Reprinted from Endurance News, February 2005, monthly publication of the American Endurance Ride Conference, www.aerc.org, 866-271-2372
Here I sit, in the abyss of a western New York winter. The outdoor thermometer is reading 8°F, and about 10 inches of fluffy snow are covering a thick coat of ice on the driveway and road. Ned, my trusty equine partner, is tip-toeing barefoot across his frozen paddock, eating hay and wearing his turnout blanket.
Our last ride of the season was the Mustang Memorial 50 (NJ) in mid-November where we finished, per usual, in the middle of the pack. And not a single ride, nada, zero, zip, for the last three weeks.
It’s not unusual to give our horses a break each winter, sometimes for as long as two months, but with my 100 mile goal looming, I have visions of getting back to conditioning.
Alas, Mother Nature is cooperating, and a thaw is in the works. Temperatures in the balmy 30s and 40s for the next week!
What kind of conditioning does it take to get ready for a 100 mile ride? What kind of condition should the human partner have?
“The 100 miler is the endurance world’s Everest. But it is not as tough as people think. It does not take a super athletic rider. It does not take a super horse. The average rider and average horse can complete a 100 miler quite nicely.” (Julie Suhr)
Wonderful. Average, we are.
“The key to developing a horse for both the first 100 and for many years of successful endurance riding is to build up the overall structure of the horse including the tendons, ligaments, and bone by steady well paced work over multiple years while allowing ample time for rest and recovery. Steady well paced miles rather then fast racing miles is the key as this both conditions the horses and teaches the horse to pace not race.” (Stagg Newman)
My conditioning plans for Ned are simple. Keep doing what we’ve been doing. Add a multiday ride or two to the mix this spring. Step up the dressage to improve our symmetry, balance and ease of movement.
Besides the challenge of our climate, my husband and I each own separate businesses. Mine requires frequent travel, which can make conditioning difficult to schedule. Generally, we’re able to do a short ride at home a couple of days per week, then a longer conditioning ride, either at home, or at Allegany State Park (home of the Allegany Shut Up and Ride Endurance Ride) each weekend. Of course, once the competition season begins, we consider our rides to be part of our conditioning program.
“As far as my horse’s training . . . I didn’t change much. He’d been doing some very fast 50s that year and a conservative 100 was well within his training level . . . besides, the fast 50s were great training.” (Angie McGhee)
We are also big believers in the concept of rest . Rest between conditioning rides. Rest between competitions. And rest during the most brutal part of the winter. We figure that rather than beating ourselves up when we find ourselves not riding, for whatever reason, that we shall instead proclaim that we are resting the horses.
“From what I have seen in all my miles, most riders overtrain as far as distance at home and then in a lot of cases go too fast, especially at the start of a ride. If they’re not pulled at the first vet check the early speed catches them later.” (Mary Coleman)
“With the seasoned horse ample rest is important. We like to pull shoes twice a year a give the horses one to two months off except for light riding.” (Stagg Newman)
In Buffalo, we call that one to two months “blizzard season.”
Dressage for cross-training
Since I have a background in dressage, I also use schooling in the arena to supplement my conditioning program. I take occasional lessons from Dorothy Hokanson, a local dressage trainer. Dorothy is a wonderful resource because she insists on correct equitation, and serves as my eyes on the ground to ensure that Ned’s dressage training is progressing correctly.
My lessons frequently consist of reminders that dressage and endurance are two different sports, and that the trot that it takes to complete a 50 in six hours is not a working trot, in dressage terms. This is accomplished via frequent reminders to “Slow the tempo!” until I’m certain we’re practicing for a Western Pleasure class. Then I’ll notice that I can feel real articulation in Ned’s hind leg joints, he is off his forehand and soft in the hand, that his back is softly swinging, and that I can easily do a sitting trot.
Ah yes, there is our working trot.
“I was taught by a wonderful old former major in the Argentinean cavalry and Grand Prix level rider and trainer, Major Renon, that the key to success with any equestrian sport is ‘rhythm, balance, and alignment.’ This is particularly true in 100s. Any asymmetry or unevenness in way of going may well cause problems. And lateral work is very important for strengthening the small muscles that are used in uneven terrain, side hill tracks, etc.” (Stagg Newman)
I balance our conditioning work on the trails—with Ned’s neck long and low, and his gait easy and efficient, with me doing my best to stay out of his way. This allows him to transition in and out of gaits seamlessly—with the precision and discipline of dressage—20 meter circles exactly, body evenly bent laterally through his spine, lateral work in both directions, soft flexion, exacting transitions up and down in response to subtle seat aids.
While the two sports are different in their ultimate goals, I can’t help but plug the benefits of each for the other.
“It’s all about the partnership between horse and human. In dressage, the goal is not really Grand Prix competition. In endurance, the goal is not really 100 miles. It is the journey that is the key.” (Dorothy Hokanson)
Ned would travel along happily on the forehand for his entire endurance career if left to his own devices, but one of the aims of dressage is to shift some of the usual weight on the forehand back to the hindquarters, allowing expression in the gaits through collection, and at the pinnacle of the art of dressage, the airs above ground.
To date Ned’s only “airs” have been purely self-motivated, but I believe that every incremental shift to traveling less on the forehand saves wear and tear to those frequently injured front legs.
Traveling straight (which we work on constantly in the arena) means he’s accustomed to loading both hind legs evenly, can switch leads without losing balance, and is comfortable with me switching diagonals in the trot, so he can free up one hind leg from the weight of my seat, then the other.
In short, it’s part of the reason I think he’s still out there, sound, after five years.
Despite me. Like most riders, I’m inherently crooked. My tendency is to ride as though my horse is traveling to the left when we’re in fact, traveling straight, and this tendency worsens as I get tired, like at the end of a ride.
“If I could make one change in the distance riders I see, it would be to shorten their stirrups a bit to help them stabilize their seats. With stirrups too long, the seat becomes destabilized over the course of a ride, as the rider tires, and that is tough on the horses.” (Dorothy Hokanson)
My own conditioning goals include not only increasing my overall aerobic fitness and muscular strength, but to constantly address my riding asymmetries.
Cross-training for the rider
Dressage helps me, of course, but I’m finding that yoga and Pilates really help supplement my equitation. Pilates focuses on core strength, including the abdominal muscles and lower back, muscles that need tone for dressage, but endurance too—if you’ve lived through “the Pilates 100” you too have found abdominal muscles you didn’t know you had (until the first time you sneezed after class.)
Yoga’s breathing and stretching is great for me mentally, but it’s not for wusses, as you might envision. My most recent class left me shaking in exertion for several long seconds in the side plank. “Breathe, use your breath.” I’m not sure it’s considered meditative to curse during each exhalation, but that’s what I did.
I’m a member of the closest YMCA (40 minutes from our home), and I find dragging my carcass to the gym in the mornings prevents me from finding excuses during the day that prevent me from going. Like most folks, I do routine barn chores and hop off to walk during many conditioning rides, but also love using the elliptical at the gym. It’s sort of a cross between a treadmill and a stairclimber, and I turn up the music on my iPod, and sweat up a storm.
I don’t look like a lot of the fitness champions at the gym. I wear ride t-shirts and baggy yoga pants, and my chunky physique doesn’t look like it should be able to keep up with a lot of the buff young ladies in lycra pants with their midriffs exposed. But it does okay.
“I consider myself in pretty good shape since I walk an hour every day weather permitting on the hills around our farm. I figure if my horse needs a break I could dismount and lead a while. At Old D I walked every downhill and trust me there were a lot!” (Mary Coleman)
Which brings us to the subject of my weight. While I know a lot of heavyweight riders do just fine, and their horses carry them without any trouble at all no matter the distance, for my own sake I need to offload some ballast. My goal is to lose 20 pounds over the winter, and if I lose more, all the better. Eating less, moving more. It’s simple, complicated only by my fierce love for all things salty. All things chocolate. All things baked.
“I got down to 118 before my first 100 and was in great shape. Problem was I found out it wasn’t nearly as hard to do a 100 as I’d imagined so I slacked up on the exercise later and didn’t bother to be in such good shape.” (Angie McGhee)
While I know most experienced riders talk about the difference between 50s and 100s being largely mental, I want the physical part of us to be ready too.
“I tried to complete the Tevis Cup Ride this past year. I failed, but I did not fail to try. I can live with that.” (Julie Suhr)
I can live with that too, Julie.
About this issue’s mentors:
Mary Coleman has competed for over 10,000 ECTRA miles, including over 4,000 AERC miles since 1983. She sets yearly goals for herself and whatever horse(s) she’s competing and conditions horses for other distance riders. Her goal for 2005 is to ride a 100 with Patti and Ned and have fun doing it. Mary’s an experienced ride manager, hosting either an endurance or competitive ride from her Pennsylvania farm almost every year since 1989.
Dorothy Hokanson, a past president of the Western New York Dressage Association, has competed in dressage to the Prix St. Georges Level, and has been training in dressage for over 25 years. She hosts clinics at her Jamestown, NY, farm with Paula Kierkegaard (USEF “S” dressage judge) and Walter Zettl, author of “Dressage in Harmony.”
Angie McGhee has been competing in the Southeast since 1987. She has over 4000 miles, 3000 of them on Kaboot. She’s completed seven of 10 100-mile rides on a tight budget, with an $800 horse, an $1800 2-horse trailer and–until five years ago–a $1500 1979 pickup. The only thing she ever pays full price for is good hay and a good farrier.
Stagg Newman has started over 50 100 mile one-day endurance rides. Stagg learns his lessons the hard way and has not finished over a dozen of those 100s, learning from each non-completion. The most important lesson: “Ride your own ride.” Stagg has been fortunate to have two 100 mile horses who have taught him well, enabling him to complete over 40 100 mile rides including over 30 on his AERC Hall of Fame horse, Ramgewa Drubin, with 12 wins and 10 BCs. Stagg has also completed nine 100s on Jayel Super with six wins. This year Super became the first horse to win the Old Dominion three times.
Julie Suhr is a legend amongst endurance riders. A modest, classy and eloquent lady, she is the author of “Ten Feet Tall, Still.” Starting in 1968, Julie began riding the coveted 100-mile Tevis Cup ride. She has started the ride 28 times and finished 22, with three Haggin Cup wins, the award given to the horse among the top 10 finishers which is judged to be in the best condition to continue. Julie says that her ability to still ride long distances is directly attributed to good health, and a supportive husband.