RAT Championship & Endurance Ride

[DreamWeaver <nvrider@home.com>]

I went to the Ride and Tie Championship yesterday and did the 50 mile 
endurance ride.  It was several events in one, a 15 and 35 mile Ride and 
Tie, 35 mile Trail Run, 20 mile ride - 10k Biathlon, and a 50 and 25 mile 
endurance ride.

I had not pre-entered and really had not made my mind up about going until 
Thursday sometime around the middle of the day.  I told my husband about it 
(for the first time <g>), and he says "oh Karen you are so addicted you 
can't even go a week without a ride now".  And I said "uhhh huh, it's been 
a whole week and a HALF since the last ride!!".  I think his eyes rolled to 
the back of his head, he knows it's a losing battle so just asked "what 
time are you leaving".  I said, I don't know, I'm not really sure I'm going 
and I don't know which horse to take.

I ended up taking Rocky, since it was his turn.  That was the best reason I 
could come up with.  So we headed off to Truckee, CA and found a nice 
campsite among the pine trees.  The first campground was packed already but 
there was still some room left further up.  I was even able to get a corral 
for Rocky.  The campgrounds surrounded a big meadow, where the vetting was 
to take place on ride day. This was beautiful country.  I had kind of 
figured that this wasn't going to be an easy ride since it was a 
Championship course for the RAT, and we were surrounded by mountains.  When 
we got our ride maps you could see the lines on the topo did indeed show 
that the ride promised to be challenging.  :+)

We vetted in and watched the proceedings.  There were five vets for a 
little over a hundred horses.  I believe there were about 50 riders in the 
50 miler, and 15 in the limited distance ride, and another 50 teams in the 
RAT.  Greg Fellers was the head vet for the RAT, and Barney Fleming was the 
head vet for the endurance ride.

Have any of you ever cleaned out your trailer and forgotten to put 
something important back?  Well, I did!  I forgot to bring a jacket, or my 
riding gloves.  No big deal, it only gets down to freezing in Truckee this 
time of year <G>.  Luckily I had a couple of sweatshirts with me and a pair 
of knit gloves that worked just fine. I actually enjoyed the coolness.

The ride meeting went really well.  We were going to have a 6 a.m. start, 
and the RAT was going to start at 8 a.m.  Barney spoke and talked about the 
riders responsibility regarding their own horses welfare.   You know the 
one where if you break your horse, the vets might not be able to put your 
horse back together again.

Dale Peterson led a (semi) controlled start out the next morning, for about 
a mile then turned everybody loose.  The frontrunners took off in a poof of 
dust, and I slowed Rocky down and hung back at about the middle of the 
pack.  Rocky knew this was a one day ride and really wanted to go, but I 
didn't want to risk hurting him.  The first loop was a lot of hills, with 
rocky footing.  Dusty, like the Tevis trails.  I had my GPS on with an 
antenna, and at about 10 miles (they had mile markers the entire way), I 
checked the GPS and it was right on.  I thought ohhhhhhh...uh oh....they 
know what they are doing as far as how they measured this course....a tough 
mountain course that is a real 50 miles long is going to make for a long 
day and figured then and there that I wouldn't be dawdling and wondered if 
everybody would make it in time.

I had never seen so many easyboots on horses before at a ride.  I think 
that all the RAT horses had them, and a lot of the endurance ride horses 
did too.  Probably a good thing, given the conditions of the trail (sure 
didn't hurt, anyways).  I saw one horse whose rider had made every mistake 
known in how he put his horses boots on (cringe).

Our first vet check was back in camp and was a pulse down and a trot 
by.  Not really a trot by, it was a trot out and back (150'), and then you 
could continue.  This was at 12.4 miles, and I got in just before 8 
a.m.  So they told me that the RAT was about to start on the same trail I 
was heading out on, so I better either get a move on or else I should 
wait.  Well, I asked Rocky what he thought and he thought we should make 
our escape at a gallop.  So we did, and I let him run all the way to the 
turnoff to the 2nd loop which meant the RATers wouldn't be behind us after 
that.  I passed Heather and Jeremy here, who were crewing for Skip in the 
RAT.  We were riding on nice singletrack trails winding up and down thru 
the woods, and pass aid stations where volunteers took our numbers and gave 
us whatever we needed, water, snacks, etc.  The trail was marked 
exceptionally well.  I came up on one intersection where the front runners 
were deciding which way to go. A couple of them chose the right way, but a 
couple of others didn't, even though it was pretty clear on the 
maps.  Heck, even *I* figured it out! <g>.  So anyways, when Potato and his 
wife got to camp they had to go back and do the one section over again.

Okay, so I went thru and did my loop within a loop twice and then came back 
into camp.  My GPS now said we had gone 25 miles.  I went thru the 
in-timer, the P&R people, then vetted.  We had a 45 minute hold this 
time.  Rocky was not real thrilled by this change in his routine.  This was 
the first ride he's ever done where he didn't get an hour hold!  (I know, 
they do things different elsewhere but for him, this was a change)  He 
didn't like when I dragged him away from his 'lunch' early.  You should 
have seen the look he gave me!

After our first 45 minute hold we headed back out to do our loop 
three.  This is where I caught up to the first place RAT team.  I couldn't 
believe how fast they are able to run.  Over the mountainous terrain, the 
runners were each keeping up with the horse.  Horses just can't go that 
fast up and down hills over rocks, and those runners were going like mad, 
they really were -- over 9 mph by my GPS which is really quite something 
over that country!  The horse never got tied that I saw, they just handed 
it off to each other as they went.  Amazing!!! I never knew they went THAT 
fast!!   It hurt just watching.  I think I have some sanity left, because I 
know I would go splat a lot more times trying to run like that on foot than 
I ever will on a horse!

I came into camp and they were right behind me.  There was a huge crowd and 
they were announcing everything over the PA.  I couldn't believe all the 
people there and how excited everybody seemed to be.  I was feeling a 
little queasy, since earlier I had gotten off and ran downhill on some of 
the really steep sections.  That wasn't real brilliant, given that I'd been 
squashed by a horse about two weeks before and still am pretty bruised and 
sore, ribs and chest and all.  <sigh>  So I told Barney and he was so nice, 
he trotted Rocky out for me so the other vets could watch.

Now we were at mile 38 or something like that, and having another 45 minute 
hold.  Rocky was really confused now.  Huh, what?  But MOM, I haven't had 
two vet checks with holds in the last eleven or twelve hundred miles what 
are you trying to mess with my head?  He kept an eye on me during the 
entire hold time, I think he was questioning whether or not we might be 
doing a 100 or something.  He just knew something was weird! <G>  We left 
out of this loop on time, and he wanted to go again so I let him gallop 
until we caught up to the rider in front of us and then rode with her the 
rest of the way.  The last loop had also been our fourth loop in the 
morning, and was the hardest part of the trail.  We were lucky that it 
wasn't really hot, and there were trees for shade and plenty of water.  On 
the way in to the finish Rocky was so happy to get off of that one part of 
the trail he'd done earlier in the day that when he knew he as going to 
camp we took off and galloped all the rest of the way in.  He needs to have 
some fun too, I usually don't let him do that.  Oh, btw, we had moved up a 
few placings in the pack and finished 6th :+).  That was a bit of a 
surprise really, I had not passed that many people.  At the finish line 
they had big easels up with the names of the finishers and DNFers.  There 
were a lot of DNFers.  I don't know why but I'd guess most were lameness 
since people were going way too fast for the course (well, I thought so, 
but what do I know <G>).

At the finish you had to be at 60 criteria within an hour.  I was feeling a 
bit better by now since I'd had those two breaks and got to eat and drink 
plenty.  Still kinda woozy though but at least I could trot my horse 
out.  I heard then that two riders didn't make it in time.  They told us at 
the ride meeting that there was a 4 p.m. cutoff for the last loop.  And 
well, if you weren't able to make it out on that loop by 4 you wouldn't 
make it to the finish by 6.  I was glad that I had not dawdled all day, 
because my finish time was almost 3 p.m., so 8:55 total elapsed time.  We 
averaged 7.3 mph(I think, will have to recheck the GPS) the entire 
time.  And yes, the GPS showed that I went a full 50 miles.  It got the 
whole course.  The ride had about 7,000' of elevation gain, so that would 
be about 14,000' including up and down.  A pretty good day.

I came home before the awards dinner so missed that.  Tinker did get my 
completion awards for me.  We all got RAT Championship belt buckles, 
posters and for top tenning I got a sub to Endurance world and a bag of 
something.  I got a lot of really great photos during the day, and will get 
them up as soon as my laptop gets fixed (should be tomorrow).

On the way to the ride (66 miles), we saw American Flags everywhere.  They 
were on nearly every single residence, business and building.  There were 
God Bless America signs and even Cal Trans used their large highway signs 
for messages.  The town of Truckee was holding a memorial service as we 
drove thru and there were hundreds of people.  The streets were lined with 
fire trucks, flags waving everywhere.  It was hard to control the emotion, 
realizing how many people care about what happened.  Laura talked about why 
the ride and RAT must go on.  I feel that if we stop doing what we love to 
do, then the terrorists have won.  We aren't going to let that happen.

Happy Trails,

Karen
in NV
& Rocky, 4,480 miles
& Weaver, 4,620 miles