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Re: [RC] LD vs. Real Endurance - Long - Joe Long


I sure wish this thread would end.  

As do I, and as do most of us.

LD has its place in the AERC.  

I always thought so.

There are
many reasons to do LD, and if a person is physically incapable of doing more
than an LD, than God love em, do the LDs!  Some people don't have the time
to train for a 50 or a 100, so they choose to do what is best for their
horse, which is an LD.  

AMEN!  I couldn't agree more.

...
The argument seems to be whether it is real "endurance" or not.  Angie, the
mentally handicapped girl that you sponsor, do you think an LD is endurance
for her?  Was it endurance for her first horse (I remember reading the great
article on her in Endurance News)?  I thought it was endurance.  

Oh, Lord, not this old chesnut!  No, I don't think she completed an
endurance ride.  She endured at a challenge, for her, which is NOT the
same thing.  For some people, riding ten feet would be an equal
challenge ... should we say that if they ride ten feet they've
completed an endurance ride?

My first wife was handicapped and it was more difficult for her to
ride 25 miles than for most of us to ride TWO hundred miles.  She
literally had to *risk her life* to try it!  She did it, though, and
she completed an LD ride, once.  Was I proud of her?  YOU BET!  Did
that mean she'd completed an endurance ride, and should go into our
records as completing an endurance ride?  No, and she would have been
the last person to ask for an exception for her due to her disablity.

...
I love AERC & I love to ride.  The distance I ride depends on my abilities,
my horse's abilities, and how beautiful the day is!  The nice thing about
the AERC is that it supports distances for a wide variety of interests and
abilities.  

Absolutely!  Well said.

We need to be supportive or each other and not nit-pick about
awards & distances, and what makes "real" endurance.  

Ah, but the demands of some LD riders is not "nit-picking," it goes to
the very HEART of what we are and what our accomplishments mean.  No
matter how short we define a "real" endurance ride, there will be
those who want it shorter.  When the AERC defined endurance as 50
miles or more, there were some who believed that was too short, that
it should have been 100 miles.  I guarantee you that if the AERC ever
lowers the definition to 25 miles, in a year or two there will be
people demanding to count 15 mile rides as endurance rides, using the
same arguments you are presenting.

As I stated before,
there are many ways to measure endurance, and it doesn't start or end simply
with the amount of miles you ride on a given day.

In a sense you're right, "endurance" is only a word.  But for the
AERC's awards and records to be meaningful, the AERC must set the
standards and definitions for our events.  The AERC has defined an
endurance ride as a ride of at least 50 miles or more in 12 hours or
less.  Personally, I'm one of those who believe that's a little short,
but I understand the compromises behind it and it has stood the test
of time.  I don't think we'll redefine an endurance ride as at least
100 miles in 24 hours anytime soon.  But if we define an endurance
ride down to 25 miles in 6 hours, we will have lost something very
real, not picked a nit.

I've run Marathons, and am proud to have succeeded at that.  Since my
knee surgery last year, I doubt that I will ever be able to run
another one.  So will I ask that 10K runs be called Marathons now?
Not on your tintype.  Is insisting that a footrace must be 26 miles
long to be called a "Marathon" nit-picking?  I don't think so.

Hey, if you're happy riding LD rides, wonderful, go ride them, I
support you 100%.  Lots of people do.  I ride them sometimes, and
enjoy them when I do.  But for God's sake, just as a 10K run is not a
Marthon, an LD ride is NOT an endurance ride.  

Can't we finally put this to rest and just go ride?

-- 

Joe Long
jlong@xxxxxxxx
http://www.rnbw.com




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Replies
[RC] LD vs. Real Endurance - Long, GarnerT
RE: [RC] LD vs. Real Endurance - Long, Margie Burton