We got our split done

But our time wasn't the greatest though...
Our hold:                       40 minutes
Average Speed:             5.5 mph

Elapsed Ride Time:

4:15

Avg Pace:	10:52 min/mi
Avg Moving Pace:	9:58 min/mi
Best Pace:	4:19 min/mi

Journey has had a 28 mile week.  At the sixteen mile point today she was saying stick me with a fork, I'm done.  The weather is great today, low humidity, the home course is techinical and rolling hill, after rolling hill.  We cantered where we could, trotted most of the uphills, and jogged down the easy hills, walked down the steep ones.  She is starting to walk really nicely down hills even at home.  Our time was holding really well on the first half, about 6.3 mph.  We come in and I leave the clock running as it would at a ride to see how much this effects my average time.  By the time she pulsed down our average dropped to 5.3 mph.  I go out the second half and attempt to ride at a good enough pace to get the average back up to six...NO MATTER WHAT WE DID WE COULD NOT GAIN THAT GROUND BACK.  At one point the best I did was get it back to 5.8, then we were back and facing the clock again.  If we'd have been at an actual ride I suppose we would still been running close enough to manage a completion if no other factors went wrong.  The pulsing down thing is going to be an issue for us.  I really don't think she was over ridden at all.  When I turned her out she did a victory lap at the canter in the front lot on her own.   Things still kind of put her in a tizzy.  Cree can holler and her pulse jumps up, a car stopped in front of our place, and a four wheeler, couple of men talking, that jumped her up to 73 (when we were almost down). 

This endurance thing is going to be a huge maybe.

On my front, I awoke with a fit of allergies this morning.  Sinus swollen, hard to breath, eyes watering.  Took pills to get that somewhat sorted out, then decided to ride in tennis shoes since my riding boots have been killing my right foot.  I put a small slice of memory foam under the ball of my right foot and that really helped.  My left foot was so bad at 17 miles that I was cursing and riding without stirrups intermittently (neither helped much).  As I'm getting older the bony prominences on my body are not as well padded, I guess it all got sucked up into my gut, a good extra fifteen pounds of fluffiness there.  I'll need to find me a good hiking/running shoe with very soft insoles if I'm going to make it past 25 miles.  I tried changing the length of my leathers, and that threw my knees into hurting, so lengthened those.  Attempted to change the position of my feet in the stirrup, outside/ inside since they are wide, still hurts.  Put those pads you kneel on when gardening in the bottom of the stirrup and those were not cushion enough, the firmness compresses my feet until the bones are very unhappy.    Journey has a ways to go, she is fixable.  Me?  I'll probably need surgery on my right foot to sort that out.  In the meantime, I have to find a temporary fix.

~E.G.