Finally a twenty five mile week

  The Spotted Wonder finally got her distance up to a twenty-five mile week.  25.96/ 5:31 so we are right on target so far.  Our longest individual ride was today, and I'm only tweaking her up a few miles total at a time for LSD.  When we get to 17-18 miles we'll keep it there.  In the meantime our 7 mile short rides we'll work on getting as much interval stuff as we can to bring up the average time on it.  All was well today except for a rock in one boot, a stick through the gaiter of another, loss of two pastern wraps to the trail somewhere in the mud....and a cut from the gaiter because we lost the wrap. ... insert grouchy face.... but Journey was good.  She chugged along.  Not a lot of impulsion but the mud was so bad that she'd sink pastern deep, and we walked those areas, then trotted where we could.   The trails should eventually dry out.  She didn't drink until about 11 miles or so, then was willing to drink from puddles, or the creek.  I tried out the sponge in its new cover.  It actually is better than a netted or non-covered sponge.  When you toss it into the creek it kind of balloons up with air, then that fills with water too and you get about  double water holding capacity.  It was quite by accident that I made it, but you can bet I'll be doing that in the future.  Using the HRM today she never got over 156 including trotting some uphills and cantering on the county road.