Endurance training while the Rest of Life is Happening: Road to Tevis # 54

This Saturday (October 2) Fantazia and I are going to do the 50 at the Quicksilver Fall Classic. It will be our first ride since the Wild West Pioneer Ride, in mid-.June, where Fantazia was pulled for rear-end lameness (a muscle cramp no doubt due to my mismanagement). (See my post about everything I was doing wrong.) And… I don’t know how ready we are. Up till Wild West, I was training for this year’s Tevis Cup. Sort of, between wild fires, COVID, and life happening. Now, I am not sure when, if ever, Fantazia and I will do Tevis. This post is really about what endurance training while the rest of life is happening looks like, for me. Yesterday I had a wonderful ride in surprisingly smoke-free air, and that is what it’s all about: riding my horse amidst a world of chaos.

Jump to:

What the rest of life looks like for me
How I fit endurance training in
Yesterday’s great ride (with videos)
On split reins

Endurance training while the rest of life is happening

After Wild West (June 17-19), I gave Fantazia two weeks completely off. As in, I turned her loose after the ride and pretty much ignored her, other than grooming and hand-grazing. The third week we did some bareback riding to pick mint and graze. Four weeks after Wild West, we did our first easy trail ride. It wasn’t until July 27th that we did our first real training ride, also our first night ride.

Fantazia needed a rest… and I am busy

In part, I gave Fantazia a break because she had had a bad muscle spasm at Wild West, and she needed some rest. In part, I needed a lot of time to sort out my own life, the part of it that hasn’t got that much to do with horses. It took me until two months after Wild West to sort my life out–as much as is ever possible. It’s always a work in progress! But at least for the moment, I know where I will be and what job(s) I’ll be working for the next year. Whew. Some much needed mental peace, but! I’m still really really busy. Many days, I simply don’t have time to do the ideal training ride, even when I can ride. Many days, I am lucky to get to ride in the arena; others, all I can do is throw a halter on and ride to the mail box for the mail.

Above: Getting the mail is one of the few daily chores that is 100% compatible with riding! See my brief video here.

And I am lucky. My horse lives on our property. I feed her and clean her paddock every single day. Some days, that’s all the exercise I get. (I’m lucky!) Every morning, I go out to see her looking up at the house wondering when breakfast is going to come (because it’s never early enough!)

What the rest of life looks like for me (some of it)

Teaching

I’m an adjunct professor at two community colleges. I teach solely online at Victor Valley College (because Victorville is far away). At College of the Sequoias, which is only about an hour away, I will be teaching in person in spring (I teach via ZOOM now, due to COVID). I have six classes this semester, which is a lot. Standard teaching load if you are tenured at a community college is 5 classes… which is also a lot. It’s 2/3 at most universities (or colleges) that have an element of research (that is, 2 courses one semester, 3 the next).

Research

Of course, at those institutions, you are expected to carry out research too. That’s a plus if, like me, you love research. Normally, community college professors don’t do research, even if they are tenured. Adjuncts don’t have time (read about adjuncting in this New York Times piece, or in the book The Adjunct Underclass, reviewed here.) Well… I chose to adjunct because I wanted more time, even though it means a lot less money. Teaching three courses (all the same) for one college would allow me more time. Teach three different courses for two colleges is a stretch.

And the thing is, I still do research; at least, I am writing up research that I conducted at University of Oklahoma as a graduate student and post doc. I have been lackadaisical about it; I only had a few papers published in 2020, and only submitted two this year so far (one is in press, the other under review for revision). But now I am considering tenure-track jobs where I can do research, and getting a few more papers submitted may help me get hired. (Because of their topics–social justice.)

Blogging

Yes, I love it but it’s time consuming. Blogging involves taking and editing pictures and videos, making diagrams for my training blogs, writing, and putting it all together. Plus website maintenance.

Freelance consulting

I do a bit of consulting on research design, data analyses, and scientific writing. I had meant to expand this to nearly full-time job (supplemented by teaching a few classes as an adjunct). Wish I’d done so six months ago, now I am so busy I barely have time for the few clients I like so well I’ve kept.

And then there is the REST OF LIFE as in, private live

Which we all know means the endless chores of laundry, shopping and cooking, cleaning, and relationship maintenance. (Relationship maintenance covers family, friends, and significant other.) When I find a few spare minutes, I try to exercise (hiking, running) or read. I don’t have a lot of time, I’ve been working on The System of the World for months now.

Above: We had an amazingly smoke-free and gorgeous afternoon for our ride yesterday!

So how do I fit endurance training in?

In bits and pieces. What with the rest of life, the heat of summer, the drought, and the smoke from wildfires, Fantazia and I have done little serious conditioning. Our longest ride since Wild West was 16.26 miles, On August 7th. I’d planned to ride around 22 miles, but there was no water so we headed home (the shortest way) sooner than planned. (Read about that ride here.) On September 23rd, we rode 13.8 miles in 2 hours 55 minutes, with 2,850′ total elevation gain. It’s not that Fantazia isn’t fit; she’s not not as fit as she was this spring.

Below: Fantazia happily cantering and trotting up the final bit of our first slope yesterday.

And I don’t like this haphazard approach to horse training! From someone who followed a carefully calibrated training schedule (down to the speed of each mile, each day) for her race horses years ago: this isn’t training. It’s hit-and-miss, hope for the best, do what I can.

And maybe that’s all right. Maybe that’s how most endurance riders do it, with the exception those that are professionals in all but name. Can you do effective endurance training while the rest of life is happening? I guess I’ll know if it’s enough on Saturday.

In the meantime, riding is still the most fun I have!

Yesterday we had a great ride. There was far less smoke than had been predicted because the wind has been blowing it towards Nevada. We’ve been getting smoke from the close-by Windy Fire and, to a lesser extent, the Walkers Fire and the KNP Complex Fire. Nothing like last year’s fire situation, but it has kept us indoors most days over the past two weeks. See my post about (not) riding in smoke from wildfires. So when I noticed how clear it was around noon, I went straight to the barn.

In the video below, I am on top of the closest ridge, looking towards the Windy Fire as I ride.

I knew it would be our last good ride before Quicksilver, so I did 3.5 miles on the road (one mile walking, 2.5 trotting) before heading out the back gate into the hills. I tailed up the hill behind our house, then rode all the way to the top of the nearest ridge (about 1000′ higher than our training barn.) Fantazia trotted and cantered most of the way. When we got to the top of the ridge, I could see the smoke from the Windy Fire. I took some pictures, narrated some videos, and headed down.

On split reins

On the way home, I made a short video explaining split reins (in response to the Border Patrol Incident). No, I don’t think the reins were being used to whip people. No, I don’t think herding people is a Best Practice In Law Enforcement, but sometimes there aren’t a lot of options. These agents did what they could. There should have been MORE mounted patrols, in my opinion. (I might have to dedicate an entire post to this soon…)