XC Helmet Cam

I posted this to Facebook yesterday (it was posted in the COTH Eventing message boards):

Dressage on Fergie

On Wednesday night I had a riding lesson and got to ride "Fergie". Fergie was the very first horse that I rode at ATF so it was interesting to give her a try again after all this time. I remember that first time that I had a lot of trouble getting a decent pace out of her and forget about getting on her on bit or bending. At that stage I was really just trying to remember basic aids and trying to re-establish my own balance on a horse. Shortly after that first lesson I started leasing LuLu and then I bought Ruby, so I didn't ride Fergie again until this week.

There is a guy who is sometimes in my lessons who has ridden Fergie a lot, and I've listened to him complain about her before, so when I saw that I was going to be riding her, I wasn't thrilled. But it turns out she was really quite nice! Getting a good forward pace out of her was a bit of a challenge (she also had been ridden in another lesson that day, so it probably wasn't ideal timing), but I found that if I was aggressive about asking for it, and if I kept after her, that she gave up her resistance and did what I wanted. This is a different approach to how I was told by Pat Spettel to ride Ruby. In Ruby's case, she is confused or dulled by constantly nagging with the leg. With Fergie I think she just has to know that you are not going to give up. I guess that she is so used to lesson kids riding her that she probably does get away with a lot if she resists enough. Once she realized that I was not going away, getting the forward out of her was easier. It wasn't a rocking pace by any means, but it was much better, once I was able to get her going. But it was her lovely, light contact that I really enjoyed. Once we got going, she got nicely round, kept such a light, elastic feel that I was amazed. I found it somewhat eye-opening to ride a horse like this, it really was a bit of an "Aha" moment for me. Kind of like, "aha! So, this is how that is supposed to feel!" LuLu tends to lean and get heavy in the hand and with Ruby, while we have our moments of the right contact and feel, it's not yet very consistent, so it can be a bit of a struggle. It was a great lesson for me to see how little you really need to do, or should be doing, with your hands in order to get this result. I'm hoping that I can remember the feeling and that I can carry it over to other horses (especially Ruby, of course). At one point during the lesson we had been trotting around without a break for a long period and Ann said something like, "you're all probably dying at this point." And then she looked me and said, "Well, I'm sure Debbie is anyway." And I said, "I'm actually really enjoying this. Yes, it's tough, but I'm enjoying it."

After my lesson this guy at the barn (same guy who had the complaints about Fergie) said to me, "My horse is like a different horse now that your's is in South Carolina. He's so much happier." I wasn't really sure quite how to respond to that. Am I now supposed to feel terrible that his horse doesn't like my horse? It's not like a child's play group or something. What was I supposed to say or do about that?

Eventing Strong

I love this video! (for the non-horse-y people, "Eventing" is the type of equestrian competition that I do with Ruby)



Thanks to Shannon Molloy for posting the video to Facebook.

Working Out

Well, I'm trying to start off the new year on a more or less good, or at least healthy(ish), note. I believe I mentioned that I joined the "Y", but I didn't actually go for the first time until this past Saturday. For my first workout I was just going to do about half-an-hour, but I surprised myself by working out for almost an hour. I even managed to throw in a few running intervals.

Tonight I went back to the "Y" for more of the same. I spent half-an-hour on the elliptical and then walked for twenty minutes on the indoor running/walking track. The indoor track is really a great alternative during the Winter as the short, dark days, the frigid weather and the ice and snow (and snow banks) everywhere here make it pretty tough to run outside. The track is also considerably less tedious than the treadmill. I still want to keep sessions on the treadmill in rotation as I think I force myself to maintain a more consistent pace (whatever that targeted pace may be) and it works really well for adding intervals. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with my motivation so far. I have signed myself up for a spinning class on Thursday night. I'm pretty nervous about that, it's been over a year since I've taken one and I'm hopelessly out of shape.

On the food front, I've been okay. Not perfect, but not bad. I've stuck to my breakfast resolve, eating yogurt or oatmeal 6 days / week. Most lunches have been reasonable -- I've actually been getting the entrees at the cafeteria at work (when they have a healthy one). Usually the portion is right and I'll get two vegetables as sides, something I tend not to eat much, when cooking for myself. I've been cooking a lot and have not had much in the way of sweets or other junk. I'm sure that I can get better in this area, but I feel pretty good about my progress at the moment. Oh! And I have increased my water intake and decreased the soda, so that is also a positive.

I think I need to have a different attitude about this health & fitness stuff than I have had previously. Always before it's been about weightloss and looking better. Well, maybe it hasn't been only about weightloss, but that always seems to the most prominent part of any new, healthy resolve to me. And this is also one of the reasons why I become so discouraged so easily, so demoralized when I can't ever seem to reach even a fraction of my ultimate goals. I throw my hands up in despair and figure, why bother? So, I think I have to completely throw weightloss out the window. I hope that weightloss happens, but I don't think that it can be the focus of my efforts any longer. It has just contributed to too many years of self-loathing and disappointment for me.

Instead I am now focused on heath and on training. When I don't want to work out, I have to remind myself of my (Eventing) competition goals. When I want to eat junk, I have to think about the health element and how it will make me feel. If I do eat junk, remember that bad physical feeling, rather than kick myself for having no will power or for setting myself back in my weightloss goals. As they like to say at Jenny Craig, "It's Progress, Not Perfection". At least, I think that was Jenny Craig. Whatever.

Anxiety Dreams

Last night I had some crazy dreams. I slept pretty well until about 3 AM (when the Ambien wore off). I then remember having nightmares about being fired. This is not so unusual, but this time I had dreams on top of dreams -- layered dreams where I remember dreaming about being fired and not being sure if it was true or it had been part of another dream. So, I kept waking up back-and-forth in either a dream or for real not knowing if what I had just dreamt was dream or memory. This happened for pretty much the rest of the night. Kind of like looking in one of those mirrors where you can see yourself reflected back endlessly. Crazy ... much? Ya, I know.

Aiken-Bound

Okay, maybe not so much. At least not until the last week of March. But I am already getting excited for the trip. Hearing little tidbits from Alison about what she is doing with Ruby. Every week filling out a new entry for yet another competition down there for her. Reading on COTH about other's Aiken plans ... it all has me incredibly hyped up and wishing that I was down there! I keep doing google searches for pictures and websites, greedy for just a taste of the Aiken horsey season.

More and more I think that I should try to rent something down there for a month or two next year. My job is set up to be remote after all. Actually, I blame a colleague who owns a house in FL for this bright idea. Once he told me that he was planning to work from there for a month this year, and hopefully increase his time there with each year, well, let's just say it planted the bug in my brain. Once I heard that, I thought, 'Hmmmmm. Interesting. INTERESTING. That is actually doable. HMMMMMM.' And it's relatively cheap there, it would probably cost me only a little more than what I'll be paying for hotels and airfare and kennels and whatever for one week of vacation down there. Hm. Food for thought. How great would that be?

An Old Family Story

I was talking to my father on the phone last night and he brought up this family story that my brother had told him over the holidays (apparently my father has no memory of it). I don't know why, but before my father could even say one word of the story, I knew exactly the story he was going to tell. And I was right.

So, my grandmother (mother's mother) came to live with us when I was about 11 or 12. She was childish and petty, I actually feel that she was even a bit evil. She was the type of person to play one person off of another. To get in the middle of disagreements between my parents. To snoop in people's dresser drawers. To take clothes and other items and throw them away or donate them without asking. She was constantly telling us what bad children we were and that we would never amount to anything and that we were nothing compared to the shining example of my cousins (I already admired my cousins, so I couldn't argue with her there. Still, it hurt to hear what I already suspected confirmed by an adult). She sat like an evil spider in her room waiting for what trouble she could cause, how she could get attention, how she could make someone feel like crap, or whatever. WIth the wisdom of age and experience I can now look back on this time and realize that she was probably an incredibly insecure person, but I still can't feel any affection for her.

Evil Grandmother was not a cook, my mother did most of the cooking in the house and enjoyed experimenting with different cuisines. My father was going through a period of unemployment and so my mother had gotten a job at a local bank. The bank had evening hours on Friday nights and so one Friday my mother asked Evil Grandmother if she could cook dinner. She left out a simple recipe for her to follow and Evil Grandmother made it -- some kind of pasta sauce.

Well, it's dinner time, Evil Grandmother is all smug and proud of herself and puts the bowl of sauce on the table. We all (my brother, father and I) sit down and look at the sauce and look at her, then look at each other. And then there is a long, silent, drawn-out pause.

Finally my brother says, "uh, so where is the spagetti?" (We called pasta "spagetti" in thos days.)
Evil Grandmother: "spagetti? your mother never said anything about spagetti. she just left the recipe for sauce, nothing else."

--pause--

Brother: "So, whadja' expect us to do, slop it into bowls and eat it with a spoon???"
Evil Grandmother runs from the table in tears while hilarity ensues (you can bet she made sure we all paid for that one later.)

Father: "Oh great. Now I'm going to have to go up there and talk to her. "

I don't know why, but memories of this scene can make me laugh until I cry. I guess it's one of those "i guess you had to be there" sort of things. And knowing the players involved helps too.