It makes me wonder if I'll ever manage a 50 mile. To think that yesterday we would have been only half-way. Something about slogging in the mud is just tough. I've never experienced leg cramps but my calves were really feeling it yesterday. Today I can't hardly walk because of that bad joint in my foot. If I have a serious Achilles's heel it is the metatarsal joint of that foot. Even a house slipper isn't working for me today. My calves are sore, and a muscle just anterior to my knee is very sore. The rest of me feels pretty okay. But those last few miles we went, the pain of compression in my foot was making me think.....how much longer can I do the trotting? Now that most of Journey's needs have been hammered out, I will at some point need an orthopedist to look at this foot. I just don't want to pay an ortho doc to look at the foot. Now days if you so much as cross the hospital threshold you can find yourself suddenly thousands in debt. I'm very adverse to that kind of risk. But the foot thing is a problem. The steriod injection did make it feel better for about a month, until I assaulted it with stirrup yesterday. I wonder if when I'm heels down, if I'm too heels down and putting undo pressure on the foot. Also why only on the right? Am I putting too much weight into the stirrup on that side? Or is it just the fact that a 1200 lb. gelding spooked sideways and landed on it a few years ago? Probably that, never been right since. I do know those last few miles yesterday felt long.
Journey's overall ride average was 5.6 mph. Still a bit slow, but it is likely to take some time to build her up to the possible 6-7 mph she could potentially get. I don't think she has the size or stride to surpass that average unless she was able to gallop for 25 miles and Journey is not a galloping horse. Nor am I a galloping Granny (at least not for the long haul).
This weekend gave me a lot to mull over in my mind. The people interaction was the total opposite of the previous ride. I had a conversation initiated by a hundred mile rider about Journey's boots. Had I tried glue-ons? We discussed both Renegade glue on and Easycare's. She is rehabbing her horse's hooves and fairly new to booting. I shared how I have eliminated rubbing using the gaiter system, and she told me she really good success with the gloves on her last long ride using the glue. This woman attends a lot of rides and is a nice person, and experienced rider, ride manager. I met another woman who offered to let Journey use her paddock overnight. I decided not to as it would have had Journey out of sight and with a storm coming in I wanted to be close. But so nice! Then there was much discussion with several about the zebra tights. Some thought them funny, one person wanted her own. Parking in the hub of activity made it easier for me to interact with people, offer the use of my little wagon (if their hands were full of stuff), and just generally be more involved. My neighbor at this ride camp smiled, and talked to me before I left, and encouraged me to go to Scioto for the next one in Ohio. She is trying to get her 5000 mile award on her horse this season.
Then there is LSEGH (long suffering endurance granny husband) who faithfully held the horse, blanketed the horse, shoved me a sandwich and a drink, while keeping track of her pulse. He also helps out with toting, dragging stuff around, and takes pictures so I'll have them on my blog. He must love me a lot....'cause the half time makes me kind of cranky!
This was the first ride I've attended that I did not have some sort of drama (unplanned dismount, run away lost horse, heat exhaustion, blew past trail markers, horse in metabolic crisis, no trail markers, wrong instructions, called home for family disaster, etc. etc. etc). It was NICE. ~E.G.
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