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Rendezvous with Destiny 2005, part 2 of 3

We came in for the first vet check at 8:33. My GPS measured the trail
at 15.2 miles. Right at 6 mph. 6 minutes later, Tanna was vetted
through. Bs on gut (no surprise), MM, and capillary refill. He weighed
810, which meant he lost 24 pounds on that loop. While I was recording
Tanna's weight, Daniel took Tanna over to the community water trough
and repeatedly gave him the "drink" cue until he drank long and deep.
Hmmm. I should get Daniel to do the watering at vet checks. He doesn't
usually drink for me in vet checks. :-)

We took Tanna back to our vet check area and fed him and sponged him
down a bit more. Daniel made me a sandwich and Tanna decided he wanted
my food rather than his. He managed to eat most of his beet pulp, but
largely ignored his hay. At least he was eating something...

As our 40 minute hold neared its end, I resaddled Tanna and prepared
to return to trail. Joe took off before me as I kept forgetting stuff.
Tanna was in the middle of getting his electrolytes and Kit wasn't
happy standing still. We caught up quickly and headed out on our
second loop.

We were in 3rd and 4th place at this point. Betsey was about an hour
ahead of us and another rider had passed us on the 1st loop. Two
riders were still behind us by 5-10 minutes. Most middle of the pack
I've ever been in a 50. ;-)

The second loop was the longest loop of the 4 at 17 miles. Joe had
been on this trail the day before, so we had no trouble with it. We
did slow down on this loop. Both horses were drinking fairly well.
Playing off each other and seemed to be in good spirits. Tanna would
stumble occasionally over the rough ground, but managed to recover
nicely. At one point Kit kicked himself in the back left leg and
caused an immediate lameness. Joe hopped off and checked on him. Kit
seemed to be ok and Joe soon was mounted again and off we went.

Partway through this loop, we came to the mount. The small village
where hand-to-hand combat is taught. Very interesting to see. We
didn't go right through the village, we kinda skirted around the
edges, but still plenty to look at. Both horses drank at the stream
nearby and we chatted with the spotter for a minute or so before
moving on. Tanna was not concerned at all about the buildings. Not
interested in them in any way. Let's move on, he said. But Kit was
enthralled and wanted to poke his nose in the doors and windows. He
might have gone right on in the buildings if Joe'd let him!

We continued on, chatting, moving out when we could, walking some of
the gravel when we couldn't move off it. No lazy man's trail this was.
Tanna is a sure-footed horse, but any inattention to his job resulted
in a stumble, so I tried to keep him focused and engaged. Hard to do
for such a long time!

Both horses ate grass on this loop. Grabbing bites as we walked along.
There was enough water on all the loops and I was very happy with
Tanna for drinking as well as he did. I would have preferred to have
him eat more at the vet checks, but drinking was definitely not an
issue this ride. Plenty of opportunities to drink and Tanna took
advantage of a lot of them.

The second loop measured 16.9 miles on my GPS. Pretty close to 17 if
you ask me. ;-) It was 12:31 when we came in from that loop. So we did
that loop in 3 hours 12 minutes. Average speed of 5.3 mph. Not
blazing, but enough to keep ahead of the clock. An overall average of
5 mph would get us a completion.

It took us 7 minutes to unsaddle and present to the vet. While
sponging the worst of the dirt off Tanna, I discovered he was a bit
sore in his back. A problem I've had in the past at BSF last fall. I
cringed and took him to the vet. The vet gave him a B on back and said
I could continue on. I expressed concern over the soreness getting
worse with 20 miles still left to ride. The vet suggested I let Tanna
rest and then bring him back if I was still concerned at the end of my
hold. Tanna also got the same Bs from before (guts, MM, capillary
refill) and added a B for back and a B for muscle tone. I was not very
happy with these scores. It was going downhill.

Daniel and I weighed Tanna. 810. Same as the previous loop. Good. No
more weight loss. I spent the hold wondering if I should go out again
or pull and save my horse the pain. I was worried about doing 20 slow
miles with a sore back. Also, right about 30 miles I usually begin to
question my sanity of doing 50 mile endurance rides. So there was some
part of me that wanted an excuse to quit. Tanna ate more beet pulp,
but didn't touch his hay. Almost no hay did he eat the entire ride.
Not a good thing. He did eat his beet pulp, but no hay. Gotta figure
out how to fix that...

Anyway, with 5 or 10 minutes left in my hold, I took Tanna back to the
vets and asked Dr. Habel to look at him for me. (The other vet was a
military guy and I don't remember his name. Sorry!). Dr. Habel pretty
much told me that it wasn't bad enough for him to pull me so it was
totally up to me. Not helpful. ;-) What I really wanted was for
somebody else to tell me what to do. Didn't happen. He suggested that
I could go back out and try to stay off his back. Speed up, he told
me. Stay off his back. Get off him when you walk. Speed up? Don't hear
that very much, huh? :-) So I opted for that and headed back to
resaddle.

I also removed the CorrecTOR pad and went with a plain woolback pad
(The CorrecTOR pad had been inside the woolback). This was my first
endurance ride with the CorrecTOR pad and I wasn't sure what was
causing the back pain, so I decided to attack it by removing the new
pad and being very conscientious about staying off his back as much as
possible in the coming loop. What I really didn't want to do was go
another 15 miles and pull with 7 miles left to go.

Joe left about 10 minutes before me on this loop. Understandable since
I was still saddling when he came up to see if I was still going out.
The entire vet brigade had heard my back soreness woes and my wishy
washy-ness about going out again, so they didn't know if I was going
out again. I told him I'd be along soon so off he went.

We followed as soon as we were ready. It took awhile to catch them. I
got off and walked one of the roughest parts of the ground. About a
1/4 mile stretch. Then I mounted and took off again. I had Tanna
canter where he could, trot where he couldn't. It took 50 minutes and
almost 6 miles for me to catch Joe and Kit. But I figured it was
better if I could catch up with them and continue riding with them
since our horses did well together. I was grateful for Tanna's
surefootedness as we cantered through ruts that were sometimes deep,
sometimes narrow, but always changing.

We were on the white loop again. The loop we'd done for the first
loop. So the terrain was familiar, even though it wasn't any less of a
challenge than the first time through. As this loop progressed slowly,
I began to obsess about cut off times. I calculated our final hold and
periodically updated Joe on our remaining time (although I'm sure he
didn't need this novice telling him!).

We were off and walking for awhile on this loop. Me saving Tanna's
back and Joe saving Kit's feet from the gravel by lightening the load
a bit. But we had to pick up the pace or we would never make cut off.
We figured we needed a good hour to do the final loop. We also had a
40 minute hold to wait through and 7 miles left on the 3rd loop. We
had to be in camp and vetted by 4:20 PM to have a chance at finishing
our ride. I obsessed a lot that loop. We reached the water stop on
that loop and Tanna drank nicely. Kit wanted to move on. So we did.

We got to a gravel road that wasn't quite so gravely and picked up a
good trot until the gravel worsened. Joe got off to walk, but I saw
the side of the road opening up, so waited to see if we could take the
side. I decided it was good to trot, so Joe remounted and off we went.
It was a bit more gravelly for about 500 feet than I'd thought, but
soon we were on less gravel. Still uneven ground, but at least it was
mowed and I could judge the terrain. We moved out, cantering when it
was relatively safe to do so. The clock was ticking...

We still had some challenging terrain to get through. We were planning
to walk some more of it, but when we reached it, I was leading and
decided to trot. I thought Joe might drop back and dismount, but he
came right along with us. The trail had been beaten down some so it
was better than it was the day before (I reckon, since I didn't ride
the day before). I stood in the stirrups, both to avoid bumping
Tanna's sore back and to allow him to balance and shift in the terrain
without me messing with the balance. We were taking a risk trotting
over this ground, but I focused and kept Tanna focused and we did a
slow trot through terrain we'd walked the 2 previous loops.

At one point we flushed a large tom turkey. Tanna jumped to his right
in surprise. I was half-turned towards the right to say something to
Joe behind us when it happened so I was already leaning a bit to the
right and stayed right with Tanna. Whew. That was a nice adrenaline
rush. :-) Tanna knew he was headed back to camp, though, and paid no
further attention to the turkey and kept trotting through. Good boy.
:-)

We pressed on until we came to the woods. I weaved Tanna through the
woods at a good trot. He's great at serpentine trails. I just have to
keep my leg on him to remind him I have legs that stick out that will
catch on trees. :-) We popped down to the creek and paused to drink.
Can't pass up good water no matter how much of a hurry I'm in. Up out
of the creek and on through more winding woods. That was my favorite
part of the entire trail. :-) Joe and Kit stayed right with us,
matching turn for turn. We weren't trying to lose them, but Joe'd
already told me not to mess up my completion waiting for him, so I was
moving on.

Across more uneven terrain, through some ruts and up a small hill
towards the lake and the vet check. Across the road, through the
field, and I was off, walking Tanna towards the in-timers. Nothing
beats the adrenaline rush of trying to make time! Not even the start.
:-)

We made it to the in-timers at 4:07. Whew. 13 minutes to get my out
time, but I wasn't dallying. I went straight to my vet check area and
stripped his saddle and immediately to the vets for a pulse time of
4:10. His pulse was a little higher at 56, but it was still under
criteria, so that was ok. Alright. A 40 minute hold and then back out
again. That would give us 1 hour 10 minutes to do 7 miles. Totally
doable. Especially since Joe knew the last loop and knew the terrain.
As long as Tanna's back wasn't more sore than the last check.

As soon as I pulled Tanna's saddle, I knew his back was not worse. If
it wasn't worse, I was going to go on. Dr. Habel said it might even
have been a bit better. Whew. At least I wasn't making it worse. We
would press on. The vet scores were getting worse, though. Jugular
refill dropped to a B and he did a little hitch on his trot out so got
a B on gait, too. All the other Bs stayed Bs. Weight was 806. So only
a 4 pound loss on that loop.


... To Be Continued

April
Nashville, TN

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