Spring Training

In our neck of the woods the first endurance ride is scheduled for April 25 and 26th which (I didn't count) is about twelve weeks away which puts a newbie (or an oldie) right in the window to begin conditioning the first week of February to be ride ready in April.  Now if you've had a season or two, I have it on good authority that I really only need about six weeks to segue into an LD.  So my plan is to do as I've always done with a slow 12 week plan, which usually many days fall through the cracks of life, weather, and mayhem, so if I can hang loosely with it for the most part we should be okay for April.  For us it loosely goes like this:

Weeks 1-4 walking (just basic legging up), over the road, hill, creek, valley, up, and down.  Gives you some time to focus on working the bugs out from a winter layoff (at least if you ride my horse), and just kind of harden up a bit. Short session: an hour a day doing little hills once a week, an hour session doing flat work twice a week)  (Long Session: once weekly, should last 1 hour week 1, 2 hours week 2, 3 hours week 3, 4 hours week 4) 5-

Weeks 5-8 walk, trotting.    Walk 5 minutes, trot for 10, on hour, 3 times a week.    Long Session:   week 1 an hour, week 2, 2 hours, week 3, 3 hours, week 4, 4 hours.

Week 9-10:  Once a week do short interval training for an hour, once a week do intense hill work for an hour,  LSD 15-20 miles at competition pace once a week.

Weeks 10-11:  Focus on canter intervals every other day.     LSD  20 miles.

Week 12:   Taper down for the seven days preceding ride week.   Reduce feed in proportion to work.  My last week I'll maybe ride 5 miles a day at a snappy little trot over varied terrain and call it good.  A couple days before the ride I'll back off even more, let her get the wind back in her sails, and we will see how it goes ☺