One Week for a Miracle of Sorts

We only have a bit over a week to pull off a "miracle" of sorts as conditioning goes.   Couple that with it was 78 degrees on Saturday and an inch of snow on Monday with rain in between.  My focus currently is trying to bump up the speed of our trot.  Journey's little happy place is about 6 mph which is more of a jog than a digging in getting there trot.   Last night I was getting her to hit the 8 mph place but still having trouble sustaining it.  The footing was very muddy so I had to take her to my little ridge line loop and work the top side of it doing repeats, so every turn is indicated with a dip of downward speed.   The final dip at 4 miles is the walk home.   The Spotted Wonder has been behaving much better.   She still wants to take the turn for home on the hill top, but not fighting me, just googling her eyeballs at it and thinking home. 

I've pretty well succumbed to the idea that a 50 is out of the question for this ride.  So LD it is, and hoping to try for 50 at our next one using the LD as training to get there.  If she does well day one, maybe....try for day two.  Maybe.  Assuming the sky does not fall and we get there the race is thus:  Beat the following finish time for TOR which was 4:06 and previous to that a rider option (on Phebes).    Now is that a win/win or what?  So if I'm able to not rider option YAY!  And if I can pare down our time to 4:00  Yay!   If I can bring home a t-shirt Yay!   If it doesn't rain double YAY!  Am I stepping up my game or what?

Pretty excited about replacing my lost boot.  Lucked into an auction on Ebay for two Renegade shells size 2 for about $27, ordering the tops for $67 with a little creativity in the captivator department, plus an extra cable, and two extra pastern straps/ tension straps.  So I'll have essentially 2 nearly new Rennies for $104 including the shipping.  So I will have replaced my lost boot, and gained a spare to carry with me.  I'm getting black captivators to go on top of bright orange Renegades.    I kind of like this idea and in future may do that with all my front boots to make it easier to grab the right sized boot in a sea of orange.