Endurance Introspection
"To Finish Is To Win"About the Site
Authored by Patti Carey (formerly Patti Stedman), Endurance Introspection is a website for endurance riders, aspiring endurance riders and other sport horse enthusiasts interested in the cross-training aspect of endurance conditioning and training for horses. Patti’s vision for the website is to provide a place for endurance riding enthusiasts interested in the philosophies, training, conditioning strategies and life lessons learned during the act of enduring.
Patti is an AERC (American Endurance Ride Conference) endurance competitor/Ride Manager/former BoD member who truly embraces the sport’s motto of “To Finish Is To Win”.
About Patti
Patti was raised in rural Western New York. She started riding at the age of seven and eventually showing in various disciplines, until she discovered dressage (the art of riding and training a horse in a manner that develops obedience, flexibility, and balance.) in her late teens. She attended Cornell University and received her BS in Animal Science.
While she taught and trained professionally for a few years, it became apparent that a career outside of horses allowed more financial security (and that wackily practical health insurance), so her love of teaching took her in the direction of occupational safety and environmental compliance. She owns two successful businesses, one providing live training and consulting, and the other providing web-based safety training.
Patti began to compete in endurance rides in the mid 1990s. A couple of decades and a few thousand miles of competition later, she has acted as a Ride Manager for the Allegany Shut Up and Ride and was formerly a member of the AERC Board of Directors, Ride Managers’ Committee, and Education Committee. She developed materials for and insurance coverage for AERC Endurance 101 Clinics and has taught dozens of clinics, and encourages others to do the same to give riders new to our sport the skills needed to succeed and a sense of community with other local endurance riders and mentors.
Her passion for sharing her sport led her to creating a web-based course for new and aspiring endurance riders, Endurance Essentials, which can be found at horselearningonline.com
Patti loves combining the disciplines of endurance and dressage, and observing and writing about the inside world of endurance riding competition. Patti currently lives in rural South Carolina, with her horses, dogs, cats and various vermin.
Header photo by Carien Schippers @imagequine
Eenie, meenie, miney mo!
Let me preface this blog post by saying that I realize how wildly blessed I am to be faced with this dilemma! It’s ten days out from the Pine Tree 100 endurance ride in North Waterford, Maine, and I am working hard at NOT trying to speculate as to which two of the...
Heartburn, heartache and ulcers … who is having which?
I apologize again for being so silent for so long. I was emailing someone the other day, one of my birth mom’s dear friends in fact, who had sent me a note, and telling her that no one told me, as a teen, that those were the good days, where funerals were few and far...
The first thing to go …
When I looked in the direction of the heavens in late December, when we found our Dodge truck on a sales lot, and told the powers-that-be that I needed more consulting work, I had no idea how quickly and in what volume that prayer would be answered. Old clients, new...
Just like childbirth …
… or so I’m told, you forget the pain. So my husband and I, after two years off, are resurrecting the Allegany Shut Up and Ride endurance ride. October 1st. 30/55/75 mile distances. I sent in the sanctioning applications today. Hope to see many of you there! –Patti...
Somehow I need to etch in my memory banks …
… just how good it feels when I drag my carcass on to the treadmill or haul my layered-in-clothing butt out to the barn to climb on a horse. It is safe to say that I never regret the time and effort it takes to do so. I’m sure I’m not the only one who procrastinates...
Rest! It’s not just for endurance horses …
No one was more shocked than me that I was doing pretty well with my treadmill routine — alternating jogging with maximum incline (walking) intervals. That 5k in mid-March was looking very doable. I did a bit of reading about couch-to-5k plans and the cautions about...
On track thus far …
My New Year’s resolution of “doing a little better” seems to be sticking pretty well. It gives me some latitude for off-road excursions into the land of watching The Real Housewives or following up a long day of hectic by meeting Anita for Mexican and ordering a...
So if I write this down …
… and all seven of my faithful blog followers read it, I’m committed, right? (Thanks for stopping by, Melissa.) I am a goal-oriented person. (One does not reach half their life expectancy without gaining some self-understanding unless they are trying really hard to...
Learning To Ride My Own Ride
Reprinted from Endurance News, January 2011, Ride Managers’ Column, monthly publication of the American Endurance Ride Conference, www.aerc.org, 866-271-2372 I admit that I am a slow study, and that it has taken me some time to figure out precisely what “ride your own...
Resolution for 2011
Well, I know better than to establish any hard and fast resolutions for the New Year, so I am going to keep it simple. I am going to try to do better. Do better with my eating, my activity, my management of my business, my role as a wife/sister/daughter/aunt/friend,...
A 100 in 2011?
Who’s in? There’s a rather active discussion on the AERC Member’s Forum at the moment, about the decrease in 100 mile riders in our sport, and whether or not it’s real or imagined and whether it’s fixable or not, and how. As I stated in my response, I think the best...
Of resolutions and such …
I realize that most folks go with tradition and begin thinking of resolutions and such as the current year closes out and a new one approaches. For me, however, it seems the year is based on the ride schedule. As the Mustang Memorial ride wrapped up in mid-November...