This weekend I did the 50-mile
ride at the Old Dominion. It was my 3rd ride and first 50. My friend
(crew) and I arrived at the 4-H center on Thursday (we wanted to get a good
parking spot near the shopping). It was blistering hot and by the time we
finished setting up camp I think we were both on the verge of heat
exhaustion! She had brought a neat little mister and we sat around
spraying each other and using her battery operated fan to cool ourselves
off. Worked pretty good! Fortunately, we heard a front was coming
through and it should be cooling off by ride time.
The "front" arrived on Friday
afternoon in the form of rain, rain, rain, rain. Our great parking spot
turned into the great dismal swamp. I really felt sorry for the tent
campers ... I wonder just how waterpoof those things are. We spent
the afternoon keeping things dry, "strategy" planning and chewing our
nails. We were told at the ride briefing that no crew would be allowed at
the first vet because of the rain, which about put me into a panic. Who
would hold my horse when I went to the outhouse????
Saturday morning looked pretty
cloudy, so I hauled out my rain gear. Might as well stay dry and
warm. Thank goodness it cooled off considerably. They had a
controlled start which I watched from a distance. There were about 100 50
milers, so it was quite a crowd. Once they cleared out, I left (with the
drag rider right behind me). Actually, she knew me by name because we had
ridden together at my first ride back in October. Nice to see a
familiar face.
The ride to McCoy's and the first
vet check was fairly easy. Long up and long down, across the Shenandoah
river. That crossing was pretty awesome. I've only crossed
creeks. The river is about a quarter of a mile wide and standing out in
the middle of it in waterproof overalls was a photographer. I don't know
how she can stand out there all day in the middle of the river taking
pictures. Sure wish I had a picture of that! The river was
about chest deep on my little 14h horse. I was really worried when we had
all that rain and imagined swimming a raging river. At least we didn't see
the canoers and kyakers that other people ran into. My horse gamely plowed
through the water, his sights on the vet check (and dry
land) ahead.
McCoy's vet check actually
worked out pretty well despite having no crew. I found the hay I had
sent ahead and I carried feed and electrolytes with me. Widget pulsed
down immediately, ate and drank. I quickly discovered that I had just
completed the easy part of the ride. We left McCoy's and rode through tons
of mud churned up by the 100 horses still ahead of me. Where there wasn't
mud, there was rock or rock and mud. I ride a gaited horse (Paso Fino) and
the places where we could have made time were too soopy to go through at any
speed, so we just went at whatever speed we could. We passed a farm where
someone had put out two huge water troughs for the horses and had a cooler of
water for the riders. How nice!
