[RC] Pine Tree 50: Impressions from a Rookie Rider with a Rookie Horse (Part I B) - Sharon Kenney
The second 15 miles went a bit slower, and it
wasn't just because Zephyr had slowed down. The time took longer to
pass. I was getting hungry, since I hadn't had any time to eat at the
hold, so I ate a granola bar out of my saddle pack. At some point, we
reached a crew area and there was only one crew person left. Yes, that's
right, Irving's crew person, Terry, was the last one there. (For those of
you who don't know Irving - he usually finishes last.) She let our horses
have some water, and we were about to ride off when Margaret looked back and
spotted Irving coming over the hill towards us. We agreed to continue on,
but at a walk so Irving could catch up. When he did, we proceeded to
walk/trot to the next hold. When we trotted, we picked a medium pace
because Irving's horse doesn't trot as big as either Zephyr or Promise.
Irving, as some of you are lucky enough to know, is an absolute riot.
Between him and Margaret, on the sections that we walked, I heard enough
Endurance history to confuse me for months. (I'm new enough that I've
never heard of 80% of the people or rides they mentioned. There was a lot
of smiling and nodding on my part!)
We walked into the second hold, at the same
location as the first, to find only a few other horses. One was just
leaving, one had been pulled, and one was being treated. I unsaddled him a
bit more gracefully this time (as in, the saddle landed where I put it, not
where he dumped it), sponged him once, and went for P&Rs. He was at 48
again. CRIs were 52/48. A's on everything again,
too. Margaret and I moved our stuff into some shade and I was
thrilled to be able to tie Zephyr to a tree while I sponged him, used the
Porta-Potty, and then ate the sandwich I'd somehow thought to put in my
hold cooler with my 4 extra water bottles. Since I still had 4 full
bottles, I stuck the last 2 into the middle pouch on my saddle pack. The
first two loops had been drier than I'd expected, and I planned to use the extra
two bottles to wet him down now and then.
We got back on the trail about 6 minutes late,
again. I don't know how that happened, honestly, because the tree had made
it easier to handle everything. Irving had waited an extra 12 minutes for
us - his out time was 3 minutes before Margaret's, and 6 minutes before mine...
and we left 6 minutes after my out time. He gave me a lecture at some
point during that third loop, about how if my horse was pulsing down as we went
through the "in" gate (he was) I should go straight to P&R before removing
the saddle.
I had a "holy shit" moment when he told me
that.
I said, you mean I can pulse in with the saddle on,
and remove it between P&Rs and vet? He said sure. Wow.
That would have been nice to know! Lessons learned... and learned
well!!!!
The third loop repeated a portion of the second
loop, and HAD to have been more than 15 miles. You know when you're in
your car, and you drive the same route twice, and it seems faster the second
time? Well, it doesn't work that way on horseback. At least not when
you're doing your first 50. Part of the
reason, though, was that Zephyr was not going along in the normal pulse
range. It was higher than it should have been, even accounting for the
heat, so we were walking a lot. And honestly, the other two horses
didn't want to trot any more than Zephyr did. Margaret wanted to keep
Promise's gut moving (he hadn't been eating at the holds) so we stopped and
grazed a lot. Irving started complaining that we had to pick up the pace
because he wanted to be at the last hold by 3:30pm. We picked up that nice
easy trot again. At some point, we came upon 3 people walking their
horses. Two of them were 30-milers who were overtime and who were taking a
grass break. The other was Pam, a 50-miler who was just getting back on
her Kentucky Mountain Horse. She had been leaving the second hold as we
arrived. We ended up riding with Pam for the last 5 miles of this loop;
unfortunately for Irving, Pam's horse had 3 speeds... walk, fast, and
hell-bent-for-leather. Irving ended up cantering a lot... at least I
assume he did... I don't know for certain because Zephyr was happily shoving his
nose up Pam's gelding's butt. Oh well, at least he wasn't poking along
anymore! All four horses had found new energy that no one knew they
had.
