I've got pretty meticulous records of my 2010-2012 ride statistics - in 2010 and 2011, I GPS'd 95% of my saddle time. (I'm truly, deeply impressed by the Distance Derby year-end totals!) But then I kinda quit caring enough to take the Garmin every ride, and the Garmin (a truly ancient 205) started to lose battery life, and I just quit tracking miles. I haven't even brought the Garmin to my last couple of endurance rides!
This year I got a big desk calendar and hung it in the bedroom. (There wasn't anything else on that particular wall, and I like to wake up, sit up, see the calendar, and have a panic attack about my next ride in X weeks.) I marked off all the rides I might do, and when I committed to one I'd do a weekly countdown (the better to have early-morning hysterics - my husband is not the world's biggest fan of the Bedroom Calendar idea). And since it was there, I started writing down rides again.
This month, I remembered to snap a picture. Here's all the work I did with Dixie in December. You should be able to click to embiggen it.
As always: I'm not a very experienced rider, on an off-breed mare, bringing up the rear of the pack. I'm not saying this kind of conditioning schedule will work for you - lots of people ride more miles than I do, some people ride fewer. But here's what I rode in December (we did a lot of jogging together, but I didn't mark much of it down.)
Thanks for the shout out about the Derby!
ReplyDeleteI kind of obsess about GPSing the rides - probably to the extreme. I've kept a spreadsheet of hours in the saddle since 2004. Then started adding miles to it when I got my first GPS. My miles were down this year mainly because I didn't ride in the spring like I normally would. And I just didn't feel like pushing myself like I did the year before. Now that we are competing more, those early spring condition rides are more important to me.
I finished 8 in the first year Derby. I'll finish 25 this year.
Wow, ten years of riding data is really cool!
Deletemmm...me thinketh I should post the same thing about my riding/running.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused... how much of that is you running and how much of that is riding?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I too was so good about tracking my miles during the derby and then I just fell off the tracking bandwagon. There may have been some major injuries in the time since but now that we're back to riding its more of a balance between time we have available to ride and how she's moving. On good days we do 12-15 miles slow to moderate miles or 8-10 fast miles. On worse days we do 5-7 miles slowly or 2-3 faster miles. I believe she could do a moderate to slow 25 right now safely and I am trying to debate if I try for a 50 in March or do another 25. I know the terrain and with deep sand I'm thinking shorter is better.
The entries that say E are me running; the ones that say D or just some mileage is me riding her.
DeleteWe just don't do that kind of mileage, and I feel guilty admitting it, but there it is! But Rose is much more competitive than Dixie, and what you're doing works for you guys :)
Rose also is having to relearn pony zen. She has forgotten how to calm down and listen to her rider. Competitive pony does not always equal smart for distance pony.
DeleteI love it. I used to keep a little paperback diary in one of my saddle bags and track heart rates and recoveries and how long I rode and where. One day I dropped it and it was gone. Until a few weeks later when an ancient cowboy friend, Ross, gave it back to me. He said that some friends of his found it on the trail and had almost given up on identifying whose it was until they saw "ride with ross" on one date. I was overwhelmed: )
ReplyDeleteWhen I started doing endurance I rode with a lady named Cheryl C out in Fall City. She also lived in Seattle and kept her horses on the eastside. I looked up to her a lot. At the end of one of our rides she looked at her watch and said, "Well, that's good, we hit our 3 hour mark." I learned that her definition of a good training ride was to hit or pass 3 hours (out in the foothills where it's mostly climbing/descending).
As you know I'm still at the point with my new horse that I feel good if I even am making forward progress with her, while mounted and not towing her along. It is just killing me that I can't just get on and ride her anywhere, but only in places she's less likely to have a meltdown. The day I really start riding her, I'll be back to wearing halfchaps. Right now we go so slow I don't even need them. Pathetic. Honestly it bothers me every single day that I'm not actually doing endurance, that I'm spinning my wheels here. Thinking of you and Aarene's beginnings with your mares really helps. Please keep reminding me.
Duuuude, my whole first year of GPS'd riding with Dixie is nothing but tiny slow rides, and they were all fights and tears and spooking. In January 2010 I rode 66 miles over the whole month, and my average speed was 3.1 mph. I thought I'd never get that damn horse to trot for a mile straight, much less get her through an LD!
DeleteConditioning mileage is something I’d expected to have a better handle on after our first season and instead I find myself more confused than ever. I simultaneously believe that people are accurately reporting their experiences with rest and riding less, and that I do want to put on more quality conditioning miles in advance of the 2014 season. I think it’s starting to resolve in my head with “quality” being the key word; now that I’m over my schooling burnout, I’m going to try a more varied program and see how that serves us.
ReplyDeleteWhat was important to me as a first-year distance rider was not so much “here is how you should condition in great detail” as “here is how you test whether you’re ready for X.” I found (and find!) other people’s programs interesting, but I’ve never found it all that challenging to build a program from scratch; my brain does that anyway, and eventing was a useful training ground. What I really wanted was a way to test, once a month or so, whether that program was working as intended – so the rides themselves, once we got there, and a few other little guidelines that I found along the way.
I love this kind of post because it just gives me an idea, you know? "How far is far? How short is short? How slow is slow? How fast is fast? What pace? What mileage?" Being a clueless noob at this sport is frustrating because these answers are so different for each person regardless of horse and experience. I especially like seeing what others with non-Arabs are doing, owning a non-Arab myself. I ended up buying the Endurance 101 book which has been a big help, but had to laugh when Aarene writes out all of these questions and then gives the ubiquitous endurance answer: "It varies." I'm still trying to figure out exactly how much trot we would need to add to be able to complete an LD at minimum pace (this is my one goal: just complete an LD with a happy horse at slowest turtle speed if we need to)...And of course my own answer to this question is, "It varies!!" Haha... So yeah: we're in that "tracking everything" phase. Even when within the confines of the arena! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your training calendar!
Thanks for shading! I like the calendar idea. Visuals are always great. I've been logging my stuff on evernote on my phone since it's always with me. I think a calendar like this is even better though. Hmmmm
ReplyDelete