Very small circles June 6, 2007
Posted by kimayars Uncategorized
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If you’re at all familiar with horses, you probably know what lunging is. And even if you aren’t, many people have at least seen it. You have a long line (kind of like leash). You’re at one end, and the horse is at the other. Generally, this line is about 10m long, so your horse goes in a 20m circle around you. Turns out, my horse doesn’t know how to do this. So, in order to teach them how to do this, you walk next to them and slowly push them out away from you using your body language. Keep in mind that for 10 years, this horse was taught to walk next to a person, not away from them, and was probably punished for deviating from that path. So, today was all about pushing the horse away, giving praise, pushing the horse away, giving praise, until the horse was on the edge of his comfort zone, and then you invite them to come back in. Slowly, that comfort zone gets larger, until your horse can go out the full 10 meters and is comfortable with it. At least, that is the plan.
After about 20 minutes of a 1 meter radius circle, nausea finally started to set in. I have never been great with motion sickness, so this wasn’t exactly a surprise. So, we went the other way. The good news is that before I got dizzy, I did get him about 3m away from me. That’s pretty good for a first time. Think of it as training a 1000lb 3-year-old. You have to take things in small steps. Lunging looks pretty simple, but for a horse that doesn’t know how it can take a long time to get there.
Tomorrow I get to go for a run with my friend Beth. We run 4 miles in about 45min, finishing with a nice 5-min hill climb. It’s nice because the hill is getting easier (which means we probably need to go further up the hill). Beth and I have decided to train for a 10k. We have a plan, but have yet to execute on it. Today was also supposed to be a gym day for me. I have a personal trainer that has me doing all my free weights while standing on a BOSU ball, which has been amazing for my core. I also do squats with the BOSU ball inverted (as recommended by my physical therapist). I almost feel like a circus act at the gym. 
Let you know how the run goes tomorrow. I just hope it isn’t raining!
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