Observation

The temperature this morning is 73 degrees.  Sounds great...the humidity however is 94% (no it is not raining).  Since I feel that Journey really needs to get back into the training loop with more regular sessions and the heat index is not affording me good riding opportunities (at least not without a risk of hyperthermia), I decided that I would just have a short, but energetic session this morning and try to work out in my mind what we need to do in terms of cantering to get our average speed up to a 10 minute mile (6 mph or better).

I'm still working at our pesky "whoa" and peskier "back up" so we did that first, then did a few laps of the arena trying to get her walk about 3.5 mph (dismal fail).  So the plan was to just canter her down one straight side, break to the trot, and when we hit the straight again, to push back into canter, and repeat the process then check our numbers.
Ten laps: speed of follows.

			6.8
			6.8
			7.2
			7.2
			6.9
			7.2
			7.5
			7.8
			5.8
			8.0

AVERAGE 7.1

Journey is capable of building up her average speed, with some dedication to slowly getting it done.  I'm really only looking for an average around a solid 6-6.5 mph to give me enough wiggle room to handle a glitch at a ride (such as my propensity for being obviously directionally challenged).  She seems to handle shifting in and out of gear trot/canter/trot okay, and though this session was very brief due to the high humidity (horse was good, I was not) it tells me that we need to really focus more diligently on how far she can canter while not blowing out at the same time.  Seems my ride coach talked to me about this some time back, but I wasn't able to fully implement the advice as my horse kept bucking!    So next trip to our ten mile training loop I'm going to put these added intervals to the test and continue pushing for that better average.  Once we get it, I'll add another five miles gradually until that is working too.   Short days we will work it in the arena area to just build cardio.  She pulsed down to 51 after the little interval session even though it was very humid.  I did not sponge.    Sometime this weekend I'm going to get a bucket of water and the pulse monitor and just see what sponging does or does not do, then I'm going with what works best.

Predictions for October?

~E.G. : "Journey, can we do it?"

Journey: "A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine."

Observation:  We shall see.