Well, my rain gear works!

So it rained overnight, and it was raining when we left for church, and raining raining raining! On the way home from church Matt asked me if I was going to ride....I paused...I decided that if the temperature on the car was above 40, I would say yes. It was 41! Not exactly real warm, but....enough that I had to say yes to riding! I regretted making that decision, but decided quickly that this was the perfect opportunity to try out my new rain coat. I figured if I can stay warm and dry in 40 degree weather in mid-March that whatever April and beyond might dish out at a ride would be no trouble!

Arabee was standing under the roof, wet and shivering. She didn't seem to be too keen on being caught, either, but didn't try too hard to stop me, but sure didn't help me either.

Saddled her up, walked and jogged her in circles on the end of the rein to warm up, got on, and did some walking and slow jogging to get her and her muscles warm. (I'm not going to do anymore play-by-play details of the entire ride anymore, I'll keep a log of that separately and just do the highlights on here) We walked and trotted and I left the rump rug on her the entire time. It wasn't raining hard, but a nice (nice??) steady drizzle. It was nice, my horse was paying attention..mostly, and we were working well together. The ride was 105 minutes long, and we went farther and faster than before. But I firmly believe I'm not pushing her too far, she had plenty left but it was a good workout for her - we did a LOT of walking, plenty of trotting, plenty of slipsliding around in the mud. I think a good balance.

I wish I could easily stick to the principle of increase speed, then distance, never both. But since I don't have a GPS that will tell me mileage, and I dont' want to be tied down to the same old boring route every ride, I'm going to just stick with adding 5 minutes to each ride until we get to 2 1/2 hours. I'm also going to add more and more trotting as it makes sense to do so, gradually and easily - if I'm out of breath, we'll walk....if horse is acting stupid, we'll walk....if Arabee's making it clear she's ready to walk again, we'll walk....but if we're having a nice time trotting along down the way, we'll keep trotting!

So the rain coat worked really really well....I pulled the hood up and wore it under my helmet, unzipped the pit zips for ventilation, and stayed PLENTY warm, maybe even too warm, but I had several layers on underneath. I feel good about my rain-preparedness. Granted, it was not a full-out downpour, but still....rain is rain, to a certain extent.

Had a good ride today, and I'm hoping and praying that we don't encounter any setbacks (read: injuries!)

Beautiful but Very Windy Days

It has been such wonderful weather for spending time outside! Sunny skies, warm spring air (in the 80s!) and plenty of breeze (or should I say gusting winds!) to keep from getting too hot.

Unfortunately, I haven't done ANY riding!

I am still allowed too, though. On Tuesday I went to the OB for a regular checkup (everything is normal!) and asked again about whether riding was safe, and for about how long could I keep doing it. He surprised me by saying it was fine until about 18-20 weeks! This is much longer than I expected to be "allowed" to ride by the Doctor, so I am pleased to hear his response. In reality, however, I know the only real risk in riding while pregnant is not in the riding, it's in the falling off, so I am being super careful not to take any extra risks.

And, for me and my horse, that means choosing not to saddle up on a really nice weather weekend, since wind tends to make normally in-animate objects unpredictable. So here's hoping the wind dies down some!

Arabee's cut still isn't completely healed yet, although it's looking much much better. I'm still concerned about how the slice through the coronet band is going to heal - it's too early to tell yet whether things will be normal again with that or not, but overall she is healing well. The paddock finally got dry enough all over to allow her 24 hour turnout again! This equals a MUCH happier horse! (and a happier stall-mucker who's now gladly w/out a job shoveling poop!) So if ever the wind stops blowing, I'll have plenty of places to ride, since the ground is dried up and her cut will stay clean.

Tuesday's Ride

Rode yesterday.

Not much to say about it, trotted alot. I had Arabee's attention better, even when out of sight of the barn, which is a definite improvement. Before when we'd get on the other side of the hill she'd get all worked up and forget I was up. This time she only flicked her ears to the barn area occasionally!

We worked on crossing the ditch in some steeper places, a foot or two step down into a 3-4 foot wide ditch, w/ a 1-2 ft. step back up out of it. She didn't just leap across, either! We quit on a good note after that, and to make the point I just hopped off right there at the bottom of the hill by the creek, which I won't do anymore - I had to walk up the stinking hill on foot! Next time she gets to carry me :-)

We really hadn't worked for very long, so I took her in hand down the road a bit and up one of the farm lanes that runs next to the neighbor's house who has close to 5 small yappy dogs. Practiced that until she'd stay at my shoulder (no more spinning in circles!) and then quit for the night.

If the weather is fit (it's raining sideways now against the house, I can hear it slap the window) we'll do more tonight, hopefully expanding the under-saddle territory further. I need to get out on those lanes and trot out. They're flat as a pancake, but at least I'll be able to maintain speed better than I can where I've been riding.

Monday Night's Ride

Rode for an hour yesterday - it was BEAUTIFUL weather outside for a nice quiet walk in the woods. :-) Unfortunately for Arabee, we needed to have a conditioning ride, so that one hour really worked up a big sweat on her! I'm not sure the exact temperature, somewhere between 60 and 70. I was comfortable, though! She'll really be shedding out the winter coat rapidly after working up that kind of sweat.

She was kind of a stinker yesterday. It must have been one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. You know, "if you think you can, or if you think you can't - you are right." Well, I guessed that after having a big workout on Saturday, and Sunday off, that she would be feeling froggy, so either I was right....or I was anticipating a bit of a fight so I got one.

She wasn't really that bad... but didn't really want to stand still when got her out of the paddock, was giving me trouble with the rump rug (I always "remind" her what the rump rug looks like when it catches in the wind, and remind her that the crupper is there before each ride). She was well-behaved at first, bending well, walking out nicely, so we headed down to the ditch/creek to walk around there, then followed it along to where the little tractor path is. For some reason she just hates climbing that particular hill. She wants to rush up and get out of that valley *right now*. My guess is that it's really the only place in that woodsy pasture that is actually out of sight of the barn.

So each time she headed up that hill and wanted to trot instead of walk, I gave her a single-rein-stop, turned back around down to the bottom, then tried it again. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to, but finally she did walk (although quickly) up the hill.

After I won that one we did some trotting, and she kept wanting to break into a canter at the muddy parts. It was a nice, easy canter, but still disrespectful for her to try to decide what gait. So I'd bring her down and we'd trot, and next time we'd get to that spot I asked her for a canter. (first time I'd intentionally cantered out of the arena...I am such a chicken!!!) I took her by surprise since I hadn't asked her to canter in a long time, and she took the opposite lead of the bend we were on, and it was ROUGH. So we trotted, and tried it again next time around. Much better.

She was pretty excited after we did some cantering (that was FUN!) and kept giving me huge trots that I could feel were going to turn into canters any second. She did break gait a couple times, but I was eventually able to keep her trotting when I asked for the trot.

I'm using more rein pressure than I want to have to to keep her at the speed I want to go. I wish I had a video of parts of yesterday's ride - since she was really giving me a lot of energy in her trot (and canter) and I was reining her in, and she was rounded up and arching her neck and breathtakingly beautiful from astride, so I really wish I could've seen it! But, I don't want to use that kind of rein pressure all the time, I'd like her to rate better w/out rein. Really, I screwed up at the trail ride at Clark on Saturday - she was trotting out really fast to keep up with Toby and Phebes when they would canter, and rather than slow her down w/ my seat, I used rein, rather ineffectively, and essentially taught her that it's okay to ignore me pulling on the reins. It's amazing how you really do have to be on top of your game all the time when in the saddle, since it doesn't take long w/ these super intelligent arabians for them to learn a bad habit.

So, tonight's goal is to work on rating, and responsiveness.

I'm also considering breaking out of my comfort zone and heading for the farm lanes. I can so tell that Arabee is sick of riding in the same pasture over and over and over.....but I like the comfort of having the fence. It's a little ridiculous because this is like a 10 acre pasture, she's got plenty of room to get away - but for me the difference is knowing she can't dump me and then gallop back across the ROAD because the gate is shut, so she'd be safe. Maybe I'll see if I can get my "riding parter" to come along, for extra confidence on the first lap, then I can do some trotting laps with just me and Arabee.

Riding in the Rain?!?

In planning for my first LD ride in the middle of April, my husband posed the question:

"What are you going to do if it is NASTY weather on ride day? Rainy, AND cold?"

I didn't know how to answer that question. To be truthful, I'd rather not ride if it is rainy and cold!!! But if I have hauled and set up camp and trained and paid my ride entry fee, I can't imagine not riding because of the weather (unless lightning or a tornado).

I mean, being April in Indiana, I could expect anything from 30's - 70's! It could be snowing, it could be sunny, it could be rainy, it could be blowing strong wind - and all on the same day with the Indiana variety weather we so often get.

So while I can't imagine the extreme disappointment of hauling to and entering a ride and not riding because of the weather, I also know I would be waterlogged and miserable in my current riding attire of breeches, suede chaps, and whatever layers I need up top to stay warm if it was raining.

How do you prepare for wet and cold weather at a ride?? What clothing do you use to stay warm and dry??? Any must-have gear for rain riding? Tips?

(picture from a few weeks back, from the post where I went "trail riding" with Matt and Cora. See the ridiculously unsuitable clothing for rain riding!!)