RE: eating at stops

[Marlene Moss <MARLENE.MOSS@WCOM.COM>]

With all this discussion of HR and eating at P&R stops, I finally got around
to using the Heart rate monitor that I'd bought a couple months ago.
I wasn't doing much of a ride last night because I'm doing my first LD
tomorrow.  Anyhow, we trotted to the top of a hill and heart rate got up to
125 or so.  Stopped and stood in the shade - I didn't dismount, so not
totally imitating a P&R stop.  Heart rate dropped to 48 in a minute and down
to 40 after another minute or so.  Then it just seemed to hang at 40 for a
few minutes.  So I let my mare eat.  Heart rate went up to 42-43 for half a
minute and then dropped to 36.  So I pulled her away from the grass and made
her stand in the shade again.  Heart rate back to 45 because she wanted to
eat and kept tossing her head.  Only went back down to 38 after that.
I'll have to keep experimenting with her to see if it makes more sense to
not let her eat at all, or eat some to maximize recovery and then try to get
her over her desire to be eating.
Guess I should have starting playing around with this thing earlier!

Marlene