For the first time since I fell off in March I was calm and relaxed while getting on. No knees were shaking. My heart wasn’t racing. I didn’t have the urge to puke.  It was good.  It took FOUR MONTHS to finally get over just one fall.  Good heavens.

But here is the funny thing: After the ride started he was the spookiest he’s been in a long time.  We had three significant shies and about two itty-bitty ones.  But instead of worrying about that, I had on my sh*t-eating grin singing “Zippity-Doo-Dah” because my heartrate didn’t spike to 180 during the mounting process.

Isn’t life funny?

So the ride went very well.  I worked on what I learned at the clinic on Friday and tried to tie that in with Paige’s lesson on Thursday.  At the foundation of all of this was the work I’ve been doing with my hands thanks to Cindy.  So in a nutshell, here’s what I worked on:

1.  Hands quiet, calm, and giving. (Cindy)
2.  Leg on when he inverts, even when he’s rushing. (Paige)
3.  Tempo and directional control no matter what.  (Henrik)

I’m so remedial I need three instructors. 

Did I have a soft, round, gorgeous, ready-to-do-second-level-work horse because of this?  Heck no.  But what I had was a horse who is starting to trust me, who is becoming eerily obedient (I’m beginning to think he’s just lulling me into a false sense of security), and who seemed to enjoy himself.  As the above three things become more habit than conscious thought, I’ll move more into re-stablishing his frame. At this point I feel they are the base that I was missing.

I’m so jazzed about having a plan with Tigger.  He’s been so much fun to ride lately.  I can’t wait to do it again!

Then I got this nagging little voice in my head. It said one word: WIMP

I started thinking. I’ve done so well on the run so far, an amazing slow last 0.2 miles was still going to make a good time for me. There was only one problem. The last bit would be up “Hemlock Hill” (I call it this because even though it runs along Forster Blvd, it ends at Hemlock and it’s about as fun as poison).

Screw it.

I turned the Forerunner on and ran up the hill and then some to get in the full 5 miles. Yay me!

So I’m sitting here being all stinky, sweaty, tingly, and tired, but happy that I pushed it that little bit. If I keep pushing those little bits then hopefully I’ll get my mileage back up.

On a side note, Beth commented that I ran faster when we ran later. I replied that I was only trying to keep up with her. She laughed and said, no, she was trying to keep up with me. So our blistering pace was a result of each of us trying to stay with the other. Too funny!

Here are our splits just for fun. Not bad for crossing two traffic lights, a roundabout, and a freeway off-ramp:

Mile 1 - 9:52
Mile 2 - 9:16
Mile 3 - 10:28 (stopped to walk while I caught my breath)
Mile 4 - 9:25
Mile 5 - 10:10 (this was the hill)

Overall, a good run!

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/20/2008
• Time: 07:30:00
• Total Time: 00:49:15.00
• Distance: 5.01 miles
• Average Pace: 9:50.16/mile

I will fully admit that he told me what I wanted to hear, but I was a little disappointed we hadn’t made more progress since my last lesson with him in March. Then again, I didn’t exactly ride much between now and then.

What I was most proud of was how well Tigger travelled. He was a superstar. He was no more tense in the arena then he is at home. I was quite thrilled.

My lesson revolved around being the one who makes decisions about where we are going and what the tempo is. I tend to ride reactively on Tigger. It’s now time to ride proactively. I need to have a plan and execute. One of the things he said that sticks in my mind is, “He gets nervous when you leave the decisions up to him. Let’s take that burden away from him.” By the end of the ride Tigger was listening quite well to my changes in direction and tempo. My ultimate goal is a harmonious relationship with Tigger. I believe this is yet another step toward that goal.

I was also super proud of Sherene. She had a decent fall last week — the kind where your confidence is not quite the same afterward. To bounce back and ride her horse in a strange place so soon after the event is very brave. She had a good ride and it showed.

Not to mention it’s always fun to do a road trip with Sherene.

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!

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/17/2008
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 00:33:49.00
• Distance: 3.04 miles
• Average Pace: 11:07.9/mile

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*)

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.

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/14/2008
• Time: 06:00:00
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Distance: 4 miles
• Average Pace: 10:00/mile

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…

Don’t get me wrong, I always look forward to riding, but lately it hadn’t been fun.  With our mounting problems I was incredibly stressed out just trying to get on.  Was he going to bolt? Would he get freaked out?  How long until he calmed down?

This week we had four consecutive rides of him NOT freaking out.  And as a result, I’m not freaking out.  Or at least I didn’t freak out today.  Today was the first day that my knees didn’t shake and my heartrate stayed under 180.  For the first time since my show in April I had a RELAXING ride.  I’m thrilled.

Today in our ride we focused again on my hands and keeping them quiet.  It is getting much easier not to pull on the inside rein (although it’s far from automatic), but consequently I have to use my body more in the turns. I don’t rotate my shoulders nearly enough and I can forget to weight the inside seatbone.  So while sometimes I don’t make a pretty turn, I at least have the awareness that I need to adjust other things in my body rather than grabbing that (evil) rein.

So we worked on an exercise called “The Needle”.  It’s a great suppling exercise and would be perfect to try my “new hands” on.  You basically head around the arena at a trot, then at a corner after a long side, do a half-volte, riding a 10m teardrop and change directions.  You head back through two more corners then at the third corner (after your next long side) do another half-volte into a 10m teardrop and change direction again.  It’s like a giant “U” with loops on the end.  I was moderately successful with the hands, and he seemed to enjoy the easy, predictable exercise.  By the end he was relatively light and soft. We didn’t have much impulsion (80 degrees at 2pm is a tough time to ride) but he was being obedient and listening.

The focus on my hands really paid off today when he spooked in one of the corners with the “killer tire” in it (Sherene and I both know this corner well).  Nevermind the fact that the tire has been there for over a year.  It’s still terrifying.  He took one look at the tire as we were going by and stopped dead, then jumped sideways. Twice.  Because I had my hands soft and my body was relaxed, I just went with him. There was no yanking on his mouth, no trying to claw my way back into the center of the saddle. It was eerie. Almost as if it was planned…  (Yeah, that’s the ticket.)  Almost as soon as it happened we were trotting again. Before we hit the next corner he was soft and round again.  He never shied again the rest of the ride.  What a good boy.

So even though it took a few months to work out the kinks, I finally succeeded in turning out a product week riding.  Now we shall see if we can turn it into two…

Of course when I succeed in one thing in life, I fail in another.  My running has sadly been neglected this week and I have a 10k on August 2nd.  Guess I had better get crackin’ on that.

As in, WOW! I rode three times this week and it’s only WEDNESDAY! This has not happened for a few/several months now. It was nice to build off the previous ride while it was still fresh in my memory. More often it’s usually, “Now what was I working on last time?…”

We continued our work on “conversing”.  Me, trying not to be too loud with my hands.  Him, listening to my seat.  I’ll be darned that it’s starting to really come together.  It’s getting easier to resist the urge to pull his nose to the inside.  The releases are feeling solid, meaning he’s taking the release forward, instead of the rein just going all loopy on me.

It was a great ride and I’m super happy with how things are going right now.  He even stood still at the mounting block.  Not one little twitch.  Good boy.