Newbie bashing

["Kathy Mayeda" <Kathy_Mayeda@atce.com>]

Title: Newbie bashing

Tim -

I wish people wouldn’t get so sensitive all the time about issues.  The first thing that happens when they see a post, some get an emotional reaction and fail to even read what is being said in the context in what is being said.

I have had some interesting private posts as I am sure Karen has also.  The ones who were opposed to my point of view took it as a PERSONAL offense and took my post to be bashing all those that competed in the ride.  I never put them down, I think I just called them  “newbies like myself”, and people took offense to that.  Those that saw my point of view were supportive and didn’t take any personal offense.  Interesting, huh?

You are the only one posting that agreed with my point of view that got sensitive!  But, heh, that’s okay.  At least you worked through it, read the material in context  and expressed yourself.

Lately I’ve been training with people that have high mileage.  I make newbie mistakes, they tease me about it, and I just have to get over it.  I’m sure that I will continue to make mistakes throughout my endurance career, just hope I don’t repeat the same mistakes! 

I have been guilty of taking my horse that didn’t eat or drink well the night before and letting him race on adrenaline for the first half of the ride, have him be borderline crashing for awhile and needing to take extra time at the lunch stops to replenish so that we could walk the rest of the ride for late completion.  I think this is the ride I earned my 250 mile badge on.  Beau is as much of a newbie as I am.  Oh yeah, it was a Championship ride, but it was a Championship ride for Ride and Tie, not the endurance part.  I can’t even imagine how stupid I would be if it were an Endurance Championship.

My horse and I have learned from that experience.  I took him to a multi-day ride, and as my experienced friends tell me, the horses learn that they have to eat and drink well during rides while doing multidays.  So he learned to eat and drink well, I learned to better gauge his adrenaline and energy levels, and we ended up doing well during the ride.

I also learned a lot about pacing, vet check strategy and riding techniques from my experienced friends through the multi-day ride.  At 450 AERC miles, things are still not automatic for me and I still need to work out my electrolyte protocol for my thumping horse before we can really fly.

K.