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Lesson on Thursday July 17, 2008

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My old trainer, Paige, is picking up lessons right now so Sherene and I had her out for a session. It was kind of like settling into an old comfy chair. It felt so right and familiar. Even though I haven’t had a lesson from her in over a year, it was if she was never gone. We just kind of jumped back into things as if she had been teaching me the whole time. It was nice.

We worked on Tigger’s rushing, which is something I have been struggling with for a long time. Her analysis was that when Tigger isn’t sure what’s being asked of him, he inverts. When he inverts, his back disengages and I loose all communication with him via my seat. I was thinking that he wasn’t listening. The truth was he couldn’t hear me. So her solution was to apply and inside leg to help him find the outside rein and in the process, engage his back. Applying leg to a horse that’s going 90mph is like hitting the gas while going downhill in your car toward a hairpin turn. It sounds ludicrous. But in the horse scenario, it works.

So we practiced this in both directions at walk, trot, and canter. By the end, I had a much better sense of what I was doing. I’m excited to keep working at it to see what long-term results there might be.

Tomorrow I have a lesson with Henrik Johansen. Whee!

3 Miles with Beth July 17, 2008

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Just a wee little 3 miles with Beth. Nice.

Workout:

Overwhelmed and Disappointed July 14, 2008

Posted by kimayars Ramblings Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , 2comments

It’s amazing how fast go from “Life’s GREAT!” to “Holy crap.”

I didn’t get to see my horse today. In the grand scheme of things it’s no big deal. He was worked yesterday, he’ll be worked again on Thursday and Friday. He’ll get plenty of saddle time this week. But still, I was turning over a new leaf. But things are super busy at work and there just always seemed to be one more thing to do. But missing my pony makes me crabby.

I also have this tremendous task sitting in front of me (I’ve been working on it for days). It falls into the “know enough to be dangerous” category. I’m basically trying to configure an obscure piece of hardware without ever having used it before. Those familiar with Cisco IOS know exactly what I’m talking about. And of course, there are deadlines to meet and people waiting. Everyone has been super nice, but I’ve got this annoying work ethic that prevents me from relaxing until it’s done.

Finally, Washington State is completely sold out of iPhones. I was kind of hoping to get my paws on one this week.

I did go to the gym today, which is a plus. I will go again tomorrow. I’m supposed to do 8×400 intervals. I think I’ve done those before (I’ve done 2min run/2min jog before WAY more than 8 times). So how far off can a quarter mile be from two minutes? Hopefully not far or I’m in for a brutal morning.

And I just want to give a shout out to Mike’s Hard Pomegranate Lemonade. All three have them have been delicious tonight. (*hic*)

And today’s workout is… July 14, 2008

Posted by kimayars Run Digg! this story! Digg! this story. , 2comments

I got up this morning at 6am to head to the gym. Normally I meet Kristi there but I had an inkling she wouldn’t be there. (She wasn’t. No big deal, I need to start doing this stuff on my own anyway.)

Just as I was heading out the door I remembered that I needed to look at my 10k training plan so I knew what to run today. I fired up the computer, fumbled with the mouse, and after what seemed to be an eternity for the web page to load, found my training chart. My somewhat bleary vision found the Monday column. Underneath it said:

REST

I cracked up.

Needless to say I didn’t go back to bed like my training plan was obviously instructing me to do. I shuffled off to the gym and ran for 40 minutes. It felt pretty decent. Not too tired, but not too fresh either. It was a good start.

I discovered that I had a long-forgotten playlist on my Sansa titled, “Stairmaster”. I flipped that on and ran to a very disjointed eclectic playlist. There was everything from Scorpions, to Bon Jovi, to Brooks & Dunn, to Green Day, to The Squeeze. I must have been smokin’ crack when I made that one up.

Anyway, it looks to be a good day. Hopefully I can get out of work today at noon and get out to ride Tigs this afternoon.

Workout:

5 rides in 8 days… July 13, 2008

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It’s probably more like 4 1/2 rides in 8 days.  Today was a pretty short ride.

In today’s ride there was a marked difference in Tigger.  He’s so much more relaxed, affectionate, and just good.  He had been snapping & nipping in May and June, and now that has stopped. I am distinctly getting the feeling that this horse enjoys having a job and being in regular work.

Today it was toasty hot again, so we kept the ride short.  We focused on bending at the walk, then did a short amount of trot work (also working on bending) before I melted in the saddle.  Even with a roofing project going on next door, he stood completely still for mounting.  Ahhhh…

He did rush when some equipment started up. Instead of pulling back on his face I put him on a 10m circle to put his mind back in the game.  When he realzied that he needed to balance himself or this would get really hard, we yielded out of the circle.  We had to repeat this about three times. By the third time, he figured out that he probably should pay attention to mommy a little.

I am really enjoying our relationship right now.  It’s not tense, it’s not a fight.  We still have tons to work on, but I feel like we can get there together.  I can’t wait to ride again!

Tomorrow I will be going back to the gym.  I have 3 weeks to prepare for the 10k.  Hmmmm… Not exactly a whole lot of time…