Rehab the Granny

Phebes is on hiatus for the most part.  I however am not.   My fitness or lack there of has been an ongoing barrier to riding well, and to holding up especially in the heat.  They say that once you've had heat exhaustion that you pretty much always will have a high risk of a repeat.  I'm not sure if that is because you continue to do the same wrong things, or if it causes a metabolic shift somehow that you send out more sweat at the first sign of heat, which causes you to deplete more quickly the next time.  Whatever the case, since I have downtime with my horse I've started back into cardio training.  Right now that is in the form of hiking the trails that I'd normally condition my horse on.  It gives you an entirely new respect for what your horse does to go out and hike one of those loops, and that is not carrying anyone on your back.   I find the uphills especially hard right now.  When it gets easy, then it will be time to find a tougher course, but for now what I have is challenging enough.  My niece (who is twelve years younger) and I did a three mile hike this afternoon, and both of us were sweated through, and I was peeling off layers.  When I got down to the last layer I was thinking crap!!! I can't peel off anymore clothes, what now?  Sweat fat lady, sweat.  Sweat I did.   Cindy (neice) brought me her 10 lb. hand weights, which will graduate me up from the 5 lb. which I find are not enough to really work my arms.  I actually like getting out and walking in the cold much better than in nicer weather when I'm fixated on my horse.  I'd like to set a weight loss "goal" but I've failed so miserably at that I'm just going to worry about being fit, instead of worrying over getting thin.  If hiking takes some weight off I'll consider it a bonus.  The goal though is to lower my heart rate, just like I would do with my horse.  It will be an interesting experiment.  My resting pulse rate is normally 80-90 bpm which is kind of high.  Let's give it thirty days and see what happens.  ~E.G.