Conditioning up

I admit, I have been feeling like I will never get Sinwaan conditioned up to where he needs to be by July.

Our one ride of the year is planned out for the Camas Creek Canter in Montana. I would love for him to be able to handle both days of riding...but in our recent rides with Heather I have been left wanting, and feeling discouraged.

I wanted to ride on Mother's Day but after working most of the morning in the garden planting seeds, I was so worn out the last thing I wanted to do was battle it out with Sinwaan on a solo ride.

Monday I had good intentions of riding after work, but I was still in pain. Tuesday it was soooo hot. 92 to be exact. That is wretched for mid-May!

So I had a talk with my husband and we had this moment of "well it would be cooler to ride before work" and "that works better for me anyway," that was just fantastic. It was like a revelation and I realized this is my usual summer program! How could I have forgotten?

Wednesday morning I set the alarm for 5 am, got up, and went to the barn. I was tacked up and riding out by 6 am. Sinwaan gave me some tests on the first 2 miles in the usual places, but I had a crop today and with a couple of well-timed pops he got the memo and made it to the end of the road (2 mi) in 15 minutes (last time it took us 40).

Feeling empowered by our new agreement of moving forward we got to the 2.5 mi mark and instead of turning around, like last time, I decided to just go for it and do the whole loop that we used to ride last year. (We have two main options from the house. The shorter distance, a block of about 6+ miles has a fair amount of hill work, and the longer distance, 8 miles even, is flat.)

We did the 8 miles in a reasonable time, about an hour and 15 min. We need to shave it down but I gave him ample time to walk to warm up, cool down, and have a breather when crossing the bridges.  And let's face it, he's still fat. Although I was so happy to see he is making progress. Last time I rode with Heather the 6 miles was hard on him and he was really lagging towards the end. Wednesday's 8 miles was an improvment. And if we can keep this up with twice a week I am sure he will be much happier about taking a trip to Montana for a mountain ride.

:) The future is bright!