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Injured reserve

Dixie has been on the IR list. I rode Wednesday, to vast (but not unexpected) amounts of drama, and she whacked her front right heel bulb pretty good. Discretion > valor and all that, so I elected to lay her off for a while. I think perhaps it's unnecessary.

Wednesday was a lovely day, so I went out to do some hills. Dixie was forward and moderately obedient going away from home, but as soon as we turned toward home (whether we were actually going home or not) she got really hot and wanted to zoom home as fast as possible. I was riding in the snaffle and part of me deeply regretted it, but mostly I realized it was a good teachable moment, and she can't just run through the snaffle. (And I do realize I bring this on myself, letting her canter home some of the time. I absolutely deserve the horse I ride.)

I let her make her mistakes - for HALF A MILE, every time she'd break above a walk I one rein stopped her, had her walk away from home, did circles, etc. It did no good at all. Finally we got back to this one road that goes up a hill for about a half a mile before it goes private. So we did hill sets. HARD hill sets.

We cantered (then racked, then halfass trotted) to the top of the hill. We turned and walked partway down, then she broke to a pace and wouldn't slow back to a walk, so I wheeled her dumb ass around and cantered her back up the hill. Rinse and repeat at least ten times. She's not the kind of horse who ever hunts the woah, but I tried. I got some really snappy canter departs, halts, walks up the hill toward the end of our fight, and I did, eventually, get her to walk home on a loose rein. It was a very snappy animated speedy running walk, but by god it was a four-beat head-nodding walk.

Anyway, in the midst of all the wheeling around, she slammed her right heel bulb with a back hoof and split it open. Not a bad injury, but I thought I should let it heal and watch her for a couple of days.

Thursday was trim day. We've been using the same absolutely amazing saint of a trimmer for nineteen months now, and Dixie has gone from being a horrible yanking falling-over stomping bitch to, finally, on Thursday, yawning a lot and nodding off. Must be time to leave, move to California, and find a new trimmer for her to yank stomp and be a bitch to, now that she's finally used to Jim. :)

In between horse stuff, I've been demolishing where the pool used to be and painting the Dr. Seuss room. The room is tan now; it just needs one more coat cutting in and it'll be finished. The pool area is almost transformed - I posted a "free" ad on CL and a guy should be coming tomorrow to get the materials I ripped off of the upper deck.

So here is a video of my poor injured pony. The heel is not swollen, not hot, and clearly not bothering her, so I think after the guy clears out the deck boards tomorrow I should ride her. A long way. A really long way.

What set this off? Banders, mighty hunter, snuck up on the chickens and they eventually noticed him and started squawking. Yes. Chickens squawking caused this fine display of wild mustang behavior.

Note: I'm trying out uploading the video straight to Blogger instead of posting it on Vimeo. Vimeo takes forever to process, so we'll see how awful the Blogger quality is...

An American Man takes a stand against the vicissitudes of time

Lo all these many years ago, way back in the early part of this century or perhaps the tail end of the last, there lived a man. He was a respectable man, with a house and a wife and a very small dog.* He went to his government job five days a week, and he collected junk the other two. He began to feel the cold tentacles of mortality wrapping silently around his body - he wasn't as spry as he used to be, and he'd put on some weight, and as it turns out he wasn't very smart or rich or satisfied with his family. This pressure built up inside him like a seething Chihuahua until finally he snapped.

"Wife!" he announced. "We shall install a pool for our (grand)children! Then everyone will know that we are respectable middle-class homeowners. We will stand beside it, holding hands and laughing, while our (grand)children splash merrily in it. Why, if only photographers for glossy homeowner magazines knew about us, our backyard would be published in Happy Backyard Families!"

The wife replied, "But we live in the desert, and you never finish what you start, and you're going to make me clean the damn pool."

"No, no," he said, "this time it will be perfect. And of course I'll clean it myself."

The wife grumbled and shook her head, but the man was not to be dissuaded. He bought a pool - not one of those fancy gunite pools, no, he was a modest civil servant, not some rich fat-cat. He bought an above-ground pool kit and installed it.

He consulted his hoarded lovingly stockpiled back issues of Pools Today and Deck the Yards and Practical Deckbuilding magazines. He planned out a nice circular split-level deck. Because this pool was his Stand Against Mortality and Decay and Everything Wrong With America Today, he spared (almost) no expense. He planned for a pier every five feet. He used 3" deck screws, not nails. He bought redwood 2x6's, plus some of that redwood stain wood sealer, so those private-plane fellows always zooming overhead would know that his deck was redwood.

His marriage fell apart. They probably fought over who had to clean the pool. The tiny dog vanished. His surefire guaranteed pension government job began to look less and less surefire. He got older, fatter, and greyer. It took seven years to sell the house - seven years of listening to his ex complain about the pool! But by god, the deck was there to stay. At least there was that.

...

And then I came along and ripped it out in two hours this afternoon. Our Hero didn't bother with treated joists. Oh, he bought the right joists - the whole deck sat on 4"x6" joists - but they weren't treated, and they weren't watersealed, and they were so rotted that the 3" screws yanked out as easily as nails.

Something about the combination of deck screws and untreated 4x6 joists really pissed me off. The stupid deck was built to last... except for that one huge corner he cut, skipping the treated joists. Did he think they'd never get wet? Beside a pool??

I'm all about building stuff that'll last exactly as long as you want it to. If you want a pool for your Norman Rockwell children to frolic in, great! But that stupid above-ground pool isn't going to last forever, so why overbuild the deck? Why the hell would you use screws? Just use nails!

*I found a very small dog collar under the deck. There is no other evidence of a dog of any size living here before us.

Well, I still think it *looks* pretty

I got Dixie out for a ride this morning. We did the short 6 mile loop around the sand pit. I wanted to take Cersei and have a fun ride, no deliberate training. Also, I put her back in the snaffle for the first time since, I think, February.

Speaking of bits, I bought my own curb! I'd been using DiJ's Myler curb, and I was very happy with it in general but wanted slightly shorter shanks. I think everybody feels guilty for not being "as good" as other individuals / disciplines, and I'm no exception - I feel guilty (among other reasons) for doing endurance with a bit. The hackamore/halter/bitless people are somewhat smug about how their horses are free to eat and drink on the trail. Oh well, Dixie and I are not the ideal team to go bitless, and she stuffs her face without seeming to care about the bit. Still, I noticed that the shanks whacked into water tanks. Yesterday I bought the same mouthpiece, same shanks, just 2" shorter shanks. I think I'll have about the same control and she'll be able to eat and drink a bit better.

Anyway, I'd rather ride in a snaffle. It was surprisingly cold and windy - the sun was shining and it looked like it was warmer than it was. We briskly headed out and when we hit the magic corner and turned for home I let her loose and we absolutely hauled ass coming home.

Dixie's not a fast horse - or at least I haven't had the nerve to let her go really fast. I need something like the Bonneville Salt Flats, some place perfectly smooth with good footing, cause I just get all wigged out about the tiny margin of error when you're really galloping. None of our trails are really smooth enough for my overactive imagination. Random boulders and ditches and wooped-out areas.

So we weren't going that fast, just 10-12 mph, but she went 10-12 mph for two solid miles and felt awesome doing it. She slowed down where I asked (going down into little gullies, coming up to trail intersections) and stayed balanced and solid the whole time. We passed some scary stuff - a lady getting into her SUV after letting her dog play in the hills, a big yellow road grader thing grading a private road, and lots of dirt bikes.

And because we were going pretty fast and it was pretty windy, her mane kept blowing all over the place and getting tangled in my hands. It's astonishing how distracting that is! I'm still not going to cut it. I guess I need to improve my braiding skills and learn to do a real fast running braid down her neck.

5.9 miles, 52 minutes, 6.7 mph. Next: I want to get her out early next week after work and do some deliberate hill work for an hour or so - maybe Tuesday, definitely Wednesday.

Needs riding!

So it's been raining, yuck! I woke up at 4 am Friday morning to a very strange sound and it took me a little while to figure it out - rain, on my roof! It rained off and on all day Friday and today. I should've sucked it up and rode, but (whine!) it was cold and my horse was exceptionally filthy from getting rained on and rolling in the sand. So instead I washed clothes and caught up on my shows. I am now up to date on Justified, Glee, and Doctor Who.

Dr. Who paragraph: OMG, the Who writers are consistently the best at coming up with utterly terrifying monsters. Rory has really grown on me and I am glad he appears to be a real Companion now, and I've always stubbornly liked River Song. Of course Amy's awesome, that goes without saying! I don't want to spoiler it for anyone who hasn't had a chance to see the new episode yet, but feel free to spoiler in the comments.

Justified: Why don't yall watch this show? It's amazing! The characters in it are fabulously three-dimensional. And some of them are really hot. And they talk right, i.e. like me. It's just really well written and acted.

Anyway, back to the Dixie horse. She is, more than ever, like a ball of controlled energy. She seems very alive and alert and focused on me. I can't describe it without sounding all gooshy and touchy-feely, but it is true: we have a deeper connection with each other.

I went out for an armful of wood around dusk and heard snorting and thundering hooves. I walked over to the fence and videoed her acting like an Arab. I think this clearly indicates that she needs to be ridden! I know you English people hate the long manes, but surely you have to admit it's utterly gorgeous at liberty.

Dixie needs riding from Funder on Vimeo.

After I ended that video, she came prancing around the corner of the run-in and started begging for carrots:

Dixie needs carrots from Funder on Vimeo.

I took pity on her and got her some carrots. After she ate them she licked my hand for a while

then hung out by the gate.

I think she is roaning out a little more every year. That little white spot on her jawbone is growing. Her sire is another roan paint, but he's SO roan he looks grey. It'd be pretty cool if she ended up like that.

Anyway, she was clearly giving off "scratch me" vibes so I scratched her neck for a bit and she licked my hand. Then I slipped inside the paddock and scratched her for about 15 minutes, all over, in places she's never wanted scratched before. Not just her crest and withers, but all down her neck and shoulder and up by her poll. She's been such a tough nut to crack, but there really is a sweetie under there. :)

White Horse Pilgrim asked why I avoid feeding grain. I think it's just something endurance riders take for granted, and non-endurance riders don't consider unless they have a problem with sugar-sensitive (feet or brain) horses. In between riding and cooking duck confit tomorrow, I'll see if I can't hack together a post about why I avoid grain.

Midweek update

I don't have a really coherent post yet, but I've got a few things.

I think it was Terry who asked about the new Camelbak liner. It's a Platypus. I poked around a couple parts of REI til I found it in the camping gear, and grabbed it and moved on to the powdered elytes. Because I didn't hunt down an associate and ask, I didn't realize that they have two styles - I got the "hoser," which you fill from the small nozzle where the hose screws on, instead of the "big zip" that has an opening at the top. I'd probably get the zip one instead, but I'm quite happy with the one I got. It didn't drip a bit, and it consistently delivered water til it was totally empty. A+++ would buy again.

My knees didn't hurt while I was riding. Last year I couldn't ride two hours without aching knees. Yeah, I took some Motrin at the ride, but not enough to make that much of a difference. Maybe my form has improved. I have a super minimalist efficient post now, really moving from my core and letting my feet barely weight the stirrups, and Dixie's trot and pace are both very smooth and unbouncy. But I suspect it's the almost complete lack of grain in my diet. The big Primal reason for avoiding grain is that it has a lot of inflammatory effects on the body, especially gluten. I ate quite a lot of carbs last weekend, but no gluten - Clif Builder bars and potatoes. This isn't a scientific result, but I thought it was interesting.

With that said, I'm still pretty puffy. I gained about 5 lbs by the time I bothered to get on a scale again, Sunday or Monday, and it's slowly coming off. I'm not surprised - it was a huge physical exertion, plus the sunburn. I feel fine though!

Miss Thing looks absolutely amazing. Monday she was back to normal - bossing the goat around, doing one-stride lead changes as she made the rounds to glare at the neighbors, making pretty faces at me in the hopes of getting more carrots. Today I got home right as another freakin' storm rolled in from the Sierras, and she was UP! She did laps in the pasture while I stuffed the feeder full of hay - then she very politely waited at the gate while I got her ration balancer ready, stuck her head in her halter, and led perfectly to the bucket.

She's got one little sore spot on her lip. Probably from the alfalfa, but the deal is "you carry me 50 miles, you can eat anything your heart desires." She's back on grass, carrots, and RB, so it should heal right up.

Back to the ride - my endurance friends are totally unsurprised at an 11+ hour first 50. I get the feeling that the rest of yall are a little appalled about it. Think of it this way: it's barrel patterning. It's walking the XC course. It's all the work you do on the movements of the test, before you go ride the test. Because of the extreme physiological component of endurance, there's no way to get a horse really ready to go 50 miles without just going out and going 50 miles, and the safest way to do it is to do it really slow. Based on the way Dixie looks and acts, she's totally recovered, which means we didn't overdo it. If anything, we underdid it, which is exactly what I wanted. Mentally and physically, she'll be much more ready to go do a faster (but not racing!) 50 next time.

This is all very new to me, so I can't make any predictions for my next ride time, but it'll probably be quite a bit faster. Her first LD was 6:21 and she was so tired after. Her second LD was 4:31, and she was pretty perky and looked great after.

High Desert post-ride

Like EG said, this is the first ride where I really felt like I belonged. Not because I finished a 50, just because I've finally been to enough rides that I'm not a stranger in a sea of people who all know each other. When we did finish, it was even better, of course - people were so happy for us.

Loot: I got a brush with a cool hair-on leather handhold with the ride logo stamped on it. It's in a box. When I open the boxes I'll get a picture of it :)

I ate a ton - some of the quiche (it was too cold!), a couple of Clif Bars, all the potato salad and steak at lunch, and BBQ tri-tip and bratwurst at dinner. I drank FIVE LITERS of electrolyted water. I must really be an endurance rider because I'd stop and pee behind a foot-high sagebrush whenever I needed to.

Dixie ate and drank adequately. I'd love to see her pig out even harder, but I really think she's getting the hang of it now. She has gotten very adept at spitting out elyted applesauce, but I got enough in her.

Her Renegades stayed on once they were on right. After I stuck the front left back on, I didn't have a boot so much as twist. She stumbled over rocks a couple of times in the last five miles, but she was pretty tired and just wasn't picking her feet up high enough to clear them. After two stumbles, she put her game face back on and started watching her feet again.

No tack galls, no sore back. I still can't quite believe that my $300 saddle still works but it does. I mean, yall, I bought that saddle before I even bought Dixie. When I decided to buy her, I sorta eyeballed her back and thought my saddle would fit ok, but that was the extent of it.

Dixie's tired but fine today. Her legs look exactly like they always look, not even a bit of fill. She's napping and eating, and she's not mad at me. After our first 30, she was very tired for a few days then rebounded to a previously unheard of level of fitness, so I'm hoping that happens again. :)

I can't believe how much we've both changed. I was completely cool about so many things that would've been impossible 18 months ago and would've worried me silly a year ago. Like when the boot fell off - ok, I'll ride back and get it then hop off and stick it back on then get on and go again. That all sounds very simple, but it would've been completely impossible in 2009. She did the (very pleasant) gaited horse jigging pulling thing for three miles at the start, and all I thought was "I hope she's this fresh for the whole ride." It didn't even occur to me that she'd win the fight or that I'd overstress her little brain and send her into a meltdown. Just check her to a walk, let her try again, feel her gather up and start to go too fast, repeat.

I didn't even really worry about me. When I got back on after lunch and realized how bruised my thighs were, I did worry a bit that I'd ride poorly and sore her back. But Dixie's trot and pace are so gentle and daisy-cutter that it takes just the tiniest effort to post, so I just ignored the pain and forced myself to go with her.

My thighs are bruised and everything between my knees and neck is a little sore today, but it's not very bad. I managed to injure myself after the final vet check - I was using Dixie's reins as a lead rope and I somehow smacked myself in the lip with the scissor snap on the end of it, and that still hurts! I am, of course, woefully sunburned. Lots of people at the ride got totally burned - we were all so excited to see the sun again.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to take 2 minutes and put on CLEAN DRY SOCKS at lunch. Endurance is one of those things that makes everything else feel so fucking amazing - when you stop to eat, eating is so wonderful! When you sit down post ride, sitting is magical! When you collapse into your own bed again, it's the best bed in the universe! Clean socks at lunch are just as important as anything else.

I need a new overall plan. I've been so focused on Completing a Fifty that I have no idea what to do now. I will hopefully go back for the next two High Desert rides in October and get a cool horse blanket - but I am not sure how to get there from here. I have read literally everything online about how to get started in endurance - but I never bothered to read any further than the "your first 50" section. How do I keep conditioning her? How much time off between rides is optimal? I don't even know what kind of conditioning rides to do - it's been years of "a little faster or a little longer but not both at once."


You know what's the most disappointing thing about this weekend? No ride photographer. There were so few entries it wouldn't have been worth his time to come.