But, where to go to ride and condition?
I've already told Joe, I'm done road riding near our house after that last bad ride with Socks (which wasn't BAD, but you just can't get any speed going to work on conditioning like that).
So, off to Where The Trails Are to figure out what places are near my home, and which ones are barefoot friendly enough that I could go.
It just so happens that there are two near my home; Shaffer Bend and Muleshoe Bend.
Shaffer just happens to be SLIGHTLY closer, so I'd planned to go out early Saturday morning, get my ride done, and be home for the rest of the day.
Except...no. See my previous post about "The Great Cow Debacle" as I've taken to calling it lately.
I told Joe Sunday night, since we had no work on Monday, I WAS going riding since our plans had been shot all weekend.
So, the initial plan was Joe and I were going to go riding somewhere.
Out the window.
I decided I'd haul over to Shaffer Bend and see if it would be suitable for conditioning for Strider and I.
It's about 35 minutes from home, and an LCRA park.
I pulled into the park hoping to find an attendant on duty so I could pay with my credit card. No one on duty. Disappointing. Especially as I wanted to know where day parking was for horses. Or a trail map would have been nice.
Instead, I paid into the honor box, making SURE they knew I was there as an equestrian (I scrawled it in BIG LETTERS all over the envelope), and then proceeded into the park.
And I drove.
And I drove some more.
And kept on driving.
Now, it's all gravel, and as I went down the road, I would see signs at the edge of the road indicating the riding trails, but I couldn't figure out where to park to access the trails.
I thought that SURELY somewhere ahead was day parking.
No. Not at all.
I eventually dead ended into the camping sites, and had NO idea what to do at that point.
Now, the park was EMPTY, so not a single camper. I eventually opted to pull through a site near the pipe corrals they have built for the horses and I unloaded Strider.
He promptly looked around and realized he was IT! The only horse. Cue some enthusiastic calling for someone, ANYONE to answer him.
Didn't help the wind was blowing pretty fiercely, so he was a bit of a kite on a string. So, I tied him up a little shorter, quickly tacked up, and got going.
We headed out on Homestead, taking our time as I had no idea what the trail conditions were, and I'd noticed on the way in that in the open fields, there were a LOT of pig wallows. Not far down the trail, there was a drop off to the side so we had to swerve around that. And then a little further down the trail, there was a big hole in the middle of the trail. So, I'm a little nervous about the trail conditions, but wanting to move out a little....and yet wanting to be safe on our first ride back.
So, we kept it to a dull roar. Lots of walking, some gaiting. We saw a LOT of deer. At some point on the trail there was another we could take which took us down to the lake. Where there was an open place. And fairly flat.
And he asked so nicely that I allowed the canter. He wanted to go faster. I could sense it, and while I wanted to allow it, I couldn't see through the grass, and he was a good boy about listening to me when I said we weren't going to.
We had to bushwack a little bit as I could see a trail on the other side of this ravine, but couldn't find a way to access it, so we wandered around some and eventually ended up backtracking on the trail we had been on.
We had to double back a LOT on trails we had already done. We went to go explore Dagger, but it's a bit of a climb, and after him stopping on me twice and pretty much saying he was NOT going to go up, I allowed him to turn around about halfway up...and had a "Oh, what have I done?!" moment. The descent is steep, so I gave him his head, guided him only when I saw things he could hurt himself on, and let him get us back down. It was a few hairy moments while I held my breath and hoped like hell he didn't trip, stumble or fall getting us safely back down!!
Perhaps a bit too much to ask of him in his current physical fitness level. Noted.
We looped and added and repeated the trails I could find, and the best I could come up with was about 6 miles of trail that was "okay" at best for conditioning. For the average trail rider who wants to sit and talk with their friends, Shaffer Bend is PERFECT. For the endurance horse looking to move out and get some speed going, it is a fail. *sigh*
Disappointed best describes how I felt when I was done. I didn't feel we'd accomplished much, EXCEPT, I was able to go and ride my boy. So, for that reason alone, I put it in the successful column.
Splits
| Time | Cumulative Time | Moving Time | Avg Speed | Avg Moving Speed | Max Speed | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 13:22 | 13:22 | 13:21 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 8.5 | ||||
| 2 | 14:27 | 27:49 | 14:15 | 4.2 | 4.2 | 12.9 | ||||
| 3 | 17:13 | 45:02 | 17:02 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 8.6 | ||||
| 4 | 16:30 | 1:01:32 | 15:34 | 3.6 | 3.9 | 9.0 | ||||
| 5 | 14:45 | 1:16:17 | 14:36 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 10.2 | ||||
| 6 | 12:13 | 1:28:30 | 11:59 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 9.9 | ||||
| 7 | 4:09.8 | 1:32:40 | 4:04 | 5.2 | 5.3 | 8.3 | ||||
| Summary | 1:32:40 | 1:32:40 | 1:31:18 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 12.9 |
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