First rides

In celebration of season of firsts.....

• Funder's first LD completion
• Nicole (Adventures of Arabee) first upcoming completion of LD 
• My first 100 completion
• Aarene's first upcoming completion in a LONG time (2 years is like a lifetime right?)
• Endurance Granny's resolution that this season will be different
• and all those other bloggers that I'm forgetting (please forgive me) that have special "firsts" coming up.
• and what the heck - just because it's SPRING and I'm in a good mood! :)

...I thought I would blog on what to expect for first rides.  

 

As in....this is what to expect for a first ride that NO BODY BOTHERED TO TELL YOU.  

 

This was a much more difficult post to write than I anticipated.  Hopefully my readers can comment on their own experiences as a newbie endurance rider, whether that was last weekend or 20 years ago.

 

We will start with a gem from Funder:

 

The horse you conditioned is not the horse that will come to the ride

•  The horse you brought to the ride may look like Lil' Miss Pokey Pony that you conditioned from home, but I GUARENTEE you that she will be replaced by a fire breathing dragon the morning of the ride. 
• Damage control strategy - take deep breathes, thank the heavenly stars you didn't forget your helmet.  This should be a minor issue unless YOU suddenly turn from Miss cautious-want-to-keep-my-horse-sound, to Ms. we-are-going-to-WIN-this-thing.  Things usually improve after the first 1-2 hours on the trail. 
• My advice - use terrain to your advantage.  I like using hills to slow down my horse to a walk or slow trot. 

I didn't have this problem with my first ride - the horse I conditioned was the horse I brought to the ride - ie my crazy maniac horse I had at home also showed up at the ride.....however this phenomenon was very apparent for Farley's first ride.  Farley is a pokey horse.  During her conditioning she was NEVER as forward as I would have liked and the little pitty pat jog she offered on our conditioning rides was just NOT going to cut it.  I had seen glimpses of greatness so I knew she just needed to be motivated.  And yes sir-ee she was decided she was motivated at our first ride.  I've rarely been in a position to complain about her pokiness since.

 

Anything slightly irritating about your tack will be a big problem

At my first ride I used a Mcclellan Saddle with an army blanket.  I hadn't figured unless I kept the girth REALLY tight that I would literally lose the blanket out the back.  I spent COUNTLESS minutes on the trail fixing the stupid thing.  On conditioning rides I had had the same problem but at a much lesser degree.  On subsequent rides I accepted the fact I had to ride with a tight girth, but it was definitely a problem I could have avoided my first ride if I had realized that small issues during conditioning rides turn into big ones during real endurance rides. 

• Damage control:  try not to shoot yourself or others from the annoyance of it all.
• My advice:  Pack 2 of everything for your first ride so you have an alternative if something isn't working out.  Even if it worked for a conditioning ride....

Whatever your food plans were, they will not work

I really really really liked cliff bars but I was cheap and didn't want to buy them.  My mom offered to try her hand at making homemade ones.  She did a great job, I wrapped in wax paper and dumped into a grain bag that attached to my saddle, along with apples for Minx.  I think I had a grand total of 2 of those bars.  The rest melted and smashed into my grain bag.  My the time I got to the lunch check (35 miles) I hadn't eaten anything substantial since breakfast.  Unfortunately I hadn't packed anything EASY to eat at lunch and nothing really salty.  I ended up eating a piece of sourdough bread with horse electrolytes dumped on top of it for lunch.  Ugggg.  

• Damage control:  Pretend you are in sixth grade and swap lunches with someone.  Or just mooch off of them.  Play the sympathy card (it's my first ride!) and someone might take pity.
• My advice:  Pack only that food that requires zero effort to prepare AND eat (for me this means minimal chewing). 

Being too helpful will get you DQ'ed

I was close to missing many of my time cut offs during my first ride because of my commitment to help others along the trail.  I was told many time before the ride that it is polite to stop if someone you are riding with needs to stop.  Coupled with my own tack issues which slowed me down substantially, I also stopped several time to help other people.  As a result I had to BOOGIE through some rough stuff and was constantly worried about time. 

• My advice:  During your first couple of rides you will have your hands full just dealing with your ride.  Ride on unless you see the person is having real trouble or is hurt, then it's appropriate to stop and ask if you can help.  Otherwise, make sure you keep you and your horse safe for those first couple of rides. 

 

Your horse will get demotivated and you will want to die

I distinctly remember this.  At mile 40 Minx was DONE.  I was DONE.  It was over 80 degrees, it was HOT, we had gotten lost, ran around like idiots and were faced with a GIANT hill.  Everyone had left and we were on our own.  I was puking by the side of the trail and Minx was bleeding from her nose.  I decided we weren't going to finish and we sat down in the shade to cool off.  After 5 minutes or so we would stagger up the hill to the next shade patch.  I poured the rest of my water over her to help her cool down.  It probably took us 2 hours to get up the hill.  By that time Minx looked markedly better.  At the water stop, the friendly volunteer looked my horse over and said she actually looked OK.  I was in no position to make judgements to I mounted up and decided to walk to the last vet check (mile 48).  I knew I was overtime and decided to try and enjoy myself since evidently Minx and I were NOT going to drop dead. 

 

People upon finding out it is your first ride will fall into 3 categories

 I'll start with the most annoying person first.

First Category: The drag rider found us about mile 45.  He ordered me off my horse because "she was tired and should think about helping HER out now...".  We went through several ditches of water that came up to my chest.  My boots had (I didn't know it prior to waltzing through the water) glue on soles and after the first crossing my boots fell apart and I walked on the flapping soles.  I finally staggered into the 48 mile vet check and got a bottle of water - my first in 4 hours. 

 

The drag rider I put into the category of riders, that upon hearing it's your first ride will assume you are in need of advice will force it upon you whether you like it or not.  In this case, I had walked most of the afternoon when Minx was having trouble, I hadn't had water in several hours, I hadn't had food since the lunch check.  I was riding because Minx at that point felt better than I did.  But that didn't matter at all.  He decided since it was my first ride I didn't know better than to ride my tired horse and ordered me off. 

 

Side note:  BTW I met this rider about a year later and upon recognizing me STILL attempted to lecture me and give me endurance advice even when I politely tried to dissuade him and let hm know I wasn't really interested in being lectured....a year after that I was at Tevis and going to ride the next day.  His advice magically dried up upon hearing I felt ready to tackle a 100. 

 

I find that this type of person is more interested in overwhelming the beginning with advice and stories of what they have personally accomplished than giving any sort of useful mentoring. 

 

Second category:  These are people that upon hearing that you are a complete newbie, wish you luck and then try to ignore you the rest of the ride.  I don't' say I blame them.  They have seen it a million times - someone starts this sport with high hopes and dreams, finds out how hard it is and quits.  They don't want to get emotionally invested in someone that isn't going to stick around.  And the newbie can say all they want about how much they love the sport, but the proof is in the first ride.  I don't mind this sort of rider - they are genuine in their wish for everything to go well and are going to wait to give advice until asked and until it will really matter. 

 

Third category:  These are those wonderful people that if you are lucky enough, you get to meet at your first ride.  They take you under their wing, introduce you to their friends, invite you over for food, and follow up with you afterwards of how your ride went.  They didn't give a lot of advice that first ride - just those essential tidbits.  I was fortunate enough to have THREE of these people at my first ride.  The Smarts, Beth F., and Kathy S.  They would go out of their way to say hi when they saw me at subsequent rides and helped me start to feel part of the endurance world.  Later on, they were sources of valuable advice as I continued on in endurance. 

 

 

You will follow good advice that is NOT appropriate for the ride

As a newbie you will have read all the books and asked a million questions.  You will have a TON of good advice to chose from on the day of your ride.  Here's the thing to remember -

 

Good advice in the wrong situation is Bad Advice

 

Here's a example of good advice I followed during my first ride that did NOT turn out well

• Start 10 minutes behind the group in order to have a relaxed start.  This ride had very tight cut off times AND the LD riders started a mere 30 minutes after the 50's.  All I did was put myself 10 minutes behind trying to make cut offs and the LD top riders caught me sooner.

Expect the unexpected

Minx pulled a shoe right before the lunch check.  Fortunately I had cash for the farrier that was there.  She never pulled another shoe, even using the same farrier, the same style shoes, and the same shoeing/trimming style for the rest of her endurance career.  Just one of those freak things.  Expect the unexpected and bring double everything, including cash for unknowns.

 

The ride will be nothing like your conditioning rides

Accept the fact now and you will be better off for it - endurance rides are *not* like "longer faster" conditioning rides - especially if both you and the horse are newbies.  

 

You will go faster over rougher terrain than you ever imagined

It's very very difficult to stand by the principle of "ride your own ride" at your first ride and In most cases you will be going faster and further than you were in conditioning rides.  At my first ride I looked around and thought "everyone else is doing this so it must be OK", but it really wasn't.  

 

Not everything is magical rainbows and fluffy marshmallow clouds

Try to go into the ride with no expectations - Expect to have to do everything on your own, expect to provide your own food and water, expect to eat dinner alone and bring a way to amuse yourself. 

 

Then, be pleasantly surprised with everyone turns out even more helpful than you thought, you can't believe that ride management is actually providing lunch, AND a million gazillion people stopped to help you on the trail!  

 

In my experience, the newbies that get hit the hardest with the "but it's completely different from what I thought!" are usually the people with the highest expectations of the sport - that it will be magical, that people will go out of their way to help, and upon hearing that it's their first ride will bend over backwards for them - which in many cases might happen, BUT as we are all trying to ride our own rides too....and just like every other sport there are those rotten eggs... it's best to go in with the most open mind and optimistic attitude possible.  Also keep in mind that endurance tends to attract A-type personalities, strong opinions and OCD people.  Chances are you are one too!  And you know what happens when you get a bunch of A-type, opinionated people in a room....

 

Dealing with shattered illusions

You may have felt during conditioning rides, that you owned the most wonderful horse who was perfectly suitable for endurance. 

 

Especially if you were not successful during your first ride, it can be difficult to reconcile this with how horrible wrong your first ride went.

 

I really struggled with this.  I failed so miserably during my first season.  Minx was going to be off for 6 months while she recovered from injuries related to me overriding her.  I have tears staining my journal pages from this period.  I was very depressed and took my failure very hard.  I had followed all sorts of wonderful advice and it hadn't worked.  I couldn't figure out what the disconnect was between what I trained for and how my rides were turning out.  To be successful it took:

• being absolutely committed to riding my own ride NO MATTER WHAT for every future race.
• recognizing that good advice in the wrong situation is bad advice
• riding and conditioning a non-arab if different riding and conditioning an arab. 
• Taking responsibility for my ride and my horse's injuries.  As part of this, I went back and apologized to those people I felt like I had been a bit short with during that first ride.  It didn't matter that they didn't exactly treat me with courtesy either (we were all hot and tired), or that in most cases they didn't remember the incident - it allowed me to put that first season behind me and start fresh. 
• Deciding that even though I wasn't having "fun" *right now*, I knew deep down I loved endurance and I was going to stick with it until it was everything that I dreamed it would be. 

Conclusion

I love endurance from the bottom of my heart and as a result I tend to be the type of person that gets very excited when I find out it's someone's first ride.  It's such a journey from your first ride, so your first 1000 mile mark (and I'm still on that journey) and unbelievably fulfilling.  Even though I knew I wanted to do endurance, my first season was NOT fun, was NOT fulfilling, and was NOT pleasant.  You may find the same - stick with it!  Give it another chance!  Reevaluate and try and again.  Chances are the reasons that endurance appealed to you in the first place have not gone away....and some day you will look back at your fumbling mistakes and laugh - and then share redicule yourselfin public so that others can learn from your mistakes.

 

Of course - you might be one of those lucky ones that was able to do everything right from the start.  Kudos to you!  Unfortunately that wasn't me....