ridecamp@endurance.net: Gold Rush ride (story - long of course)

Gold Rush ride (story - long of course)

Tina Hicks (hickst@nichols.com)
Mon, 08 Sep 1997 08:39:22 -0500

Well....another mother/daughter adventure has come to a close :-) We just
completed the Gold Rush 50 this weekend in the North Georgia mtns. The
weather was AWESOME!!! Evenings about 45 and Saturday was about 75 or 80
without a cloud in the sky - talk about beautiful!!!!

What a great ride!! Everything went smoothly - at least from my standpoint
as a rider - I'm sure there were some minor crises thru the day the riders
were not aware of <g>.

The ride started out along the road and then went up and up and up a gravel
forest road - for about 4 miles. We had on our trusty easyboots with hot
pink vet wrap underneath thank goodness - if I never see another rock I
won't miss them :-) The veiws were stunning going up the mountain - complete
with some clear streams running down the rocks.

The horses did something very interesting going up this long ~6%
grade.....We don't have access to any climbs like this for training so we
were planning on going as slow as we needed to up it (our goal for the ride
was about 7 or 7.5 hours). What happened is the horses cruised up it for
several minutes then wanted to walk.....I watched the HRM and when Tony came
down to about 100 or so he picked up a trot again *all on his own*. I
thought surely I must be imagining this or maybe I cued him somehow but they
kept that "cycle" all the way up the hill - seemed to work very well for
them - by the last trot session his HR was lower (135 vs. 150) than at the
bottom of the hill. This was the first loop so I'm sure that had something
to do with the ease with which they went up but the way they did it on their
own was very efficient and steady - made it to the first check in great
shape and in good time.

Vetted thru fine and waited out our 40 minute hold with rump rugs on the
guys - was still a little cool. Started out from the first check at a
blazing walk :-) for the second "loop" -which was really 10 miles out and
then 10 miles back. It was 3 miles up, 7 miles down and then reverse - I
think there _may_ have been 5 flat miles on this ride but I wouldn't swear
to it :-) Again gravel road the whole way :-( with a wonderful water stop at
3 miles and at the end point. Again the views were awesome but on this loop
we had some major eboot troubles. Tony's right boot kept twisting around -
at one point so far it "bit" him in the coronary band :-( and Embers lost
one of his twice in about 10 minutes. So we got to see one section of that
road really good as we searched for the boot - twice :-) Didn't find it the
second time so started a lot slower back to the check - fortunately this
happened late in the 20 miles - we were only about 3 miles from the check.
course this happened right after I was praising us for what a nice steady
pace we were keeping - that'll teach me :-))

Side note: I've never had the eboots come off, twist or anything. Maybe they
stretch some with use? Maybe it was the gravel? We weren't using the foam as
we had not had a chance to try it out yet but have used the boots for 20
mile training rides with no troubles - very strange......

Again came in and by the time we got our poop together to go thru the check
they boys were down - again settled in to wait out the hold. But wait, I get
wind that someone saw someone come in with a black eboot found on the road
and give it to someone to give it to the owners :-)) After going from one
person to another we finally found it (thank you Jim and Besty!!!) Much
relief as our pace was gonna have to slow way down to go back down the
gravel road without eboots on Embers. I gave up on the vet wrap and put both
boys' boots on with nothing underneath. We managed to keep them on the rest
of the way in except Tony's heel straps kept slipping up over his heels
almost to his fetlock...again something that's never happened
before.....very odd. The eboot gods were not smilling on me but by and large
we were thrilled with them and the protection and traction they gave us.

Anyway.....last loop brought us off the gravel road - YEAH!!! and into one
of the prettiest pieces of trail I think I've ever ridden - period. It wound
down thru the valley with lush ferns, rhododendrens, and several streams.
Even saw some deer. This section was pretty uneventful except for a couple
of climbs where the horses stopped at the bottom and looked up and said "you
want me to climb that??? check your map isn't there a way around this?" :-).

Anyway, came in with a ride time of 7:16 so hit out desired pacing pretty
well, both boys completed fine and the awards meeting was quite enjoyable as
all the 100 milers got in in time to join us (100% completion on the 100 btw!).

Many kudos to SERA for managing a great ride!!!

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