Ride endurance, become a demonstrably better person

Yall, I am quite pleased with how well I've got my shit together lately, and I think it's all because of endurance.

I coasted through the first thirty years of my life, honestly. School was easy and I never had to try very hard, and it never actually caught up to me, even in law school. It's not like I did all that well, but I wasn't at the bottom of my class or anything, and I didn't have much follow-through. You know how it goes - at the beginning of the semester/year, you make grand plans and fill out a Dayrunner full of exactly what you need to do to pace yourself and fully comprehend all the material, but about three weeks in that all falls by the wayside until the week before finals, when you suddenly attempt to cram the whole semester's worth of education into your brain. If you're at all good at test-taking, it's not hard to pass, and it's honestly easier to cram than to diligently study a little every day.

And even when I first got into horses, I did the same careless stuff. Forget to check the weather and ride in the rain. Put off buying hay til you're down to your last couple flakes. Take the bridle home and oil it, then forget it at home and ride in a halter. You know, normal stuff.

Then I started going on longer rides, and thinking very deeply about the logistics of ridecamping, and my actions started having immediate consequences. Forget my water? I can ride three hours anyway and get miserably dehydrated, or scratch the ride (I was boarding at the time) and have to reschedule it. Wear the wrong clothes and suffer. Worry that my suffering was hurting my riding and therefore my horse.

And the sheer amount of planning was pretty daunting. It would've been an easier road if I had an Arab. It would've been an easier road if I had a trainer - but endurance trainers are few and far between, and one of the reasons I picked endurance was because you don't need a special horse or a trainer. How many miles had I done that week? When was my next rest day, when was my next long ride, when should those things happen? Do I need boots? A crupper? Electrolytes? Supplements? Riding clothes? I was the only person who could answer those questions.

At first I just made up the answers and guessed at the gear we'd need, but gradually, I started dialing it in to more accurate answers. My poor husband and my poor mentors suffered patiently through my figuring it out process, and I like to think that I've become much less annoying these days. ;)

When the training at home turned into trailering out and ridecamping, the stakes went up again. I was somewhat ready for it at that point, and to date I have not forgotten the horse, saddle, bridle, or water. (I think I've forgotten everything else at least once, but those are the really crucial elements.) I gradually figured out what needed to go on the lists, and how to pack and check off the lists, and how much time it took to do each of the bazillion discrete tasks you need to do to finish a ride.

And at some point, all these newfound organizational skills started to bleed over into normal life. Moving from Ohio to Nevada (pre-endurance) was very spur of the moment. We got it done, but it didn't go perfectly smoothly, and I didn't do some crucial tracking on some long-term elements (it took three weeks for my truck to ship, and four weeks for my horse to ship - the shippers screwed up, but I didn't follow up either!) Moving from the Reno apartment to our house (post-endurance) went much better. I got about 75% of our stuff packed in the three weeks before the move, much to my husband's consternation. (I don't think he really planned on living with a tower of boxes in the dining nook.) And now I'm getting ready to move again, and I am on the ball.

I've had a pretty good idea of my boarding options and price ranges for two months. I got all those barn tours done over the weekend. We have a plan for finding a house. The property manager came today, and I know what my next steps are there. I've got a couple of moving companies coming tomorrow to estimate the move. The house is show-quality clean, and it's been clean for three weeks. I know who I need to call and when I need to call them. I'm on it.

And again, I blame/credit this all to endurance. For one of my first rides, I just threw a bunch of shit in a duffel bag and went haring off to a ride, and when I came back the house was destroyed and there was no food and all the clothes were dirty and I was exhausted and it sucked. The next ride I did, I made sure I had some easy to cook food in the fridge and some clean clothes waiting (in the dryer) for when I got home, and life was much better. The ride after that, I actually folded all the clean laundry and I washed the sheets before I left, and it was heavenly. It was like some basic life lesson finally clicked: If you prepare properly ahead of time, things will magically be much better.

If you, too, would like to become a better person, I suggest that you take up some overwhelmingly complicated hobby, such as endurance riding. :)