No Stranger: Ride/jump/life

As we wrap up November (tomorrow is Dec 1? Wha??) I’m happy to say this has been a pretty good week! I rode tons which I’m sure Oats didn’t really appreciate, but he did get a lot of good, consistent work. Did poles on Sunday, flatwork on Monday/Tuesday and a jump lesson last night (Thursday). He was so good on Thursday! We even had the oxers go up to 2’6”, and I guess the full course was somewhere around that too? Except for a x-rail on the circle. He was excellent! What a great boy!

Oats was jumping even better than this (from a few years ago).

I’ve been learning to let go jumping, and I think he is really responding well to it. As well, I’ve been slowly healing my ligament injury that I received back in Oct., and as I build my fitness back up, I think I am better able to respond as a rider, as the rider that Oats needs. It helps that I am not in pain when I ride, and I feel ‘stronger’ and more capable and less awkward and vulnerable.

Someone is SO getting this for Christmas…

And on the injury front, I went to another rehab session on Thursday and I am very happy to say that I’m almost completely healed! It went well, was less painful that in the past (though I am apparently a huge wimp, because damn, it is still kind of painful?!!) and I’m hearing that now I need one re-check on the shockwave treatment in a month, and other than that, just monitor as needed. 🙂 YESSSS!!!!

So I’m going forward on a maintenance-only schedule, and I will go back if I end up in pain again, but otherwise…It’s all good news. Thank god! And he said I was probably fine to ramp up my activity (though he added in that it sounded like I was probably doing that anyways…Hah, right I was. I have to try!).

So, some good news this week for sure. Feeling good and happy with it! And very pleased with my Oats. What a good pony.

Going by: Fri/weekend update

After a period of busy weekends, the past two have been fairly quiet- and that’s ok. On Friday I had a dressage lesson and it was tricky! We worked on canter leg-yields, and positioning for the counter-canter. I am SO not good at positioning for that, and found it really difficult to get my legs/body to cooperate= Oats fininding it equally difficult…SIGH. Oh well, something to practice on for sure!

Last winter and the winter before was very snowy.

Saturday I rode, and worked on myself: 4X 3 minutes on/1 minute off two-point. Was it hard? Sort of? I did expect it to be harder actually! What was hard was when I was gearing up to jog home (my husband had to attend a funeral, so he dropped me off at the barn and I was going to run home). My legs were like, nahh, no.

It was kind of a slow slog home, but to be honest I was prepared to spend the time. Got nowhere really to be, so why not? The weather wasn’t bad either, just kind of chilly and blustery.

We’ve been having a nice fall so far! Just rainy now, but not overall too cold. 

I’ve been having on and off again ligament pain and it flared up  badly on Sunday. It was bearable for my run, but again I can tell my injury has not healed up yet.

We went and watched Suspiria on Saturday at a theatre that is licensed! Yes!! It was so wild, crazy off the wall. Hah, I highly recommend it. It’s nuts. Sunday I was in no rush, had a nice breakfast, rode with friends (pole work) and hung out talking for a bit. The weather did take a turn for the worse- rainy and cold. I even went on a run later with my husband and went fast for me! My hip pain came back with an absolute vengeance though, yiiiikes. Ah, I miss going fast!!

Back to work today.

Won’t let you down

Riding this week has been in the distinctly ‘ok’ camp- nothing amazing, but nothing bad either. Rode lightly Monday (FREEZING), worked on no-stirrups on Tuesday (much more reasonable temperatures), had a jump lesson last night where we worked on adjustability by my request over poles/small x-rails (it kind of sucked, but yeah that’s clearly where I need to improve haha), and have a dressage lesson tonight.

Where I will likely be working on…canter adjustability. Hah.

Oats wasn’t even sweating last night, and the work is tiring for him. I guess since he is clipped and in pretty good shape, he just doesn’t sweat? He has had a recurring poopy butt though, UGHHH that is a lot of fun to deal with every day. The hay is too rich for him, and he’s been having gastrointestinal effects for about two weeks now. I had hopes that it was improving this week, until I got to the barn on Thursday and nope…Still gross. Poor pony!

He was also kind of in slugville, ha. I am putting him back on Previcox this winter, to see if it helps him move more freely when it gets cold. On Monday, he moved like the Tin Man. Stiff, uncomfortable and just awful! My husband joked that it’s like me starting a race- stiff, awkward, slow and super uncomfortable. Takes me a good 10-20 minutes to warm up into it…As for Oats I guess?

I am hoping the Previcox helps him when it gets colder out. As it is, the weather has been very mild! 🙂 Since the deep freeze on Monday. Also it’s raining a lot, sooooo yeah. Otherwise I’m just trying to put the training in on Oats, but still maintaining good perspective with a mix of easy rides, beach rides and the girls are trying to get him out on a trail ride with them one day…We’ll see about that.

I am also still focusing on rehabbing my ligament injury, which is kind of a back-and-forth journey most weeks- I can barely feel the injury anymore, except when I run too much or too fast, then it swells back up into a lump of scar tissue on my lower hip/groin. Lovely.

The other person is you

I feel like I don’t even have that much to recap on this past weekend? Had a good jump lesson last Thursday, took Friday off, and oh right…found a HUGE DEAD RAT in my locker bright and early on Saturday. 😦

Wish Gidget was actually a rat terrier or something…

Gross. So gross. I screamed and ran out of the barn, found my friend and asked her casually…”So, how squeamish are you?” She said she wasn’t, so I said ‘good! Come with me and bring a shovel!’

She disposed of Mr. Dead Rat and I set about thoroughly cleaning my freaking locker. So much work. So much rat shit and urine. So awful. It was a really nice day out too, and how did I spend it? Cleaning my rat-infested locker… I did end up riding later though and Oats was really good!

I ran later in the day and my watch died and I ran longer than I planned to, it was getting dark out. Yikes! It was also kind of a bad idea, since my ligament injury was flaring up in the evening after my run. SIGHHHH I am ready for it to be done and sadly it isn’t. I am a very bad person at being injured.

Flashback to a few weeks ago. Racing, and sooooo injured. Ouch! 

Sunday was another slack day, went riding (and I am still kind of processing things emotionally that are going on in my life, and I processed them through Oats. In a way I wish I hadn’t! Dumb of me) but he was good despite my being a dumb rider. I packed my run clothes and jogged after riding (ouch, that was a truly bad idea) and then met my husband and we went shopping downtown for Christmas gifts and some other things. It was nice to be downtown but I started getting really tired! Shopping is quite tiring for me, haha.

And that wrapped up my weekend, and I had a very chilly equine counseling session last night with Oats and my counselor. Very productive and it helped me feel more ‘grounded’ in my life/actions, if that makes any sense?

Ride tonight and I hope it is warmer~!

Awake and pretty much sober

Funny song title, I loved it.

Sometimes I look competent?

This week was luckily quite short, and I didn’t ride Monday (did an equine counselling session for the aforementioend family drama, Oats got to cruise around on his own), rode Tuesday (he was ok? Now I can’t remember what we did!) and had a jumping lesson last night.

The lesson went well but had some disappointments for me- I can’t seem to let.go.no.matter.what?!! Argh. Oats is not a pony that needs me on his face all the time, or ever pretty much. He’s push-button, not strong, not fast (hah) and not anything requiring a death grip on the reins. So, why?

Why indeed!

Miss this show, he was so good! 

We worked over a trot grid (3 X trot bounce jumps, two strides to a small oxer) and damn if I didn’t find it hard to let go of his face for the two strides to the oxer. Whyyyy? He jumped it perfectly fine, and I was surprised every time.

We then worked over a small course with a circle jump, a 4-stride line (rode well each time actually, some bobbles coming in but overall quite nice) and the grid.

I was a tad anxious (see- feeling vulnerable about letting go of his face…) but he was jumping quite nicely and very reasonably, so what is my deal? The jumps went up, not high but the outside line was definitely a bit higher than previous and Oats had zero issues with it.

I did sort of improve on the ‘let go of his face’ but let’s be honest- I struggle with feeling vulnerable doing that! It’s a battle to let my body go and be ok with it, I am that strong of a rider and it’s not hard for me to do, soooo why the resistance??

Oh well, overall I was very pleased with Oats’ ‘can-do’ attitude. Good pony 🙂

 

Way Yes

I had a very nice weekend- still managing some difficult aspects of life, but I feel like I’m hopefully taking the route that leads to me feeling better about it. This weekend I had a LOT of great friend time, me time, horse time, run time and everything!

We remember.

Friday I had a dressage lesson – where we worked on a canter exercise. It was tough! I had to cut the lesson a bit short to run out to the Westshore for my friend and namesake’s birthday celebration 🙂

Saturday, riding and running. My ligament injury is not 100% but slowly improving run by run. It was a bit painful and ‘tugging’ on my run, but you know what, it was better than it has been- so I’ll take it!

Just a good day- photo by Lindsay. 

Saturday night was visiting with friends- I brought dessert and drank some (a lot?) of wine. Haha. This was in preparation for Sunday’s big event…Bringing the horses to THE BEACH!! Yes, in November?! Hahaha. It was great though. They managed to keep their hair on mostly, Oats was a bit anxious and nippy with some of the other horses, and he spooked at a dog, but yeah for it being November, cold and windy, and a bunch (6 total) of horses? Very good. 🙂

Got home in the afternoon and had to get ready to host in-laws at our place for dinner. Busy busy! It was a lovely evening and the dinner my husband made was fantastic! I also drank a lot of wine, hahahah.

Monday- counseling session to work on some of the issues that have been challenging me this week- it was productive, and I had a better idea of where things went wrong recently. Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? I didn’t ride, but Oats got to cruise around the indoor while we were talking and chill out. He also had a farrier appointment. Another busy day! So glad to have Monday off, phewww.

And that brings me to today- where I am trying to be more relaxed, present in my surroundings, and not taking myself, my health or my abilities, for granted.

You Won’t: Jump lesson update!

I’ve had kind of a mixed week- some personal-life drama (ughh) but in other news, my ligament injury seems to be making a real turnaround with treatment, so I am VERY pleased with that!! Man, it hopped on the healing train once I started treatment. Part of me is kicking myself for not doing this sooner, but hey you learn the hard way sometimes?!

Cuddlebugs. Photo courtesy of Katie H. 

Jump lesson last night and we were in a real cold snap. Oats warmed up very stiffly, like he was running with a flat tire, ughh. Kind of like how I begin any race, as my husband said 😉

Photo courtesy of Katie H.

So, we had to manage his stiffness in the cold, and kind of ‘work up’ to the level we needed. Luckily, after cantering and then going over some x-rails, he was moving much more smoothly. Yes! We then worked on a very basic, looping hunter-style course with 1 3-stride line in it, focusing on letting my hands go forward instead of taking back (god, this was harder than it sounds…very vulnerable position for me) no matter the distance. The problem being: When I see a distance, things are awesome! When I don’t, things get distinctly…less awesome. Meaning, they suck, I pull back or try to manage him with my hands and/or upper body. Not great.

So, I just had to ‘let go’ a little more. Mixed success on that, but overall I was fairly pleased with Oats’ effort and my effort to be a little more vulnerable and willing to get go, and also to work through the ‘push hands forward’ and take them back when I need to steer, and let them go again on my way to the jump. Riding- always simple, never easy.

Also having to rely more on my legs vs hands as a support for the jump. Hahahha yeah, this remains a work in progress… All in all, a good lesson and a good ride.

Destroyer

Had a very quiet weekend, did a little riding, a little running (one day almost pain free, the other day quite painful, but hey, I’ll take it!). And cue the ominous music…family drama rears it’s ugly head again.

Photo courtesy of MEC Victoria- in pain, but still going! 

Damn, and here I thought I’d gotten out unscathed. I did have a dear friend help me out today, when I was kind of spiraling. What a lovey person!

Winner’s circle- 5k second place, with a friend in third place! 

Oh well, push all you want- you’ll push me away for good.

An interesting quote to sum up how I am feeling:

The more dysfunctional, the more some family members seek to control the behavior of others.    

Good race, bad run: MEC Race #5 Halloween run!

I usually really like this one, if the weather is good there’s nothing better! But that was before I got injured 😦 I immediately knew I’d have to scrap the half-marathon, I was way too hurt to run that. Realistically, I was too hurt to race much of anything at this point and still today…But I got stubborn, my friends were racing too and dammit I wanted to! (Ok so now I’ve been injured for a solid month. It sucks, friends, it sucks).

So it poured rain all night, we went to a Halloween party and played it safe due to the race, enduring SOME razzing from friends, “It’s only a 5k!” What are you going home early for!” Ha.

I met up with my friends at the start of the race- in the bathroom lineup- of course. It was nice weather, the sun was starting to peek out and the clouds were blown away. I was even wearing shorts! Yes!!

We did a brief warm-up and the results were not promising. Shooting pain through my pelvis and back. Lovely. I correctly figured that this was gonna hurt. And it did. And it hurt even more to run fast, go figure haha.

Then we were off and I tried valiantly to cling to some sort of pace, but yeeeahhh…It didn’t happen. My km’s were slow, I felt like I was gasping for breath and had just shooting pain through my pelvis and lower back. It was slippery with the recent mud/rain and dead leaves, and just kind of up-down-all-around race. In other days I would have really enjoyed the variety haha. More of a true trail race than the half is, actually.

I did miss doing the half though.

I was kind of chugging along, feeling annoyed that I was so injured and it felt really hard. I was glad to see the finish line, and I wound up in 2nd place? Wha? Let’s put it this way- my time was not competitive. Ah well!

Best of all? My buddies were there to run with me, and one of them even placed 3rd! Whoo hoo! I just liked having friends there with me 🙂

And I am still injured and getting therapies on my abdomen to hopefully figure out wtf is going on. A month down…Hopefully that’s all it is going to be. My fingers are crossed!!