A One Rat Study

May 26th   10:27/Mile
May 25th 11:50 /Mile 
Journey has complete the 25 mile training distance three times.  However she continues to be too slow to finish an LD within the allowed time window.  Sustained trotting isn't an issue but we need to be able to bring our mile per hour average up.  I've picked out a five mile hill course which we will do as quickly as footing allows, and see if we can eventually maintain this five miles at an extended trot mixed with canter except the downhills. The immediate goal is to try and get her to a 10:00/ Mile average back there and to continue building the length of her canter on flats as well.  We've been working on this for a week and I'm already seeing improvement, but the spotted wonder has a ways to go on anaerobic fitness.


May 7, 2012: An update
Journey has improved her trotting speed to 6-7 mph, which has got our average to the edge of a possible completion.  She has thwarted all efforts to improve her walking speed.  She continues to do well in her hoof boots (easyboot gloves), and we can't seem to keep the velcro on her gaiters alive and well still.  She also has a hind interference issue when booted, clipping the right rear pastern with the left hind booted hoof when transitioning to the canter.  Thus a new thing to figure out how to cure.  Electrolytes do not seem to agree with the speckled wonder either, so I'm going to try mini-doses and see how that goes for her.  Mostly though, she is going well.  Outside of needing a good bath she is as ready for her first LD as I'm likely to get her.  She's had 500 LSD miles, and a lot of hill climbing since December 2011.  Mostly what is left to finish her is some time with a trainer to get refinement, and collection, as she has a rather strung out way of going.  The entry-level one rat study will conclude in less than a week.  I am very nervous (and excited) to try the LD trail again.



The Beginning of Intervals

Wow!  It has been months (really) since I've added a post to this discussion of building a horse from scratch with a goal of Limited  Distance in 2012.  Only since the middle of March was I able to begin doing some "mini-intervals" as the footing improved.  I say  "mini" because I've also had to work through a serious bucking habit.   A  friend from another blog helped me inadvertantly with a piece of that, and we've pretty well got the issue sorted out, though Journey being Journey, I figured she would think up a new "thwart the human protocol."  She did.    It seems that which works best for us is more of a fartlek than an interval.  Not as intense, doesn't last long enough to get her sour or thinking of diversions, but increases the speed in little bursts.   Oh my gosh the difference this has made in her plodding way of going!  We have been adding these in once or twice a week for at least four weeks.   It has fueled her 4.3 mph average over  fourteen miles up to a solid and steady 6 mph average.  So we are on the right track.   Currently I have her right exactly where I want her for a competition, but not where she needs to be training -wise.   I'd like to see  us average 7-8 mph for some hour long training rides but can't figure out how to get those in at home because of our terrain.    We have a  one third mile, flat , and circular grassy track  where we do hour long sessions of sustained trotting, with brief fartleks thrown into the mix every lap as we point  up a very slight grade.   There is a monster hill back there, we usually scurry up it at least once, but a half hour session working that hill is probably in the spotted wonder's near future.    I must say though that Journey is a thinking horse.  When something becomes hard she will formulate diversionary tactics (brace up and refuse to turn the direction you wish to go, buck, spin, blah blah blah blah fill in the blank.)  These episodes are annoying, at times risky, but thankfully if I hang in there I can usually turn the tide my way.  Her running gears leave something to be desired.  No, that's not right...it is her stopping gear.  She is well aware of whoa.  She has a soft and responsive whoa in the arena setting.  On trail, I have to resort to one-rein stops.  Darned if I can figure it out...But mostly, she is doing great aside from these behavioral quirks.  We've had two dry run LD's mocked up, and she came through both of those fine, but too slow.   I think if we did one now she'd be okay, but it is too close to an actual ride that I don't want to attempt it.  We have the other issues to work on.  Continuing to build duration of her canter, getting more speed out of her trot, firming up her confidence on trail, assuring that her back doesn't get heat bumps, finding the right mix for her electrolytes, and  NOT RUNNING OUT OF SIZE O gaiters on her gloves.  She chews those things up and spits them out!  The velcro just doesn't hold up when most of your rides are in the mud!  I'd love it if they'd go back to the old velcro it was way better, but I digress...this is a one rat conversation after all, and what would Journey do without her gloves???   Speaking of, she  will now willingly trot over gravel service roads when booted on all four.  That is big progress.  A few months ago I called LSEGH on my cell in absolute panic as she was acting tender on the rocks even BOOTED we were having to walk the service roads.   So here we are in early April, pointed towards a ride in May.  We've worked out a whole bunch of boogery issues, and still have a few to go.  More tweaking, moving into sets of hill intervals (instead of flat) more work on building her motor slowly.  

FUELING THE FIRE

So Journey sort of hits the wall right now past 14 miles as far as her energy levels go.  Not out of gas, but definitely no longer loosely and energetically forward.  Part of that is a lack of maturity (in terms of the conditioning of her musculature and cardio) as she just hasn't been doing "work" for very long at all.  So LSEGH and I have been reading all the material we can find on fueling the performance horse with endurance/distance being the specificity I have in mind.   Already I understood the mechanics of  low starch, high fat, high roughage diet for a distance horse.  Adding fats to increase caloric intake and feeding post ride to put back in what you just took out.  Okay there.  What I have totally missed is the "pilot light" of burning those stored fats, and that is a low level of carbohydrates to act as kindling to get the fire burning.  TOTALLY. MISSED.THAT.  Why?  Because I've been so fearful of grains in general having an insulin resistant horse and an air fern on the farm...grains were the devil.  They may still be.  I don't know how Journey will react to the addition of grains in her diet.  She has a lot of hoof sensitivity, it may cave us under.  It might also instead give her the energy to perform an additional ten miles once conditioned.

We found a grain mix that has a good price point ($13/50#) that consists of oats, barley, and corn.  The protein is good at less than 10%.  It is free of "meal and bone meal".   It has added molasses in a very low percentage.   This mix is being considered only as a post ride addition to her feed. Feeding ride days only to hopefully stay out of the murky waters of tie-ups, metabolic disorder, and let's call them "mood swings."

A non-working horse of comparable size to Journey will need close to 15 mega calories per day for maintenance (just standing in the front lot looking silly).  So 15, 000 calories per day just for bodily functions, chasing Phebes around and biting her on the @$$ a few times a day. A non-working Journey does not need anything but a good dose of hay, low starch feed, fats, and plenty of water.  So for her:

8-10 lbs of timothy hay divided into three feedings supplies about 8000 of the needed calories.  This leaves us with a 7000 calorie deficit.  Three scoops of fat adds another 750 calories.  Now we are at deficit 6,250 in which her concentrate has to make up the bulk of those calories split into two feedings.  Journey is given about 20 lbs of hay daily, but wastes at least half of that picking around through it for her favorite parts.   So looking at this picture from a caloric viewpoint, she is not being given enough calories to adequately fuel the work. She is managing to maintain, but the work load is still very light.

So what does slow work (4-7 mph) cost the horse in calories?  About 700 calories per mile on average.  So for every mile ridden, the deficit increases another 700 calories.  The horse is going to pull those calories from stored fats because it is slow work, but the catalyst for doing this requires some glycogen  from the liver and muscle (stored carbohydrates).  The calorie usage for a slow ride might look something like this:

5 miles: 3500 calories.

10 miles: 7000 calories.

15 miles10, 500 calories.

20 miles 14, 000 calories.

30 miles 21, 000 calories.

Now do you see why those 100 mile horses get so incredibly thin?  Once you get behind on the calories...nothing but rest and the fat farm is going to bring it back.  So there would go a productive ride season quickly down the pike. It's much easier to take that weight off, than put it back on.

So how can I get those calories back in safely without the problems associated with grains?  Here is the theory...post ride feeding.  The horse's body is in recovery mode in the first few hours post ride.  Theoretically the horse's body will utilize those calories taken in during this period for RECOVERY.  The blood sugar is stabilized, the electrolytes replenished, hydration brought back into balance, fat and glycogen stores replenished, muscle damage repaired, all in the critical post ride hours.  I've heard the window is as small as one hour, and I've read that it can be as long as twelve hours.  Based on calculations for Journey's weight in order to get a useful post-ride feeding it will require the grain mix at 1 1/4 lbs (2000 calories), 1 lb. of beet pulp (250 calories) 3 scoops of her fat supplement (750 calories), timothy pellets at .75 lb  (650 calories).   This is in addition to her maintenance diet.  If she finds any component not agreeable, it will have to be tweaked somewhere else. So the great one rat study will be:

• Will she eat it?
• Will it effect the sensitivity of her hooves?
• Will she have more / enough energy with the small increase in carbohydrates to her diet?
• Will she go postal on this small amount of grains?

January 10, 2012
Distance=8 miles total
Time: 1:42.05 
Avg moving speed 4.7 mph

Journey has been using a fat called Cool Calories made by Start to Finish.  I'm looking for a product with more calories per ounce that are safe calories  Ani-med has several in oil form that would also include her vitamin E and vitamin A.  It would actually be more cost effective to use it than purchasing Cool Calories+Vitamin E+ Vitamin A.   So if she finds that palatable I'll be making the switch as it has much more calories for weight building than the product I'm using, and I won't have to purchase E separately which is very expensive.  Start to Finish has an electrolyte that looks good.  I had used Enduramax in the past and felt that it was too strong and caused tummy issues.  This time of year I really don't use the e-lytes, but summer will roll around again soon enough.Wanting to have things in place by spring.  

January 9

Slow steep hills

4:34 miles

Time=56:22 including warm up and cool down

Average combined Speed of all 4.6 mph

Maximum speed 10 mph

Note:  since her two long muddy rides her trotting speed on level  dry ground has picked up to 8 mph.

The Timing of Feed

 have been reading an article on fueling the energy needed for distance work.   My horses sometimes seem to hit a wall at some point in their energy expenditure.  Phebes got her’s up to twenty-five miles eventually and quit hitting the wall at fifteen.  Part of that was a change in training strategy  in that I had to increase our training mileage to about twenty miles for LSD, otherwise her body would say done!  Before we were actually DONE.     The other issue  was the timing of her feed.  I would get up at 2-3 AM to give her a morning ration allowing most of that digestion to be out of the way for a 7 AM start.  Phebes was a horse that went plain schizoid on oats.  Feed her a can of oats and she would be kicking down the stall, squealing, rearing,  really BAD horse behavior.  Remove the oats, and keep her diet low starch and you had at worse some mare ears  and grumpiness to contend with.    For the sake of argument, I did “test” this theory multiple times and the result was always the same, NO OATS FOR PHEBES, or corn, or other high NSC’s.  Period.

 However on the other hand the fuel to power those big fast twitch muscles up hills, and to have another gear like a canter on the flats requires glycogen stores in the muscle.   I’ve dummied it down for myself to avoid technical terminology in this way.  See each little fast twitch muscle cell as a tiny cup.  The horse eats  fuel  which is converted to glycogen which is stored in the tiny cup.  Each time you ask for a horse to power up a hill, canter, gallop you are robbing the little cup of its glycogen store.  When the little cup is empty, IT IS EMPTY.    This leaves the horse with a fueling deficit.   This only applies to fast work such as interval training, sprints, and strength training type work.  So you want to come to a ride with your little cups running full.   But, but, but!   You can’t top them off after four hours  before the start as this can create digestive / gut issues as blood is shunted away from the digestive track and to the working muscles.    Feeding to close to the start also can cause glycemic spikes and crashes which will also bottom out your horse’s energy.  So how am I to keep the cup running over? Avoid glycemic spikes and crashes,  and keep some energy in the tank?  How not to over feed and set up Azoturia if the horse misses training due to an unexpected human work schedule.   There is a lot to think about in our feeding programs.

 Journey is good to about twelve miles of aerobic work presently in cold weather.  She flags a little sooner in warm (> 50 degrees).   If she sprints, she is out of gas really fast.  Seconds, not minutes.  So my first goal for her is figure out how to safely fuel her up.  I know that rest is a component to recovery but I feel she is getting plenty of that.  Progressive loading is a component and we are working on that adding 10-20% more stress load each week for her LSD, and in search of the “perfect hill” for the strength training component to come.  That leaves food.   Journey has very sensitive hooves.  She has continued getting better in this area by feeding a low NSC (low starch) feed, and supplementing her fats for energy.   She is fed timothy hay morning and evening and eats some of it, and rolls the rest around into the mud eventually, or decides to pee in the middle of it, but point being she is offered plenty.    All that is fine, but I would like to develop a recovery mixture of feed to refuel the lost glycogen post ride in the magic 1-4 hour window immediately following a ride.  My one concern is that her hoof sensitivity will increase with oats added to her mix, though theoretically her glycogen deficit should grab the carbs and convert them to glycogen for storage.   I’ve looked at a few commercial feeds that could be used for this purpose such as Omelene 200 but I cringe when I read molasses in the ingredients of any feed.    I also don’t know how she is going to react to having a higher NSC feed added.  Journey is a bit flighty already on a low starch diet.   However I feel she is going to struggle getting the curve of longer and hillier distance (pointed towards her first ride that is virtually an all up and down ride).   The magic bullet should be to add a small high energy type feed four hours before a hard training ride (hills, sprints)  and a full ration within two hours post ride.   This would also be a good window to give electrolytes once I feel she needs them post ride,  after a good  slurpy wet mash.   At least that is the theory….as my squirrel brain interprets the information.    She is already on maximum fat supplementation.   So this is the only way I know to go from here.  So far her weight is maintaining around 840 lbs, and most of her weight dumping appears to be fluid as she recovers by the next day in appearance.  This will become part of the post-ride plan at the very least to fill up those “empty cups.”

Notes:  The mud is more or less kicking our butt right now.  A training ride on dry ground is sure different than slogging through this crap.  On one hand it is a tougher workout, and on the other it increases her risk for injury.  Her slogging speed is about 4.5 mph at the trot.  Feet on "dry land" more 6.6-7 mph.  I'm also needing to tweak things as far as feed.  Don't want any drastic changes, but would like to see her fueled above 12 miles when she starts to fade.  I'm also seeing that she needs a much longer recovery when we quit to just let down, before she will eat or drink.  She did really tank up on water pre-ride yesterday which helped, and drank several times on the way back.  She continues to need a full ten minutes for pulse down, but when she finally drops, the drop is good, like 47 bpm.    Moving forward we will have to find a palatable "halfway" feed that she is willing to eat, and a hay that is tempting without going to alfalfa (she was fed alfalfa by previous owner).   Other areas needing work are extending her trot.  I know she can, as she really extends on uphills, but then breaks to canter.  Her extended trot pushes to about 8 mph which is slow, but good enough for our purposes.  I just need to train that into her gradually.  She really hasn't found her "go" yet and right now I don't think we really need to...just need to get up an average speed that will allow a finish, and we are a tad short of that.  Hoping that we get dry enough footing that we can start some slow cantering to kind of build her up and get better control at that gait transition which is really "wonky" (ie. bucking). From an overall standpoint she is doing great on our away rides.  Loose rein 98% of the time both out and back.  She has trouble maintaining pace because of the mud.  It is go then slow, go then slow, and I'm sure wears her out way more than just "go" would on a decent trail.  Once I get her up to fifteen miles and she feels solid there...we need to head to Clark and start training the course.  ~ E.G.

January 7, 2012

Distance:12.62 miles. Time:2:46:26  Avg Speed:4.5 mph    Elevation Gain:1,378 ft

Added 

 Distance:1.48 mi     Time:14:42   Avg Speed:6.0 mph    Elevation  Gain:147 ft

Put cut off socks under her gaiters today and no problem with rubbing.  We lost 8 minutes on our previous time.  

January 6, 2012

Hill work

Distance 3.09  Time 32.22

Average speed 5.1

January 2, 2012

Temps have dropped to the 20's, snowing, winds are gusty.

 We managed an hour session of slow hill work due to the footing (icy crust with mud underneath). I didn't like her downhills today.  She felt like she was short striding a little on the down hill, fine on the uphill and the flat. Will recheck her tomorrow for filling, swelling, or reaction to palpation of tendons. Could be some residual muscle soreness from the muddy course over the weekend.

December 31, 2011

LSD=12.6 miles (VSP Course)

Average Speed=4.8 mph (improved .6 mph)

Time=2:38 (improved by 23 minutes).

Temperature 40 degrees

Terrain boot sucking mud.

She has a gaiter rub on her left front.

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December 26, 2011

Today was in hand work.  Those trot out's in hand are coming along but still a 50/50 proposition.  No cue, no trot!  And boy it makes her have stinky ears.  Then we slow trotted cavellettis on the circle with her on the longe line.  She still often clicks the elevated pole as she gets lazy about picking up her feet, but she is staying on the circle and not trying to evade.  Just wanted to let her stretch out and wiggle around a little to work out any tightness she may have had from yesterday's ride. No time to train the  next three days...scheduled for 32 hours in 3 days, ack!

Merry Christmas! 

Today we were finally able to get back to some hill work.  I'm still trying to find a hill that will work to my satisfaction, and so far not!  We did the steeper climb (shorter hill) and it did work better at getting her heart rate up.  She trotted it five times, and though she was pulsing down within 30-45 seconds, she was getting sloppy with her feet again, which worried me with the footing being not the greatest.  We then went down the longer (not as steep) grade and trotted the steep part and cantered the ridgeline twice.  This finally got her pulse to hang for almost 50 seconds.  What I am feeling is that she is fairly aerobically fit, but her muscles haven't caught up with that as far as coordination, etc.  Her top speed wasn't that fast, about 12 mph.   After that we went for a pleasure ride and had a nice slow trot home. 9.27 miles.  Her post ride pulse after the hills went down quickly to 67 bpm.  It took ten minutes for her to come down to 58 bpm after we were done entirely.  Her appetite was good, she scarfed down a pound and a half of performance feed post ride.  Muscle tone looked good, legs tight and cool.

December 24, 2011

We worked again on sustained trotting.  My Garmin folded in the cold again, so I had to work it on time.   50 minutes of sustained flat trotting, with a working pulse of 113 bpm.  She pulsed right down so still riding within her fitness limits.  Cold today and muddy.  Estimated distance based on time at 5.5 miles.

December 23, 2011 The footing is not conducive to riding in a way that might be safe. It has been the 18th since she had "work."

December 20, 2011

A short loosening up ride today, and a lot of bending around cones.  Will not be able to ride again until the end of the week.

Dec 18, 2011

39 degrees: wind at 12 mph. 

Today we did flat work.  The goal for today was 5 miles of sustained trotting in whatever kind of time it took to establish a baseline of where we are at.  Her pre-ride pulse was 54 bpm.  

She covered the 5 miles in 48:17 in a relaxed frame (no hurry, no butt dragging). Average speed including an unplanned dismount when she spooked over her shadow was 6.2 mph.  She was getting tired at the end.  She pulsed to 48 right at ten minutes.  So she wasn't over-ridden.  She ate post ride, wouldn't drink out of her water bucket, but did tank up once I turned her out.  Today saw a big improvement in her overall steering, and moving with her head lower.  Good ride!

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December 17, 2011

36 degrees

Overcast with Humidity at 65% Wind: S at 6mph

Today was the first set of hill repetitions.  Terrain is muddy.  The hill is a gradual  grade at 1/4 mile in length. (7 reps today)

Pre-ride resting pulse 28 bpm.

Gait:  trotting uphill, walking the slippery downhill (except where it flattens).

Post ride resting pulse 58 @ 5 minutes.

Pre-ride weight 849/ Post-ride 821.

Post ride appetite: yes (performance feed)

Post ride drinking: yes ( not a lot, but did drink).  Legs: she poked herself above right front hoof with a stick.

Notes from ride:  Journey bucked the first three rep's because she wanted to gallop and I wouldn't let her.  By the fourth trip up, she wasn't feeling like bucking any more.  By the last two reps she trotted on a loose rein.  The ride started our pretty drama filled and risky, but a little work soon fixed that.  I did discover that Journey doesn't like anything rushing up from behind, she initially bolts, and thwarting that precipitates bucking.  A disengagement fixes those things, but WOW.   I actually think working hills will be a good training experience for her.   She is not for the faint of heart.

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The Conditioning Plan

Progressive loading every 7-10 days.

Okay!  So here is how I'm going to work it for this horse: This is her conditioning program (not her horse "training" plan, that rat is another color... and involves another expert.) Warm up and a cool down,  for each session, then...

For six weeks:  Hill sessions once a week, same course, progression of repetitions until she can do 10 of them using the 120/90 sec. rule.  Then when she can meet those at the trot, add slow cantering using the same rule. It's going to take awhile.

For six weeks:  A one hour flat session once a week,  progressing the amount of time she can trot (decreasing the amount of walking each session), until we can trot the whole thing. Trying to get a little farther each time because we've gone a little "faster" The faster will come by walking less each time.

For six weeks: Slow Distance Work once a week, stretching distance each week.

I have a 9.5-12 mile course that is going to be either frozen or muddy, I'll have to kind of go with the flow on that until weather and footing improves.  I'll use the same 12 mile course at the park when I can so that I can improve her confidence and track improvements in how well she can accomplish the course.

In between these sessions, we will work on our snarky little training goals: Hobbling, tying to the trailer and in the stall, efficient booting, collection, gait transitions, etc. etc. etc.  These issues are important, but not a component of the One Rat Study.

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 Under the microscope of distance riding I am nothing but a single cell in a one rat study.  Journey is the rat.  In this case the rat has four striped white hooves that started out with long toes and under-run heels.  Look at the flare on those back hooves, bruising of the hoof wall on the left rear.  She couldn't be led over that gravel driveway without bobbing, tripping, wincing.  Front soles FLAT AS A PANCAKE.

The boots went on but look at the peculiar angle.

The boots didn't look so pretty today December 16, 2011

           But look how the toe is coming back.  Heel maybe still a bit under-run, but progress. 

 Slow, one-rat progress.