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Jennifer,

That is the problem I had when I lived in Sarasota. That's the reason I 
started going to the Sand Hills near Brooksville to train (and 
eventually moved there). You mostly have nice flat turf down there and 
it is just difficult to get the heart rate up. When you hit the Ocala 
forest or the Croom forest all that will change. My good friend Carlos 
finished 4th in the OD and won the OD trophy one training in only in our 
sand hills.

If you can keep him for 115 to 120 for say 10 miles and he recovers I 
expect he will do just fine. Come up and ride with us some weekend I'll 
show you how to get the heart rate up ;-) .

Truman

Jennifer Fleet wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am in the process in getting my gelding, Shahtahr, fit again after 1 
> 1/2 years off from any kind of competition (I moved to FL from CA). 
> I've continued riding him during this time off, but mostly on shorter 
> pleasure rides with friends - anywhere from 5 to 10 miles, one to 
> three times a week (depending on how HOT and humid it was here in FL). 
> Over the last six weeks, I've started conditioning again....we're up 
> to trotting and cantering about 12-15 miles now, with no problem.
>
> I am new to Florida, and am used to having plenty of mountains to 
> train in, in the Sunland area of CA. With all those hills, it was 
> never a problem to get Shahtahr's heart rate up, and keep it there, 
> and then see how fast he came down. I would try to keep him between 
> 130 and 150 while trotting along in the hills, with a few uphill 
> sprints here and there to get his HR up to around 200 for a few 
> minutes. This seemed to work great at keeping him fit.
>
> Here, all I have is flat land. No matter how long we trot on these 
> flat trails, even some that are sandy....his HR is always somewhere 
> around 115 to 120....if I move up to a canter it will get up a little 
> higher...but nothing near how we trained in CA. Is this enough?? He 
> comes right back down to the low 60's as soon as we slow to a walk, 
> but it's not like his HR ever really got super high.
>
> How do you folks train, that have only flat trails to use? What's your 
> strategy? Do I need to do a lot more training miles, because I have no 
> hills? I'm going to do a 27-mile ride on Nov 11.....it's got some 
> sandy areas and a few "gentle hills" from the description ..... I'm 
> assuming he'll do this ride just fine with what we've been doing, but 
> I'm a little concerned that I'm not getting enough out of the 
> conditioning we're doing to progress much beyond some CTRs and LDs - I 
> will be training longer as he gets more fit....but I'm not sure about 
> the HR range we're getting....is 115 to 120 good enough to build his 
> stamina?
>
> I sure miss the mountains!
>
> Jennifer
>
>
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