I’ve been a bit mum as August faded into September. I had some things to sort out after Midnight Rider, in addition to Tarma’s mandatory post 50 miler rest period. A few post-MR things to note, now that the hubbub has passed:

• The mileage listed was within the AERC stated accuracy percentage (which is 5%, meaning the mileage must be within 2.5 miles of 50, IE 48 miles means 50 miles or 52.5 miles which equals 55 miles, which equals an extra hour and 15 minutes to complete the extra distance). MR’s mileage was close enough to 50 miles to not require adding additional finishing time (this was proven out by multiple GPS trackers, including mine).
• Personally, for me this means I was pulled by the vets NOT “up to” 6 miles shy of ride camp, as had been tossed around, but just two miles from camp.
• YES, even though I was within spitting distance (verified by multiple folks’ GPS tracks provided to the ride manager, including my own) it was already past the official end time of 3:00am when we made it to the last water tanks, so the vets were within their responsibilities to pull me at that time, and my official record shows completion only, which I am grateful for.
• The two biggest factors to not completing on time were my own pain levels (the ibuprofen I took at the last vet check didn’t really kick in for over an hour) so our moving speed went from 7.5mph to below 4; and I didn’t really account for the third vet hold, which took the available “moving down the trail time” from the usual 10:30 hours (most 50 milers have two vet holds and a trot by, which means a roughly average moving pace of about 4.76MPH) to 9:45 hours, for an average pace of 5.13 miles an hour. Checking our GPS tracks, our overall moving pace was…

• Excuse me, I just went down an hour long, wine fueled rabbit hole (with my husband’s help) trying to figure out my times, based on my vet card, Ride with GPS tracks, and official times. The total available moving time was 9 hours and 45 minutes (12 hours for 50 miles, minus three 45 minute vet holds) and I left each vet hold dead on my out times, according to my tracker and vet card. My total moving time according to my tracker was 9 hours and 25 minutes, which is 20 minutes less than the available time, so somewhere I lost half an hour. Our average pace for the first three loops was 5.71mph (if I mathed right); our average pace for the last loop, which was 12 total miles back to camp and my tracker clocked us at 9.9 miles when we reached the last water tanks and trailered back to camp, was 3.45mph. If I’d been just a bit faster, we would have finished (4.31mph pace we would have needed to finish the last loop right at 3am, based on our out time of 12:13AM).
• Which leads me to another thought: I need to find a different way to pace. Ride with GPS tells me how far we have to go, but doesn’t do a good job of telling me how fast we have to go and how fast we are going (I do not math at the best of times, so I need an app or watch to tell me this). Obviously I’m not completely awful at this, as we have completed two races as turtles, plus that LD last October…but I do need something a little (LOT) clearer.

WHEW. I did not expect the pacing rabbit hole on a Monday night. Moving on…in the past month, Tarma has seen no less than three equine professionals (four if you count my barn owner, which I totally do), and pronounced by each one of them in excellent and/or “damn fine” condition. She of course saw her chiropractor three days after MR, who proclaimed her “pretty dang balanced” and no worse for the wear (also one of her favorite horses to work on!) Last week my bank account coughed up the most money I’ve spent in one day all year (not counting plane tickets to Las Vegas) for her yearly vet appointment, where I had her dental done, health certificate, vaccines and nutritional blood draw pulled (again, pronounced to be in “sexy mare” condition). A few hours later her saddle fitter came out and confirmed the used Synergist we’ve been working in all year is working pretty damn perfectly for us, no areas of concern, and she’s bulked up nicely and fixed the right shoulder asymmetry she had last year. Alas for my future hopes, she will definitely need a custom built western saddle, as she’s on a little used tree (XB Steele tree, for those still reading).

This month we’ve been focused on rest, dressage lessons and slower rides with friends. I wasn’t sure if MR would be the end of our season financially and time wise, and my best friends’ horses are coming back from injuries. Rides with them are fun, plus an opportunity to work on things besides conditioning, such as manners and leap frogging. I did just complete my registration for our last ride of the year, the Ft. Lewis Challenge. This ride has several things going for it; the timing puts it at the beginning of October, giving us more time to prep for it (the other closest ride is this weekend, which I felt was too soon for us). It’s a dead flat course and we completed our first LD here exactly a year ago, so there’s a certain symmetry to going back and riding a 50 there a year later. It’s an easy 2.5 hour haul up I5 and ride camp is always fun, with a food truck usually included.

This weekend we’ll head back to Mount Adams with a group of friends and spend more time exploring, this time with Benny as our sidekick and potlucks to enjoy. There’s a fun debate going around as to which is the better (or worse) route from Portland to the horse camp; taking I-84 on the Oregon side and crossing over the Columbia River via the narrow (9 foot lanes, open grating roadway) Hood River toll bridge (my preferred route as it’s faster, with “Two minutes of a white knuckle grip”), versus Highway 14 on the Washington side on the I-205 bridge (which is windy and slow as all get out, not fun with a horse trailer when you have a dozen cars stacked up behind you that can’t pass you on the blind curves two lane highway). Either way it should be fun, provided we can avoid the hellish wasps this year.

Relationship and emotionally wise, Tarma (and I, to some extent) have grown in leaps and bounds this year. I think I’ve walked the narrow line of conditioning, training and partnership required to start building a successful endurance horse. We are still Green Beans with a lot of learning and adjusting to do, though I’ve (mostly) avoided the common pitfalls of overriding and racing. Yes Tarma can get race brain, but I take steps to avoid it and this year we’ve mainly avoided any issues (minus the “shouldn’t canter in a large group in a side pull, even at mile 48” that I learned at Grizzly). Minus her Hi-tie tangle at Bandit (which could have happened at any time while camping) she’s *knock on every piece of wood in the county* ride related injury free. Best of all, Tarma knows her job and she more than tolerates me now, though we’re still working out the kinks of who is in charge at any given moment. If we’re cruising down the trail in our happy places, all is well. If I ask her to pause so I can open and close a gate, it’s always a five minute long discussion. She still occasionally acts like I’ve never asked her to do such impossibly hard things such as stand still after I mount, pause and wait for our friends to catch up or so I can trim a branch, but will immediately cock a hip and enter ranch horse level Zen mode the moment I hop off and tie her up to go hunting a lost boot, and happily walk up to me in the pasture to see what’s on the agenda for the day. Or in my pockets for her.