50	14.86	UAE	Naser Marzouqi	Hafiza Du Mas
2	132(1)	10:33:27	14.82	FRA	Jack Begaud	Idais Tohiba
4	140	10:39:07	14.69	UAE	Khalid Al Shafar	Supreme Dream
3	123(1)	10:39:08	14.69	BRA	Maria Vitoria Liberal Lins	Filoteu Rach
5	125(1)	11:02:05	14.18	USA	Katherine Jeanne Brunjes	Theatric
6	126(1)	11:02:06	14.18	USA	John Osborne Crandell III	Heraldic

Here is a picture of Kathy and Theartic from this Summer at the Scribners Mill Ride:

A fabulous rider, horsewoman, Kathy is a very pleasant person with a ready smile and always willing to answer a newbies question. It's always an honor to volunteer at a ride where she is competing, or as in the case of the Scribners Mill ride just out for a training ride.