Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

** Sorry this somehow turned out to
be really long- only read if it is raining and miserable out , otherwise
go ride!** :-)
Having only read 4 or 5 of the LD posts
I may not be up to speed on the whole conversation ( but am pretty sure
I only missed a lot of rhetorical, circular arguments, kinda reminds me
of our endurance club meetings. :-) ) however found to my HORROR that I
am thinking " well 25 isn't endurance, that's just crazy...."

Here is the problem I PROMISED myself
when I started long distance riding 3 years ago  ( I learned in the
first two months that I was a "long distance rider" and couldn't
call myself an endurance rider until I had done 50 miles ;-))  that
I would never   become one of "those" endurance riders
who fought to keep 12 mile rides out of our club, who went on and on and
on.................about endurance and the importance of protecting our
sport and the integrity of it ( i.e. 12 or 25 miles ISN"T endurance!)
 anyway- you get the idea- I was always going to remember what is
was like to start out and how hard 25 miles is to do when you haven't been
doing it for years hmmmmmmmmm..........well, I do remember how hard it
was and how cool I thought I was that I could ride 25 miles in one day
( anyone who wants  to impress people should just tell their vet,
dressage coach, local feed store employee etc... trust me they will be
suitably impressed :-) ) And you know what???? I was cool, and tough and
25 miles IS something to be really proud of- however my  mare and
I jumped into 50's this year- BIG difference I was sooooo excited after
our first 50 that I could FINALLY call myself an endurance rider- our training
rides are often 25 miles at home now- they used to be 10- we can canter
for 5 and a half hours and feel GOOD at the end of it, there really is
a difference. That doesn't mean everyone has to do 50 or a 100 ( my goal
for the end of next year , I am soo hooked:-)) but LD's are LD's -CTR's
are CTR's  and endurance is  endurance- if I wanted to call myself
a jumper I would actually have to go jump something  (any jump taken
to date has been with my eyes closed and more of an accident than a planned
thing :-) I guess I could call myself an accidental jumper!!!:-)) Figure
out what you want to be and go do it!:-)
And have FUN with your horse because
that really is what it is all about. :-)
( I have to share a funny story about
one of my endurance rides, it was our 3rd ride this season ( and our 3rd
50 ever  after training for 3 years to get in proper shape  :-)yes
I am one of those people  )  my mare and I had come in dead last
on purpose at the first two rides as I didn't want to push her too hard,
anyway by the third ride she had decided that she knew better than me what
to do and just took off, and didn't stop until the end which I found out
to my incredible surprise put us 8th out of 21 starters!! Anyway I was
sooo excited that we had top tenned as I hadn't planned on doing that until
the end of next year :-) I was  at a pony club meeting the next night
with my daughter and gushing to my friends ( the parents) about how great
my mare is, I was soo proud of her and that she had done the 50 miles in
5 hours and 45 minutes and just rambling on in general about how incredible
the whole experience had been.Anyway one of the girls who had been listening
pipes up  and says" it took you almost 6 hours to ride 50 miles?"
I answered in the affirmative and she said " what did you do,walk
the whole time??" 
Talk about taking the wind out of my
sails, I realized that they really had no idea as to what I did .............although
it helped a bit when I translated the miles into km's ( 80 km, we are in
Ontario so miles really throw the kids)          
she thought that definitely sounded a bit farther but still didn't understand
why it would take me so long. :-):-)