Adult Horse Camp

As I’ve been writing about for a few months now, last week I attended the Adult Camp that my riding trainer holds in Aiken, SC every year. Well, I’ve arrived home and I have to say that I had a wonderful time! It was an incredible trip.

The Breakdown

Sunday:
Early, early, early flight out of Manchester (hello??? 6 AM? I must have been nuts). I had very little sleep on Saturday night, going to bed around midnight or so after packing and organizing all of my crap, I was up at 3:30 AM to get ready and because I was awake. Met one of the women, Marilyn, at the airport where we were able to chat while we waited for our flight to be called. Once boarded, as a happy coincidence, it turned out that one of the other women participants was seated next to me. We all had an uneventful trip down to Columbia, SC where we picked up the rental car and drove in the rain to Sporting Days Farm in Aiken where Alison and her working students where competing in a horse trial.

That night we had a couple of cocktails in the hotel bar and then made our way to this wonderful little restaurant down the little cobbled lane behind it where the food was excellent.

It was a pretty sodden day, but it was very thrilling to watch the event to get excited for the coming week.

Monday:
Monday it was still raining pretty hard. Alison called us while we were still at breakfast and said that we might want to do some shopping and wait for the weather to get a little better. We agreed, no one wanted to ride in the torrential downpour (although Alison would have been willing to do it, had we wanted to). So we did some driving around -- even getting a little lost and driving through a planned equestrian community, which was pretty cool. And we stopped in at a couple of local tack shops. Finally we made it out to Alison’s farm where we did some more stalling, had lunch, a lecture on tack and talked about my readiness to buy a horse. You see, all morning long we had been talking about my desire for horse ownership and in each tack shop that we visited there were books or flyers of horses for sale. We kind of jokingly mentioned this to Alison’s working assistants who pulled out a flyer for a horse for sale that they had heard about. Apparently the horse had a decent competition record and the owner needed to sell her and was willing to let her go cheap, so we made arrangements to go see her the next day!

In the afternoon the rain let up some, so we all went out to be introduced to our horses for the week and to tack up to ride. “My” horse was Viper, a cute chestnut Quarter Horse type who also happened to be a pretty good size for me (in other words, on the smaller side).

We all rode out into the jumping field where we did some walk, trot canter warm-up and to get used to our new horses. There was also a path that loops around a part of the farm that we first trotted around and then each took turns doing a slow hand-gallop around. Then Alison had us try a few of the jumps in the field and then started putting together some short jump courses for us. I realized pretty quickly that Viper likes to be pretty speedy while jumping. I’m used to this with Lulu, but my usual methods for keeping Lulu slower and steadier jumping didn’t seem to work for Viper. So I ended up with some rushy-awkward fences. Still, it was my first time riding him, so I figured we’d work it out.

That night we tried another restaurant near our hotel where Alison, her husband Sean and Alison’s working students (Bethany & Suzie) joined us.

Tuesday:
Tuesday morning dawned beautiful. Clear, sunny & warm (we lucked out and enjoyed perfect weather for the rest of the week). We started the day each taking turns to have a lunge lesson where we were required to walk, trot and canter without stirrups and without reins, holding our arms out at our sides like an airplane. I had been dreading this particular activity, but it ended up being not so bad. I also think that I got pretty lucky because all of Viper’s gaits are pretty smooth, on a bouncier horse I would have had a harder time.

After the lunging, we moved on to dressage lessons. After getting warmed up and trying some figures, I learned pretty quickly that Viper was going to be much easier in dressage than Lulu is. Once I got the hang of it, I found that I could get him round, in frame, using his back and hind-end and on the bit. I’m at a stage with my riding where I can’t hold it all together consistently, but I was able to get the desired response from Viper again and again without much struggle. I would get and have it, lose it, get it again, have it and lose it again. On circles I was able to keep it much more consistently, on the long sides I tended to lose it, but then would get it again as we turned into the corners. I found it incredibly encouraging though. It made me feel that someday I may actually be able to be able to do this right, on the right horse anyway. We then had the opportunity to put it all together and do our dressage tests. Mine went okay, there were some rough spots, but for the most part I was happy with it. I was also happy that I was able to remember it easily! I had been worried about that.

In the afternoon it was back to the jumping field for more jumping. This time Alison raised the jumps a little bit and put together longer and more complicated courses for us. I felt like things went more smoothly with Viper this time around. We were still pretty speedy, but nothing was as awkward as it had been the day before.

After taking care of the horses we all piled into Alison’s truck and drove over to the place to see the horse for sale. It was kind of weird place, cats all over the place, dozens of horses out in small paddocks and weird jumps built out of scraps of stuff. The horse (named Cindee) was a small paint. Cute as a button, she seemed nice enough as we watched the woman who is selling her (basically, the horse broker) riding her. Then I had a chance to get on her. I was surprised to find how easily she collected up and accepted contact. She went very, very nicely on the flat for me. It was so nice really, that I almost wanted to cry, I was so grateful to have such a lovely flat experience. After that we went over to the jumping area to try a few fences. Well. The first thing we popped over (a little cross-rail) she about jumped me out of the tack! She jumped so big and popped up her back-end so much in her jumping style that I almost actually came off. Alison spent some time having me try some different jumps, and finally after some work and by cantering everything, it got much better. Still, the jumping with her wasn’t easy. She was also a little rushy to the fences, but by the end I felt that I was containing it well. My bottom line after the ride was that the rushing I could handle, she got a little flustered a few times and did some lead switching and a little bit of dancing around, but I felt that I could handle that too (it was my first time riding her after all), but the jumping style I wasn’t sure about. I didn’t think it could be “fixed” so the big question was whether I could adjust to that. So, the bottom line was, I wasn’t sure. The dressage work was just so lovely and this is something that I had been struggling with in particular, that I wasn’t ready to say definitely not. The big question was whether the jumping would get better for me. So we decided that we were going to trailer this horse over to the location where we were competing in our 2-Phase the next day. We were scheduled to do some cross-country schooling on their course after the competition and Alison thought that it might be a good opportunity to fully try Cindee out.

Wednesday:
Wednesday morning started pretty early for us as we were competing in a 2-Phase (also held at Sporting Days) and so had to be at the place relatively early. I was incredibly nervous as I hadn’t competed in well over 20 years. It was a little schooling event, so it was meant to be low pressure, but I was so, so worried about making a fool out of myself! My ride time for dressage was a little bit later than everyone else’s, so I got to sit and worry and obsess while everyone was getting ready. Finally it was time for me to warm up and so I made my way on Viper over to the dressage area. I did some circles and serpentines and spirals and transitions and all too quickly it was my turn to ride my test. The test seemed to go okay. I was pretty nervous, but I tried to concentrate on just riding. We had some good moments and some blah moments, but overall I was happy enough with it. I don’t think it was quite as good as the one I had ridden the day before at Alison’s, but it wasn’t disastrous either. Most of all, it was a relief to have it finished.

After dressage I moved over to the jumping warm-up area. Everyone was already there and warming up because their jump times were a little earlier. I started my warm-up and did not have a very good time of it. Once we started jumping, things just seemed to get worse. Viper wanted to be his speedy self and I wanted to micro-manage him and keep him much slower. The result was that we had some TERRIBLE warm-up jumps, including one big stop before the oxer that almost had me off him (I managed to stay on by sheer will, I think). I was so discouraged at that point that I was ready to scratch myself out of the competition. Finally, I managed to relax a little bit and have one or two good fences and it was time to get to the staging area for my stadium round.

Well, everything seemed to come together perfectly for stadium. I just let Viper do what he needed to do and otherwise kept him steady and slowed him a bit in-between the jumps. It was actually quite lovely (turns out that we also had the fastest stadium round in our division). What a relief! I finally figured out how I needed to ride this horse. I’m so used to Lulu who you really DO have to micro-manage, but Viper is completely different. I felt so much better after that. I ended up winning 4th in my division! I was REALLY happy with that, especially considering that I had only been riding Viper for two days and hadn’t competed in well over 20 years.

After the competition we had lunch and hung around waiting for Sean to arrive with the trailer and Cindee the prospect horse. I found myself becoming increasingly nervous about jumping her cross-country, which should have been a pretty big clue that this wasn’t going to be the horse for me. I still had the memory of how wonderfully she went on the flat for me though and wanted to be sure. Everyone else headed on over to the jumping warm-up area while Alison’s working students helped me get Cindee ready. Finally I got on her and walked her around on a loose rein for a little bit. She was a little excited and dancing around a bit, but it wasn’t too bad. After walking around, I decided that I wanted to shorten my stirrups, so I tried to get her to stand quietly while I did so. I had one foot out of the stirrups while I was fiddling with it, when the next thing I knew Cindee reared straight up in the air, tumbling me off the back. I hit the ground so hard that it apparently knocked me out for a few seconds. When I opened my eyes, Sean was standing over me and saying that I shouldn’t move. The whole thing is a bit of a blur so I’m not even 100% sure what and when anything happened, but eventually they let me get up and moved me over to the trailer and out of the sun. They had an EMT over to check me out where she asked me all kinds of questions, like my name, where I was, what day it was, what month it was, etc. Some of the stuff I actually didn’t know the answer to! I had no idea what month it was. I was really confused because I couldn’t remember, it was hot like Summer, yet I knew that it wasn’t Summer. I don’t think I was too sure where I was either. I knew what had happened, yet I couldn’t quite grasp why I had been on that particular horse -- I knew that she wasn’t one that was usually there. After about 15 or 20 minutes everything cleared up for me, but that dazed feeling was pretty scary really.

Needless-to-say my riding was done for the day. Cindee was also off the list of potential horses for me. Any horse that will rear like that, especially for no real, good reason is a horse that is very dangerous and one that I want no part of. Sean said that when he looked over and saw what had happened, that I was actually right underneath her, it’s a wonder that I wasn’t stomped on. I also thought that she had flipped over with me (she didn’t, I just thought so at the time). Anyway, off the list. Sean was kind enough to stick with me and we then walked over to the cross-country course to watch the others ride. I was pretty disappointed that I wasn’t going to get to ride it, but relieved that I didn’t have to go through an ordeal with Cindee on it too.

At the end of the day Cindee went back. The day before, however, Alison had remembered a horse that she knew of for sale. This was a horse she had seen compete in the stadium phase of horse trial on Sunday. She knows the farm who owns her and the trainers, has a relationship with them and trusts them. She knew a bit about the training and competition history of the horse and had been thinking of the horse for another rider, but suddenly thought that he might work for me. We had arrangements to see him late on Thursday.

That night we decided to go to the Aiken Brewery for dinner where we enjoyed wonderful wings & beer and other great food. Joanne (one of the women I was traveling with who also happens to be a nurse practitioner) kept an eye on me and kept checking out my pupil dilation situation to make sure that I was okay after my fall, but I was fine. Anyway, we had a great time there and really enjoyed the atmosphere.

Thursday:
On Thursday we were scheduled to go to a farm called “Jumping Branch” where we were to do pacing on the galloping track and then school on their cross-country course. I was a little concerned that my nerve might have suffered a bit after my bad fall the day before, on the other hand I felt that it was such a freak thing that maybe my mind wouldn’t make that connection. As it turns out, I was fine, didn’t even have the slightest hesitation or worry.

Galloping on the track was an incredible amount of fun! I kind of knew that it was going to be, but I don’t think I appreciated how much I was going to enjoy it until I did it. The goal was to hit first 350 meters, then 450 and then finally 550 meters each in one minute (we each took one turn for each pace exercise). 350 pace was a fast canter/good controlled hand gallop pace. 450 more of strong hand gallop and 550 opened up into a good, rocking gallop. Fun, fun, fun.

After the galloping we all jumped a stadium course in the stadium field and then we moved onto cross-country. The stadium jumping I did here as well as the day before was enough to make me feel confident that I now had Viper’s number and so I didn’t have an residual nervousness about my ability to ride him over the cross-country stuff. As I expected, he went wonderfully for me, easily, willingly and enthusiastically jumping everything that I asked him to. He was very forward, but also quite responsive when I asked him to slow for me. I was so happy and relieved that we had finally clicked, I had been a bit worried that I wasn’t going to sort it out. I was also very happy that I wasn’t at all freaked out to be back on a horse after my scary fall the day before, so all-in-all, it was a very satisfying and successful outing.

After we got back to the farm, took care of the horses, cleaned out the trailer, etc. it was soon time to go see the horse that Alison had found for me. There were a couple of things that made her think this might be a nice horse for me. First he’s relatively small (probably about 15.3Hs), he’s not rushy to fences, has already gone Training level (with a pro) and seems to jump up to the rider, rather than out and long like Lulu does (which kind of makes it harder for a rider like me who likes to get a bit ahead of the horse). So we arrived at the farm and right away saw Gambler standing there calmly while he was being tacked up. He seemed so quiet and patient and content. And cute! First we went into their ring where the exercise rider first did some walk, trot, canter work with him. He seems to go nicely round and on the bit for her. Certainly had a reasonable frame for dressage. She then jumped him over a couple of short jump courses. He looked very steady and consistent over everything. Then it was my turn to ride. I couldn’t seem to get him to go quite as nicely. I get so frustrated with myself with where I am with my dressage -- ARGH! But I was also pretty nervous, especially with everyone (Alison, my fellow camp girls, the exercise rider, the farm owner and a couple of other people) watching me. Finally, when I did some circles with him and did a little over-bending, I started to get the desired frame with him. This gave me encouragement that it’s reachable with him, that with work (especially work with my own riding) that I can get this more & more consistently. And really, how long had I been riding him at that point. ten minutes? It’s a lot to ask that everything is going to be completely perfect so quickly. And then came jumping. First I popped him over a cross-rail a couple of times and then Alison put together a couple of small courses for me. It was immediately apparent that he was very easy and simple to jump. Forward, without being rushy, willing, enthusiastic and completely unflappable. I found myself ... happy and relaxed and completely unconcerned about anything on the course. It was a bit of a revelation really.

After the stadium bit in the ring, Alison asked the farm owner if we could try some of the stuff out on the cross-country course. Alison started pointing out a few jumps that she wanted to string together for a course and I had a small momentary freak-out about the size of them -- I thought the jumps were a little bit big, at least for the moment, considering that it was my first time on this horse. Alison looked at me and said something like, you did these smaller jumps the other day, now you’re on to this, you can more than handle it, time to move on. I should add that Alison is extremely conservative and safety conscious. She will not move someone up in levels until she is absolutely sure that they’re ready. She has this philosophy that one should not be moving up to the next level until the level they’re on bores them senseless. So after my short moment of freak-out, I started jumping and everything was EASY! Gambler was steady and happy and just completely trustworthy. I didn’t even have one second of doubt at any point during any of it. He moved forward into a nice rolling gallop between jumps, but then easily came back to me, slowing when I asked, easy to balance before each obstacle. Finally Alison put together a last course including two passes through a water feature, with the intention that we jump out of the water over a log jump meant for that purpose, a stride or two up the bank and then a jump over this house/coop jump thing. The farm owner said that Gambler hadn’t done that water jump yet, but that he should handle it nicely. I think Alison wanted to see how he’d react to something new. She told me that if I felt at all funny or out of control after the water jump, to then just skip the one after it. Anyway, so I jumped the course and we came through the water and hopped over the jump like we’d both done it a million times before. An easy one or two strides (I can’t remember now how many it was) and then over the final jump. I was so much fun and EASY really. It was surprising. And I didn’t seem to have nearly the trouble getting ahead of him that I seem to have with some other horses.

After jumping this course, Alison took me aside out of ear-shot of everyone else and asked me what I thought. I told her that I LOVE him. She agreed and said that she really, really likes him too, and especially likes him for me. She thinks that he will have enough scope for me to be able to compete at least through Training level, which should carry me through for a good number of years. So we sent everyone else away and spoke to the owner. She said that since the horse had recently gone Training level, that they were going to raise his price. But since it seemed like such a great fit (she commented a couple of times on the big smile I had on my face the entire time I was on cross-country) and because I was working with Alison, that she would stick to the original price for me (which was about 2K less than what they were going to be asking).

So, I gave her a deposit! It looks like I’m buying a horse! Pending the vet check (which happens tomorrow) of course. Gambler is a 5 year old dappled gray thoroughbred who came from Kentucky. He is a former race horse, but I don’t know his racing name and don’t know how many starts he had or what his racing record was. I would like to find these things out perhaps, at the least it would be nice to see his pedigree, but I would need his racing name to dig it up and I’m not sure if anyone has that info. Anyway, I hope that he vets clean! I’ll probably be holding my breath all day on Monday. The other thing is, I’m jumping through hoops to pull the money together, I wasn’t planning on buying a horse this week, so money is kind of all over the place at the moment. I hope they can be patient for a few days while I pull everything together.

If all goes well, Gambler will move over to Alison’s where she will do some training work with him for the next couple of weeks and then he will come up with her to New Hampshire when she comes back up around the middle of April. I am so excited and a bit overwhelmed -- I need so much stuff, I don’t even own a saddle!

Thursday night we went to a local Mexican place and Alison and her working students and a friend of Alison’s from the Aiken horsey community joined us. Another wonderful meal where I also enjoyed a couple of margaritas -- YUM.

Friday:
By Friday morning I was pretty exhausted and feeling extremely sore from my fall the other day. I wasn’t too ambitious and so was happy to just hack around the field a little bit and not work too hard. Friday afternoon we trailered over to Hitchcock Woods for a picnic lunch and then a trail ride. This place is pretty cool, there are trails all over the place, but there are also sections that include jumps, as well as a steeplechase section. No one was feeling too ambitious at this stage so we all kept it pretty low-key. It would be really great to go back there someday and try that steeplechase though, it looks like a lot of fun.

Friday night we went to this awesome sushi place where I had this spicy tuna roll thing. It was incredible!

Saturday morning and it was time to go home. I was both very happy to be headed home and very sad to leave. This is a testament to a great vacation for me -- usually by the end of it I’m desperate to be home. The fact that I was sad to leave means quite a lot. I enjoyed it so much that I hope that I can manage to swing it again next year. I also, really, really enjoyed the company of all the women on the trip. I was a little concerned about this because I tend to be a bit introverted and can be a little socially awkward. I’m also so used to being alone and having my own space, so I was afraid that I might get overwhelmed by the social aspect. Also, being the only non-married, non-mom woman of the group, I thought that that might also put me at a disadvantage. But not so, we all got along incredibly well. Everyone was so supportive of everyone else and we all never seemed to be able to shut up at dinner or cocktails. I guess having a common interests is a big factor in this.

Now I’m home again and it’s time to get back to reality. The week seemed to go so fast, but I also feel like so much happened and that quite a lot was accomplished. It will be interesting to see how it all translates to how I ride Lulu.

The Slammer

Well, I dropped the dogs off this afternoon and I was pretty much okay, for the most part. Up until the point when I was leaving and decided to walk around the back to say goodbye. My three were in the enclosed yard together and came running over to the fence to see me. Little Fitz was pawing at the fence trying to get to me and it about broke my heart. I know that they'll be fine and that they'll actually even have fun. This is absolutely the best place around. They'll be loose and able to play with other dogs inside and out all day long, everyday. When I come collect them next weekend, they'll most likely be completely exhausted, and maybe even a little bit skinny.

I don't travel a lot, so it's the logistics of it all that I don't really like. All the packing and schlepping of stuff. The flying, the hotels, the not having all your stuff with you. But the worst part for me is having to leave my dogs behind. I'm sure I'll be happy once I'm there tomorrow, I am just not looking forward to the traveling part and I wish I could have my dogs with me! I miss them already, it's far too quiet around here without them.

Horse Camp!

So, my trip to Horse Camp is almost here, I leave early on Sunday morning. As the time gets closer, I am getting more & more excited, as well as more nervous. On Tuesday night Ann had me working through the Beginner Novice Dressage Test A because, uh, apparently, I am going to be competing in a 2-phase on Wednesday (ACK!) And then last night Alison sent an email to the camp goers with some more info, along with a break-down of who is being assigned which horse for the week. So it goes something like this:

* Jennifer is riding some horse called, "LumLum" (really, "Joebee", but same idea)
* Joanne is riding some horse called, "Blossom" (really, "Rue")
* Marilyn is riding her horse Finn
* Debbie is riding ... Viper. VIPER??? Holy crap! Do you think I should be concerned? The name "Viper" does not exactly instill confidence that I'm going to be on an easy-going horse, that's for sure!

And the packing list for camp:

* riding helmet
* riding gloves
* paddock boots
* half-chaps
* breeches (various colors)
* protective jumping vest
* jumping bat
* medical armband
* stop watch
* sports bras
* short & long-sleeved polos (various colors)

And that's just the riding stuff.


Anyway, it should be a lot of fun. I'm going to miss my dogs terribly, but they're going to be at a kind of camp of their own, so I'll bet they won't even miss me all that much really.

I hope I return in one piece!

More about Early Morning Meetings

So, as part of my sleep rant last week, I also ranted about this guy in my office who just loves to schedule these 7 AM meetings. He says that it is to accommodate the people in India, and I’m sure part of that is true, but I suspect that his real motivation is to provide himself another method for self-congratulation. Not to mention a way to clue others into how devoted he is, how hard he works. I know a lot of hard-working people at my office, but for some reason the work-load of this particular person always seems to be called to my attention. That makes me suspicious that he’s perhaps done a very good job of creating this image for himself. But, I’m willing to admit that I’m a suspicious sort, and this guy is not exactly my favorite team member.

Anyway, so last week was the debacle of the last minute canceled 7 AM on Tuesday, which got rescheduled for 7 AM on Thursday. We had the meeting on Thursday and ran out of time, so it was stated then that a follow-up would be scheduled for sometime this week (of course another 7 AM meeting). Well, I didn’t see an invite and was wondering about it. Last night I went to my riding lesson, came home, took care of the dogs, changed, made dinner, ate, etc. Finally about 10 PM I got around to checking mail. Well. There was the meeting invite, sent at 5:34 PM (conveniently about 10 minutes after I had signed off) for 7 AM this morning. Am I the only one who thinks this is F*ed up? Bad enough to schedule a 7 AM, but at least give a little freaking warning!!! Luckily I checked my mail, and I usually do, but sometimes I skip over things if they don’t appear critical, or to concern me immediately or directly, especially when I’m checking things by BlackBerry.

I tried to get to bed as soon as I could, but I just can’t go to bed right after eating dinner, and I need a little down time to unwind too, after a busy day. So I know the lights didn’t go off until midnight. I think I slept pretty well, in general, until 4 AM when I was suddenly awake and worried about going back to sleep so close to the time that I had to get up. So I pretty much laid there until I got up at 5 AM. Finally got up, got ready, took care of the dogs, came to work, getting here at 6 AM. Yes, that’s SIX O’CLOCK AM.

I am so freaking pissed and also a little paranoid. First, there was absolutely no reason for the last minute meeting schedule. He knew last Thursday at the conclusion of the first meeting that a second meeting was going to be necessary. This is not an emergency. Couldn’t he have planned a little better? It shows a real lack of respect for other peoples’ time. As I’ve stated before, 7 AM meetings are really rough on me on the best of days, I really appreciate having a little notice so that I can plan for them accordingly. I realize that sometimes shit happens and something needs to get scheduled suddenly, but that is not the case with this stupid meeting. A part of my paranoid self wonders if this was done on purpose, with the hope that I’d miss the meeting invite, especially since it was sent right after I went offline. But that’s my normal paranoia at work. Coming to work this morning felt like the middle of the night. Black as midnight and quiet, it was almost eerie to be in the office so early, no one at all was around. The vents weren’t even on, nor were the cafeteria people around yet – I’ve figured out that the earliest you can get coffee here is about 6:30. Anyway, I can see already that this is going to be a brutal day. I just have to now try to get over my pissed-off-ness and move on. I sometimes have a little trouble with that, I’m willing to admit it.

Update 8:45 AM: GAWD! It's not even 9 AM yet. Shoot. Me.

Sleep

This seems to be a recurring theme with me, and it is an issue that affects pretty much every aspect of my life. I’ve been suffering from crushing insomnia for the last few years now and it just seems to be getting worse. Add to that early morning meetings (like, 7 AM early), colleagues who like to be at the office early (like, by 7 AM) which motivates me to want to be in the office early as well, coming home late from the barn (9 PM) – looooooong days mixed with short nights and lots of trouble sleeping and I’m pretty much a walking mess much of the time these days. Of course this all ends up bleeding into my weekends because I then need to spend the entire two days in recovery mode trying desperately to catch up on sleep. As a result, I spend most of my weekend time like a zombie with no motivation to do anything other than sleep and zone out in front of the TV. It’s a frustrating and ugly vicious circle.

Tuesday morning I had another of these scheduled 7 AM meetings. Well, Monday night. I didn’t sleep. At all. Finally by around 1:30 AM, I gave up, realizing that it wasn’t going to happen and frustrated with all the tossing & turning in the dark. So I did some channel and internet surfing for a couple of hours. Tried to sleep again, when that didn’t work, went back to my channel and internet surfing. Finally, around 5 AM I fell into an exhausted sleep for about an hour, waking up around 6 to get ready for this bloody 7 AM meeting. The meeting was canceled 10 minutes before it was due to start with no explanation given. I was ready to kill someone! Of course the meeting organizer rescheduled the meeting for Thursday at 7 AM, which will just add another huge brick to the wall of sleep-deprived misery that I’m building here.

The lack of sleep thing just affects everything! Besides feeling completely crappy, being exhausted means that I’m less sharp at work, I crave carbs (especially junk food carbs) and I am completely unmotivated to exercise. I’m honestly surprised that I haven’t gotten sick. Anyway, so I've been feeling a little down and unmotivated and a little demoralized lately and I think the sleep problems are a big part of that picture. I am so thankful that I at least have the two riding lessons and the two personal training sessions scheduled each week because I know that I'm at least going to be active for those sessions, as much as I sometimes dread the effort before each appointment. I'm always thankful that I went after everything is said & done, of course, so I am very happy that they're on the schedule anyway.

So, I don't know what the solution is, but I've got to come up with something! I just am not functioning on all cylinders the way it's going right now.

More Riding

This is another dressage week and, because Ann is down in Aiken for the week, I had two lessons with Kelly -- Wednesday & Thursday nights. As I've mentioned before, I feel like dressage are the harder of the weeks and I feel like I am working harder and harder at it as I'm starting to catch on to everything. The latest breakthrough for me has been "inside leg to outside rein". It's become a sort of mantra with me. Pretty much every stride I am chanting this in my head. I've heard and read about this dressage rule, concept whatever, but I think I've just finally started to get it (as well as really feel what it does) and I'm so excited. I know, I know, very strange thing to be excited about, but I'm finding that it's working! And I'm actually able to now control my legs and my body enough to have some effectiveness too. The other thing that Kelly has been emphasizing is suppling the inside rein. So in my head I am chanting, 'inside leg to outside rein. supple, supple. inside leg to outside rein." Rinse, repeat. Non-horsey people will read this and go "WTF???". It's just a dressage thing, I guess.

The other thing that I've been working on with Lulu are walk or trot to canter transitions, and also trying to get her left-lead canter consistently. Another goal is to carry herself lighter on the forehand than she wants to do. This is all still pretty challenging to me as I think I'm still pretty sloppy at the canter myself. I can trot around all day long, even while working hard every stride, but cantering, I just get so tired, so easily and it's all I can do to create the transition and sit the gait, any subtleties beyond that are a big challenge to me right now. But I'm working on it. Late this afternoon I went down to the barn for a "free" ride and I made a point of working on the cantering in particular. I did lots & lots of transitions and then progressed to figure 8s with simple lead changes. I had been wanting to try this with Lulu for a while, but I wanted a day when I had the ring to myself. For the space, but mostly because I didn't want an audience. I trotted a couple of different figure 8s, plotting out the best place to do them and then went for the canter. Well, Lulu was a superstar! I was so, so happy with her. The figure circles were pretty small, maybe about 10-15 meters. At each transition I brought her down to a trot step or two and then she hopped right into the opposite lead for the track to the new circle. She did it so well that I felt like she was really almost just a step away from a flying lead change. We did this a number of times in both directions and then I was ready to call it a day and spent a good, long time walking her out because she had really worked up a sweat.

I very rarely manage to get myself out to the barn on a Friday to ride, so it was a really nice change for today. I great cap off to the week.

What the West would have been Like with Shetland Ponies

Ann from my barn posted this video to Facebook and I about laughed my ass off, so I'm going to post it here:

Mornings are HARD

I don’t know how I used to work out in the early mornings, because let me tell you, my equilibrium is definitely not up to par very early in the day.

I had an early morning training appointment scheduled for this morning, so I got to the gym a half an hour early to do some running. I did:

* Walked for 3 minutes: 16:12 min. mile pace.
* Ran for 7 minutes: 10:54 min. mile pace.
* Walked for 2 minutes: 16:12 min. mile pace
* Ran for 5 minutes: 10:31 min. mile pace.
* And then I alternated 1 minute running (10 min. mile pace) with 1 minute walking (16:12 min. mile pace). Except that the last running interval was a little longer, I think, to round it out to a total of 2 miles.

All this isn't so remarkable, but for the same effort later in the day, I should have been capable of faster paces. But then I had my training appointment and everything was harder. The first thing he had me do were these walking lunge things carrying 10 lbs in each hand. Well, very quickly I felt very light-headed and even a little nauseous. I managed to finish the exercise, but I really felt borderline like I was going to either pass-out or throw up for a good part of it. That was about the worst of it, but everything seemed so much harder than it would have been a little later in the day. UGH.

But I got it done, that's the most important thing. And I feel pretty good now and happy to have it checked off my list for the day.

One Phrase I am SO Sick of Hearing!

If I hear this phrase one more time, I swear that I'm just going to scream:

Working families

As a single person who has chosen not to have children, nothing can make me feel more marginalized, more invisible, less considered or valued in this society than that simple phrase. It makes me completely insane. It's like if your are single, and especially if you don't have children, the worries and concerns of this economy or this society do not apply to you. Or maybe it's just that no one cares about your worries and concerns, or your problems. It's sort of ironic that my life choice puts me in a situation where I have to pay more taxes, while the life choices of "working families" put them in the position of paying less. Yet somehow the politicians and the news media just love to cater to that "family" demographic as if they are the only members of our society. Or the only ones that really count anyway.

This phrase was bandied about quite a bit during the election, but I thought that it would maybe be put to rest for a while. Not so, I just heard it again on the news this morning. I guess I had better get used to it, because I'm sure it's not going to go away. But I sure am sick of the phrase and also the bleatings of parents over this economy. How do they think people who aren't parents feel? At least they have a tax break and many solutions will be geared towards them. I'm just expected to shut up and foot the bill, I guess.

Out of the Loop

This is how out of the loop I am: I didn't even realize that the Academy Awards were being held tonight. I just happened to stumble across a blurb on Yahoo! about it. Sheesh. Not that I care, mind you. I wouldn't have been watching it anyway, but still, sometimes it amazes me how clueless I can be about this stuff.

Another Jumping Night

On Wednesday night I had a second jumping lesson for the week. Kelly warmed us up by having us do a few passes through a simple gymnastic and then she put together a few different jump courses for us. After the first go, I decided to change things up a bit and canter the entire course. As I've written before, I've been working very hard on keeping Lulu slow & calm to her fences over the past few months. And so, because of this, with the exception of combination lines, I usually have been trotting between fences in an effort to control the pace. This has helped me keep Lulu quiet and controlled and has gotten me to the little break-through where I've realized that I can ride through this, where I now know that we don't have to rush through our fences and take those huge spots. Of course, I find it a little bit harder to find a jumping rhythm by trotting into the fences, but I seem to have done alright with this.

Anyway, I feel like I've made some progress, so on Wednesday I decided to try and pull it all together and canter Lulu through a complete jumping course. It was a good night to do it because there were only two of us in the lesson and Kelly had the fences relatively low that night. So I gave it a shot and I think it worked out pretty well! I was very pleased. For the most part we cantered in a nice, controlled and balanced manner and jumped nicely with no crazy-big spots, no big rushing efforts, and no points where I felt Lulu was landing heavy on her forehand and pulling me out of the saddle. We rode pretty much the way we should be riding these courses, maybe a small increase in speed here & there before a fence or two, but it was nothing like the crazy Wild West jump courses we had been doing just a short couple of months ago.

All-in-all, I feel like we've had a pretty good jumping week and I was able to end the training on a pretty good note, which is always a very good thing to do.

Jenny Craig Freak

So, I blew off the Jenny Craig appointment that I had scheduled on Monday. It was a holiday and I felt like I just couldn’t deal at all, so I just didn't go. I’ve never done that before. I knew that I more or less had enough dinners left in my freezer to make it through a week, but not enough breakfasts. I considered just waiting until next week for the next appointment because breakfast has never really been much of a problem for me and I could eat oatmeal and yogurt for a week. But I decided that it was better to try and fit something in.

So, I called JC yesterday to reschedule and the woman who answered exclaimed and gushed, “oh I am SO glad that you’re going to reschedule! It means that you’re sticking with the plan!!!” (yeah lady, whatever) This implied that she was just oh SO excited about my commitment to the program, the crazy freak, but it of course came across as completely insincere. Do people really fall for this crap? I knew exactly who this woman is, she is nuts and I always try to avoid her when I go to the center. When she told me that Sue (my usual counselor) was not in yesterday, but that there would be “someone” available to see me, I just knew that it was going to end up being her.

I was right. Once I got there and realized that I was going to be dealing with her, I told her flat out that I was not going to be weighed by her. She wondered that I didn’t want to know how I did – does she think that I don’t own a scale? The last thing I wanted to do was hash out my lack of progress with this completely insincere person who I can’t stand. At least Sue is low key and real, I just can’t stand phonies. When she realized that she was getting nowhere with me on the scale thing, she dragged me into an office and started gushing and exclaiming over how great I look and about how much weight I’ve lost. It was all a bunch of total bullshit. Then she launched into the whole “what are your motivators for losing weight” thing and I just completely shut down. I had been talking to her and trying to be polite, really biting my tongue trying not to snap at her. But when she came out with this, I just stopped and said, “You know? I really don’t want to do this. I just want my food”. Yes, I was a total bitch, but I couldn’t stand one more second of it.

I mean, as I’ve written before, I know that this is just some BS Jenny Craig rhetoric and that they’re scripted to ask this kind of thing. But I have many varied and personal reasons for wanting to lose weight and to get fit. I am certainly much more athletically minded than anyone in the JC office and my goals have very little to do with wanting to wear a size 2 dress or whatever. Absolutely nothing anyone in that office is going to say or ask is going to make me wake up and suddenly think deeply about some life changing reasons that had never occurred to me before. That is just never, ever going to happen with these people and especially with some silly phony like this crazy woman (and, by the way, Sue had told me before that there have been a lot of complaints about her, so I’m not the only one who feels this way).

My reasons and motivations for losing weight aren’t really all that private, frankly. I mean, I certainly discuss them enough here. But I just have no desire to sit in a room and go over them with some clueless, ridiculous, stranger who is just reading off some stupid script and wants write my answers down on a piece of paper so she can enter it in a database to prove that she “did her job” or whatever. No freaking way. This is my life, my life and my problems or issues are not open to you just because you have some stupid script to follow. I’ve been doing this for a year now and I’m just exhausted and these kind of BS questions make me even more weary of the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, I am still a Jenny Craig fan and I think the program works. It certainly has worked very well for me for about 50 lbs. But I really could do without silly, phony people like this woman and their canned questions. I really just don’t have the patience for any of that at all, at this stage. I wish I could just go in there, chat a moment with the counselor of my choice, get my food and leave already.

The Problem with Salad Is ...

A) I always take too much

and

B) There is always someone up my butt at the salad bar.

Early Mornings ... GAH!

So there is this guy in my group who likes to schedule these 7 AM meetings. He says that it's to accommodate the India folk. Whatever. Anyway, 7 AM is really rough for me. As I've written before, I very often don't sleep well and I also have some pretty long days during the week. I mean yesterday, between work and riding and running and training and whatever was about 14-15 hours before I was able to even start to wind down a bit. It was a loooooong day, and on very little sleep too. So there was a 7 AM meeting scheduled this morning. I woke up already hassled and rushed. Flew through my shower and then stood in the middle of the room not knowing what I was going to do. Do I manically throw on my clothes and race to work and try to get myself booted up in time for the meeting? (Which means I really have to be at my desk by 6:30 AM.) Do I work from home? Nah, I really don't want to do that. I'm already working from home on Friday. Okay, I'll get ready, do the meeting from home and then rush to the office. I hate doing that. So much frantic rushing around. Rush to get ready and get booted up, rush like a crazy maniac to shut everything down, pack up and get to the office once the meeting winds down. And then I'll have the rush back home in the afternoon to work the last couple of hours from there, because I have riding scheduled tonight. But I feel that's still the best option.

So, I frantically try to get myself booted up, logged in through VPN, logged into the online meeting site only ... I can't find the meeting on the list. Go to my calendar and it's scheduled for tomorrow??? WTF? Cursing, I frantically shut everything down, pack up the computer and make a mad dash for work, getting here at 7:30 AM. Turns out that the meeting had originally been scheduled for this morning, only someone moved it to tomorrow at the last minute. GAH! Which means that I get to go through this whole thing all over again tomorrow morning. Somebody just shoot me.

Jumping!

I had another great riding lesson tonight. It was a jumping night and I was slightly nervous to begin with, but Lulu and I really managed to pull off some pretty good jump courses -- generally pretty balanced and ridden correctly. I think my position was okay for the most part and (more importantly) our pace and approach to the fences were controlled with me pretty firmly in charge. I was pretty happy and satisfied with everything by the time we were done and felt like we ended the session on a really good note.

Each week I feel like I understand a little bit better how Lulu needs to be ridden. Never having owned my own horse, this is a bit of a new experience for me. I've never had the opportunity to bond this much with a horse, nor really know how an individual horse needs to be ridden to this degree before and I'm really liking the feeling!

After each riding experience these days, I find myself driving away from the barn so happy and relaxed and content. I know of nothing else in my life that makes me feel this way.

Reunion Weekend

I ended up having a rather fun weekend. A bunch of friends from NYC came up to stay with Paul & Luminita and so I ended up having dinner plans for both Saturday and Sunday nights. It really was a blast. Paul, Eugene, Holly, Tommy and I (along with a bunch of others: Darryl, Julian, Carolina & Janos, Michelle, “Medicated Dave”, Paul L, Kenny and various other players who sometimes made appearances) were all part of our original crowd of friends. Luminita joined us a number of years later and Eugene’s wife (they’ve been married about a year) joined after I had moved to New Hampshire. Way back in those good old days (and I’m talking, starting in the early to mid-90s here) we would travel around Manhattan in a pack, hopping from one bar to another and staying out all night. It was so, so great back in those days, we were all single, yet there was never any “boy vs. girl” drama, we were all just really great friends who enjoyed each others’ company. Of course the dynamic had long changed by the time I left NYC, since many of the various members had since paired off, but “back in the day” it was really a great time. Luckily, we’ve all been able to remain really good friends over the years, even though everyone’s lives have changed and changed pretty dramatically, for the most part.

So it was a party weekend again with Paul & Luminita, Tommy & Holly (who were single members of our group for years, but finally hooked up one year at an infamous Christmas pub crawl we all attended), Eugene & Grayce (who I had never met before this weekend). Of course I was the one singleton in the crowd, as usual, but for once I didn’t even mind that. We just had a blast telling all the old stories and finding new ways to mock each other (one of those “you kinda had to be there” things). I was also, really, really glad that I liked Grayce so much. I had been very worried about that. Eugene has been such a good friend of mine for many years, I was really hoping that I was going to like his wife. He deserves the best and, let’s face it, it’s a horrible feeling to have a friend marry someone you can’t stand (or even just merely don’t connect with). There is no quicker way to drifting away from someone than when that happens. But I loved Grayce, she totally fits in with our twisted, caustic humor and I felt that I connected with her right away. I'm so happy about that and I’m so happy that Eugene found the perfect person for him.

Anyway, so it was a great reunion. I hadn’t seen most of these guys in a very long time. For Eugene it had been about three years, and for Holly & Tommy it had been even longer than that as they had been living in Vegas for a few years when I moved up to NH. It had probably been five or six years since I had last seen them. Everyone loved where we live in New Hampshire. It turns out that Holly & Tommy have a fairly short trip to get here – they live in North Eastern Long Island and can take a ferry to Connecticut which makes the trip only two and a half hours for them, so we know they’ll be likely to be back regularly. Eugene & Grayce live in Manhattan, but are so sick of it at this stage that they were thrilled with the opportunity to get out of there for a visit. I even think that under the right circumstances they would even consider moving up here. Bwahahaha! Thus my evil plan is revealed … I will eventually get all of my old friends to move up here – HA!

And Yet Another Thing that I'll Never Understand

Okay, I do not understand THIS. This guy dupes an elderly woman into letting him in her home and he robs her. That part, I understand. What I don't get (and will never get) is what she was doing with $1,800 lying around her house? I hear these stories all the time, people who are robbed of thousands from their homes. Do that many people really have that much cash lying around their homes? I don't get it. I'm lucky if I have maybe $20-$40 in my house at any given time.

Another Thing that I'll Never Understand

• So, today I was at the grocery store and there was a woman behind me in line who had one of those baskets that you carry and it was full of groceries. So, rather than pulling her items out of the basket and placing them on the belt for the checkout lady to scan through, she just put the whole basket on the belt, expecting the checkout lady to unpack it for her. WTF??? What is that all about? Are people really that lazy? Unbelievable.

Dressage Week

This is a dressage week at the riding barn, which means that we work exclusively on flat work, no jumping. I find dressage week very difficult and until relatively recently, I wasn’t enjoying it nearly as much as the jumping weeks. But, I don’t know. Suddenly I seem to sort of be “getting it”, I think. Last night with Ann was pretty intense. She actually spent an extra half hour with me, working with me after the others from the class were long gone, trying to get me to reach that perfect place where I had Lulu in the right frame. The entire time I felt like I was so close, but just not quite ... there. It was both very productive and very frustrating at the same time. Near the end of the lesson Ann got on Lulu to show me what she had been talking about. It was both humbling and extremely illuminating. Humbling to see how easily Ann got Lulu in frame, on the bit and using her back and hind quarters and very illuminating to see how Lulu really can do it, and do it well, when ridden right. I found it very inspiring to see and it gave me something very concrete to strive for.

So tonight was dressage with Kelly. As I’ve said before, I really am enjoying riding with both Ann and Kelly. Both bring something very valuable to my program. The two styles really compliment each other very well, most times emphasizing the same or very similar things, just sometimes in slightly different ways, or maybe stated a little differently. Working with Kelly the day after Ann really gives me the opportunity to right away work on all the stuff I had gone over with Ann the night before. Tonight I felt like I got a little closer to where I wanted to be, everything I did with Ann from yesterday was still pretty fresh and so I had the opportunity to push it further, I think. I’m still not there yet, but I do feel very excited that I am starting to get it in dribs & drabs. Kelly spent some time with me at various times of the session tonight, with me circling her while she gave a running commentary on what I should be doing each stride. Ann had also done a lot of this with me the night before. It is very individualized and very effective. Anyway, at one point Kelly said, “I’ve never seen Lulu go this well” which is a huge compliment. But I had to answer, “Well, you should see Ann on her.” Seriously. Like I said, it was humbling.

The other thing about dressage is that it’s such hard and constant work. I mean, it ends up being a REAL workout, one where I’m pretty much drenched in sweat and exhausted when it's done, even if it’s only 20 degrees or whatever. And I know a good workout when I feel one, trust me.

So, every week, both in jumping and in dressage I am feeling pretty significant improvement. I know that I can’t expect this kind of progress for forever, but I sure am enjoying and appreciating it while it’s happening. And it sure is making me really enthusiastic and excited for riding too! Life is very good.

Why I Hate to Start Work in the Early, Early Morning

(Besides the obvious.) When the work day starts this early, I find that I am very hungry, very early in the day. And it doesn’t seem to stop for the entire day. And I crave carbs. Of course with the whole chronic trouble with sleeping thing, early mornings are particularly grueling for me in general anyway.

The Biggest Loser: Angst & Drama

So, I'm sitting here watching "The Biggest Loser" and all these contestants are yelling and crying and arguing over who they're going to vote off of the show. And during all this drama and angst, all I can think of is how I can't believe that none of the women have bothered to put t-shirts on over the sports bras that they're made to wear for the weigh-in. I mean, don't any of them want to cover up their bellies and whatever? I couldn't even pay attention to the argument, all the bellies were so distracting to me.

Things that I’ll never understand

• “Dancing with the Stars”. I just don’t get it.
• I’ll confess, I really don’t get “American Idol” all that much either.
• Game shows.
• Nascar
• Many women’s obsession with babies.
• Same with the fascination for children and anything kid-related.
• The Discovery Health Channel. Why not just call it the “All Pregnancy and All Baby All the Time” channel? Because apparently by “Health” they really mean as long as it pertains to pregnancy and babies and nothing else.
• “Lost”. I rented the first season once and tried to love it, but I just couldn’t get into it.
• Morgan Freeman. Completely over-rated actor, I feel.
• Blond hair. Why it is so desirable by so many.
• Big boobs. Why so many (male AND female) find huge knockers so desirable and attractive.
• Running skirts.
• Club music, especially in non-club settings.
• Same with Techno music. Why, why, why?
• Baby showers. Never, ever again.
• Gossip magazines and obsession with celebrity.
• Hard Rock Café and similar “theme” restaurants.
• Wal-Mart
• The Oscars
• The Super Bowl
• The World Series
• Obsessively watching sports one doesn’t actually do.
• Why smart and otherwise reasonable men are sometimes attracted to silly and helpless women. Thinking of my father with his “new” wife here.
• Why smart and otherwise reasonable women are very often attracted to assholes.
• Pointy toed shoes. No thanks.
• Hummers. Where in life is this car really necessary?
• Tattoos. Sorry, I can appreciate that people like them, but I just don’t get it myself.
• Macaroni & Cheese. Blech.
• Video / computer games. Actually, this one I do get, I just stay far, far away because I’m sure I could so easily get dragged into that huge time suck.
• Paying for (bottled) water. I just can’t do it (or I do it very rarely anyway and it will always piss me off).
• Why, on “Grey’s Anatomy”, they had to make the heavier girl and the unattractive girl lesbians? Because of course if you’re heavy or unattractive, you must be a lesbian. In TV Land anyway. This is, at the very least marginalizing, and at most insulting to heavy & unattractive girls and lesbians everywhere. Sheesh.
• Camping.
• People who don’t signal while driving. I mean, what’s that all about? Do they think it’s too much effort?
• Holiday or theme sweaters.
• Flavored coffees.

Sleep

Is there anything more frustrating than not being able to sleep? I am completely guilty of not allowing myself enough sleep time during the work week. I definitely stay up too late, usually for no good reason, just milling around, or watching something terrible on TV and then reading in bed for far too long. So I am pretty much chronically tired during the week and I feel this most when trying to motivate myself towards physical activity. It is hard for me to convince myself to run for a few miles or something when I feel wretched from lack of sleep. But the time that I do allow myself for sleep usually ends up of generally good quality (well, except for all of that getting up to pee multiple times business). But for the last couple of nights I haven't even been able sleep hardly at all and it's killing me. I go to bed, but then wake up around 2 AM and can't for the life of me get back to sleep. For the rest of the night! Last night I finally just turned on the light and decided to read. So this morning I of course felt completely lousy. So frustrating! I feel really, really guilty, but I decided to take a sick day today because of this, even though I'm not technically sick. I just feel exhausted and horrible and know that if I don't take care of myself, that I could be sick for real in short order.

Oh, glorious sleep! I am usually such a good snooze hound that I really, really miss it when it evades me. I blame hormones.

Another Crappy Monday Weigh-In

Another bad weigh-in day at Jenny Craig. I was exactly the same weight today that I was last week on their scale (and the week before). To the damn ounce. Which is actually about 1.4 lbs up from my weigh-in there at the beginning of January. Phooey. I'm trying not to get too upset or frustrated about it, but it's very hard not to be pretty disappointed. I told my counselor that I just didn't want to talk about it. I'm willing to weigh in (which is really saying a lot) and I want to buy my food, but I really don't want to sit there and analyze all this stuff with her.

I'm thinking of maybe going to my doctor to, well, first get my thyroid checked (since my medication does end up needing to be adjusted from time-to-time), but to also see if she could refer me to a dietitian or nutritionist or something. Maybe I'll wait until the weather warms up, maybe my body is hanging onto weight as sort of a hibernation mode thing or something for Winter. Maybe the weight-loss will naturally kick in again with Spring. I sound like I'm grasping at straws. I guess I am kind of grasping at straws here. Whatever.

On a good note: I ran 2.something miles on the treadmill this morning, alternating running intervals of 10 minute miles - 9:05 minute miles (intervals of 2-4 minutes each) with one-minute intervals of fast walking (16:13 minute mile pace). After that I had a personal training session, during which I became oddly light-headed during the walking lunges exercise. That was weird, I've never had that happen with a workout with him before. Anyway, I gutted myself through it and finished the rest of the workout with no problems. Tonight I got on the treadmill at home and did some running repeats for another two miles (alternated 1-3 minute intervals of running of 12 minute mile - 10 minute mile pace with 1 minute intervals of fast walking at 16:30 minute mile pace). So, I feel pretty good now, despite the disappointing weigh-in today.

Self-Sabotage

I had a bad weekend. An off-plan weekend. Despite my resolve to do something active at some point on the weekend, I did nothing. I didn’t even go riding, even though we had some unseasonably warm weather today. Yesterday I made the mistake of going off to Target before having lunch, so on the way home I was so hungry that I talked myself into stopping at a pizza place and getting a sub sandwich to bring home for lunch. To make up for it, I made sure that I ate the lightest Jenny Craig meal that I had in the freezer last night for dinner and didn’t “volumize” it at all, but still, I’m sure the damage was already done. Today I’ve stuck completely on plan, except for the not exercising thing. At least I didn’t screw the food up though. This is probably a big reason why I can’t seem to lose weight. I do everything right for most of the week, but then manage some slip-up that sabotages everything and wipes out all my good efforts for the week. It is days like this that bring back my old mantra chant, “I hate myself”. I am very conscious when I start this and always manage to nip it in the bud, knowing how non-productive it is. But it sill manages to slip out (and many times out loud) with an unsettling regularity.

I don’t know what else there really is to do, other than to get back on plan and continue on. One thing I have to say is that I think I’m smart to plan one of my training sessions for Mondays. At least I manage to start the week off on the right foot. It’s a shame that Jenny Craig weigh-in day has to be the same day, but that’s what works with my schedule the best. So, I’m trying not to beat myself up too much and just move on from my mistakes. I have to do better though, I must do better. I WILL do better.

This is my seat on the couch:



Notice how little space they leave for me. Sheesh.

Bathroom Make-Over: Before & After

From dreary battleship gray ...








To warm and sunny ...






What a difference a simple color change can make!

Thinking of the "Y"

Today I stopped by the "Y" to check it out. I'm feeling like I need some other gym option in my life, to take a spinning class or two a week, maybe an occasional yoga class or something, another place where I can run perhaps. I was going to a spinning studio in a neighboring town for a while, but it's pretty expensive. I wouldn't even mind that so much except that I'm already spending quite a lot on riding and on my trainer. I pretty much would only be taking spinning at the studio too, so it's a lot to spend for just the one thing. So, the Y is much cheaper overall and gives me some more options. It has a pool and it also has an indoor running track! That could be a really great option for this time of year. I get pretty sick of the treadmill certainly. The big question is how much I would really use the facility though, that's what I have to consider. I figure if I went once or twice a week that it would be worth it. Once or twice a month and it's probably not. So, what to do, what to do ... I really have no idea.

Riding Feedback

I have to say that I am so excited about riding these days. This is particularly amazing considering that we are dead in the middle of a New England winter and it’s hard to motivate and keep one’s focus moving forward with the terrible cold, dark days and limited riding options (in other words, forever circling the same indoor ring). But I’ve been working hard and concentrating and I really do feel like I am starting to make some progress. I feel a little more confident, I feel that I’m starting to “get” some stuff. And not just wrapping my head around everything, but really feeling some of this stuff so that it’s starting to become second nature to me physically. Almost. Or perhaps some of that body memory is kicking in too. Probably it’s a combination of things. I know that I have a long way to go to even get back to being the rider who I once was, but I do feel like I’m inching closer to that. Of course, like anything that takes a fair amount of skill, the more I learn, the more I realize how much I have yet to learn. But that’s one of the things that make this sport so interesting and fulfilling to me. Another is the partnership you have and build with a horse, of course. There is nothing on Earth like that. I feel lucky to be able to work with Lulu, I really love her and all her quirks. And I love her even more for putting up with me. Last night Kelly told me that she feels that Lulu needs a rider like me. She’s still pretty green over fences and Kelly believes her habit of rushing while jumping is based in fear, more than excitement. She’s just trying speed through everything and get through it. Kelly feels that I’m good for her because I’m confident and decisive. I’m not excitable and don’t get flustered, but I don’t micro-manage her and I do manage to stay out of her way, don’t grab her mouth or make jumping an unpleasant experience for her. I actually feel a little badly that so many different riders have to ride Lulu. She probably gets a lot of conflicting rider feedback from week-to-week.

So, this was my second lesson with Kelly and I again felt that she was very complimentary of my supposed abilities. I’m sure she’s just a very positive person, but it felt pretty good to my ego anyway.

Oh, as I was leaving the barn last night, Lulu nickered at me again. I'm sure she just wanted me to feed her another peppermint, but still, I love it when she does that.

Wednesday Riding

Tonight was my second riding lesson of the week and, since this is a jumping week, there was jumping tonight too. Woo. Kelly decided that we were doing gymnastic work tonight (as Ann had had us doing last night). Only Kelly's gymnastic was two jumps with a bounce and a third a stride after that (so, jump, land, jump, land, canter one-stride and a bigger jump). We started with pretty small jumps and after a few times through those, the other person in my lesson decided that she was done. So Kelly told me that she'd raise them for me. Uh, okaaaay. So she raised the two first jumps some and the third jump a little bit more than that, and Lulu and I jumped through the gymnastic and then it was like, "oh, I'm going to raise it some more, hold on". And it went that way a few times, Kelly raising that last one, "just a little more". Yikes. Anyway, it was fun. We probably ended at only around three feet or so, so it wasn't all that big, really. It just seemed kind of big with that one pole kind of floating there in mid-air and after bouncing through a couple of other jumps a stride away. Anyway, it was fun and we did pretty well. Kelly was happy with me and I was satisfied and still feel a little encouraged that I'm continuing to make progress. I also was happy that Kelly had enough confidence in me to realize that I can handle some bigger stuff.

So, it was a fun lesson tonight and a productive one, I think. I'm also really glad that I have the opportunity to have lessons with both Ann and Kelly. I get so much out of training with both of them. Different styles and a little different perspectives, but still very effective and productive all around.

Soreness Update

I'm such a big, whiny baby that I had to go ahead and make a massage appointment for myself for tomorrow after work. I didn't bother with my usual massage therapist as I knew that she wouldn't have availability this close to the date, but am going to try the spa at the place where I get my hair cut. I hope they're good. In the meantime, I have another riding lesson (jumping again) tonight and another trainer session tomorrow where he is going to have yet more new stuff to torture me with. I'll most likely really, really need that massage by tomorrow night, that's for sure.

I'm exhausted already. And did I mention that I have a meeting at 7 AM tomorrow. That's right. Seven. A. M. Just shoot me.

Sore!

I believe I mentioned the other day that my trainer was switching up my workouts this week. Well, ever since our Monday session my legs have been so incredibly sore. So sore that I can barely walk down stairs and even going to sit down makes me want to cry out loud. Last night during riding, part of the warm-up process involved riding around in jumping position at a trot and then at a canter (jumping position means that you're holding yourself out of the saddle so that your butt hovers over it, but you're not sitting down, and you balance your upper body over your legs, using your balance and leg strength to hold yourself there). This is standard operating procedure and I'm normally pretty used to it, but last night I thought that I was going to die. My legs were just screaming in protest. Usually what my trainer has me doing and the running is completely separate from the muscles that get used and stressed from riding. So I can usually do everything pretty comfortably, even if I'm pretty sore from something. But not so this week, not at all. Sheesh. I really COULD use a massage.

Riding on a Tuesday

Another riding night and it is a jumping week – which of course I love. I always get a little nervous for a jumping lesson though. Not scared really, just a little adrenaline thrill of nerves. Once I start on a jump course the nervousness pretty much goes away and then while I wait for my turn to jump again, the nervousness comes back.

So tonight was fun as usual, we really worked on slow, slow, slowing Lulu down and getting her off her forehand. I think for the most part that I was pretty successful there. There were some awkward fences, but I feel like I accomplished what I was supposed to. For the last jump course, Ann raised the fences for the first horse (a big thoroughbred) to jump. They looked a little big to me at the time. Well, not fantastically big, maybe three feet, even a little lower, not sure, but a little bigger than I’ve been generally doing these days. Anyway, after the thoroughbred went, Ann told me to go. I hesitated and almost asked her if she was going to lower the jumps first and then thought to myself, ‘this is crazy, these are nothing. I am more than able to jump these fences, they’re really not even very big.’ And I did. And I wasn’t even the least bit scared.

Anyway, I learned that even with the bigger fences we could slow things down to super, super slow and still get a nice spot, a nice jump. I had much more control, there were a couple of awkward lines, but everything seemed so much more doable. I think I’m getting a little better with my position too, I seem to be able to stick with Lulu better in general, I’m not getting left behind as much and my release is generally good, I think. But I do have to concentrate on keeping my upper body quiet, sometimes I still do that big hunter jump movement, sort of throwing my upper body over the fence. But at least when I do it, I realize it right away (and curse myself, of course).

So generally I’m pretty pleased. I really am seeing progress. I still get rather frustrated with myself, but less and less often. I’m pretty encouraged seeing actual progress from week to week. There is hope for me yet.

My Body is Whack.

So after yesterday's debacle of weigh-ins, I weighed in this morning exactly two pounds less than I did yesterday morning. 2. Pounds. Of course I know that I did not lose two real pounds in one day, which means that my body has been holding on to two extra pounds of water for, what? Four days or something? That's just ... F*ed up. Seriously. Whatever, I'm sure I'll be watching these same two pounds fluctuate for yet another week. I'm half tempted to call my Jenny Craig counselor and tell her about it, so that she doesn't think I'm a complete loser. This is causing such a roller coaster of emotions for me lately, I really need to get over myself. Okay, enough obsessing about the scale, for the next couple of days anyway. Sheesh.

Edited to Add

Well, the news at Jenny Craig was as grim as expected. Maybe even more so. My counselor just stared at me helplessly not knowing what to say. I told her that I'm thinking of quitting because I can't stand it anymore. I just wish that I felt that I was getting somewhere, or could get somewhere, even if at a slow pace.

On a good note: I ran 3.25 miles or so and had a personal training session today. My trainer is switching up our workouts this week too, so it was all new stuff today. Which means I'll probably be pretty sore tomorrow, as well as after Thursday's session. I wish I had a massage scheduled for this Saturday, instead of last. Would it be really decadent of me to schedule another? Hmmmmmm.

It's Official, I've become that Girl

I was up .6 of a pound on my scale this morning. I am feeling extremely demoralized right now. I really don’t want to be one of these people who sits and watches every gram of weight fluctuation and allows what the scale says each morning to determine whether I’m in a good mood for that day, or a bad one. I really don’t want to be that girl. If I just felt that my weight was trending down, even if it was a super slow downward trend, then I wouldn’t be so upset. But this … blows. I think the worst part of it is that I’ve gotten to a point where I feel like I truly don't have any control at all over my body. At least when I was fat (well, fatter) and eating what I wanted and not exercising I always felt that I was one fitness regime and a good eating plan away from where I wanted to be. There was hope in my heart. But now … now, I just don’t know anymore. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want my world to be all about going to work and exercising constantly when I’m not working. I’ve been there and sleep/work-out/work/work-out rinse, repeat is a recipe for burnout (for me anyway). Just the thought of it now completely depresses me. But really, it seems like that may need to be the next step for me if I expect to lose any more weight. I had really expected that this would fall more under fine-tuning to get me beyond my initial goal, if I wanted to pursue further weight loss, but at this point it seems as if I’m going to have to get very aggressive to move forward even a little bit now. Perhaps even my initial (and what I felt, generous and extremely realistic) goal is a pipedream at this stage in my life.

I have a Jenny Craig appointment this afternoon and I know that this will be upsetting as I watch the scale there inch up even more. I have a training appointment today too and weigh-ins are never pretty after that – I tend to retain lots of water after strength training. So the news on the scale will probably be even uglier than it was this morning. I honestly feel like crying now. I just feel so frustrated and helpless.

February 1st and where am I?

Nowhere, that's where. This is really frustrating, despite all of my very good efforts in January, I am down all of one lousy pound from what I weighed in at the beginning of the month. One. Pound. I don't even know if I can even count that as a real loss either as a pound is within the range of normal fluctuation anyway. I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out what I could be doing wrong. I mean, expecting a ten pound loss might have been too ambitious, but five pounds would have been nice. I would have been very happy with five. This is exactly the reason why people like me give up on their weight loss efforts. You work at it hard, you sacrifice, you change your whole life and there is no progress. Can you really blame anyone for becoming frustrated or feeling hopeless about something that seems to just go nowhere, despite everything?

Anyway, I'm not giving up. Despite the lack of scale movement, I feel healthy and more fit and (most importantly) happy. Well, happy enough as long as I don't think about the number on the scale too much. So I think it's important to keep working on it. One thing that I have decided however is that I absolutely must do something on the weekend. It doesn't have to be something on both Saturday AND Sunday, but at some point during each weekend I must do some kind of cardio work, whether that is running or good walking or even just some time on an elliptical or a bike somewhere. I've had too many slug-like weekends and it's not helping my cause, nor does it help my attitude or my resolve. I'll also be less tempted to cheat if I'm experiencing an active weekend (and weekends are the times when cheating is most tempting to me).

This weekend ended up being relatively active (well, better than most of my weekends have been anyway) and it's amazing how much better I feel. I feel content and that I've earned the couch time that I will now enjoy this evening. I didn't even really do that much. Just about two miles of running yesterday, two plus miles of running today, with about another half a mile of walking at the end and some riding late this afternoon. Not really too big a deal, but it is enough that I feel satisfied and that I've really followed through much better than I had in previous weeks.

So, I don't really know what's going to happen in February. The only thing that I do know is that I can't count on anything. I am not going to adjust my goals and the steps I'm taking towards those goals now though, except to add the new weekend rule. I'll continue with the trainer two times a week, run a minimum of three times a week, and continue the riding (of course). Jenny Craig food for breakfast and dinner and be mindful of lunches -- actually, I should probably try and tweak lunch more, that's probably an area that has some room for more improvement. I have to remember to take the vitamins as well.

That's it, plain & simple. No real progress, experiencing fading enthusiasm for the whole thing, but I'm not giving up.

Holy Crap!

Facebook can sometimes be a very odd experience. Today one of the friends who I am linked to offered a friend suggestion. Way back when (many years ago) at my old company in NYC, "P" was the head of our customer technical support division. He had a reputation at the company for being eccentric and unpredictable and for driving the president (and primary owner) of the company completely, bat-shit crazy. He was one of those loose cannon types, I think. Not so much in a scary way, but more in the way of, well, you just didn't know what was going to come out of his mouth next. In the very first department that I worked at for the company, P liked to torment my boss and everyone who worked for him. I think P found it great sport. Years after he left the company, P and my facebook friend, Carolina (my good friend from Queens) and I went out for a very drunken lunch somewhere on Third Avenue in NYC and gossiped for hours. Anyway, I hadn't heard much more about him since then.

Until today. My facebook friend made the friend suggestion and then sent me a note and said, "turns out P lives in your town". What??? I live in this little town in New Hampshire, how could he possibly live here? Well, it turns out that she was right. He lives no farther than four miles from me. 4 miles!

So the next thing that I know, suddenly I'm getting messages on facebook from P about the two of us being neighbors. We exchange some particulars and gossip and now he wants me to meet him at a bar in town tomorrow. What?! This is sort of freaking me out, it is just too bizarre. One of the ironies is, he doesn't even really work up here. He has a company that he mostly runs out of his home and he travels down to NYC during the week from time-to-time. How he actually ended up in my town, of all towns, is a complete mystery, but he's here.

Holy-freaking-crap. I am so not good at this going-and-meeting-people-I-don't-know-very-well-at-bars thing. I just don't know what to do. Ack.

Stuffed Beyond Belief

I just got back from Boston where I had been to a Chinese New Year celebration dinner thingie. And I am now completely stuffed beyond belief, but everything was so GOOD! I just couldn't resist any of the food. Most of it was seafood, so I don't think anything was really too terrible to eat, although I know that I ate more rice than I needed to. Anyway, the most remarkable thing is that I got through the entire scary social encounter without a single cocktail. Let me repeat this. Me. Social encounter. Conversation. Interacting with people. NO ALCOHOL. This is highly unusual, I'm rather surprised that I managed to pull it off, frankly. But I did manage and lived to tell the tale. Imagine.

The Power of Vitamins

I've been feeling rather ... puny the last couple of days. Not sick, really, but just kind of off. Really exhausted for no good reason, sort of heavy in the limbs, vague headache, very slight amount of nausea (just kind of a "blech" stomach feeling) all around I just don't feel 100%. Also, I have this small pain in my left leg. Not really an injury, hardly even really pain, but just this slightly weird feeling starting at the hip and running most of the way down (and not in the ITB) with the leg feeling slightly weak, like it could give out beneath me maybe, it's sort of hard to describe. I tend to be a little paranoid about running injuries though, so it's very possible that I'm just being a little sensitive. It's just so easy to go over-board with running and not back off soon enough when you need to (I've been there, trust me) that I tend to over-analyze any little twinge -- better a couple of days off from running than living with something that turns into a chronic issue for months or even years.

Anyway, I had a training appointment scheduled for today and I'm glad that I did because I probably would have talked myself out of working out, due to malaise. I arrived to the gym early so that I could run and quickly felt the issue with my leg (I had been feeling it while walking too, but it was more pronounced while running). I switched from my usual 3-5 minute running intervals to alternating 1 minute running with 1 minute walking, after one initial 2-minute running interval. The leg thing felt much better with the shorter intervals, so I decided to stick with that for this session. I kept the pace at a 10 min-mile to a 9:13 min-mile pace and did 2.25 miles. The leg didn't feel any worse after that and might even have felt a little bit better, so I think it probably is nothing.

I then started my training session. Today is the harder day at the moment (until he switches up what we're doing again) and includes these step-up repeats (with weights, of course) onto this very high stool. I really didn't know how that was going to go with the leg issue and the general feeling of ickiness. But I did okay and managed the entire training session without any real problem. So, maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just a little tired and/or fighting off something. The leg thing is probably just a little twinge that I was being really paranoid about. To shake it all off, I ran another mile on the treadmill at home for an even 3.25 for the day and I feel pretty good now.

On the way home from work, I decided to stop in at GNC and buy some vitamins -- Women's Ultra Mega Active. And I decided to also buy some fish oil capsules. (Can someone tell me what the Hell is the difference between fish oil and fish body??? So damn confusing!) I figure that since I'm watching the calories and am living a pretty active life that some vitamins could only help somewhat. Especially this time of year when I'm probably eating less fresh produce. I don't know if my feeling crappy at the moment could be helped by vitamins, but it probably couldn't hurt at least.

Stoopid Dog!

So I'm working from home today because we're in the middle of a major snow storm. And Tig is whining at me because he wants to go out. Okay, fine. So I let him out the back slider and he just stands there in a snow drift looking at me. So then I wave my arms and chase him over to the stairs leading down to the yard where he stands peering down on the snow drifts that have obliterated the steps, creating just a snow mountain. He looks back at me waving my arms and back at the stairs just frozen in place. I'm standing there in pajama bottoms and slippers trying to shoo him on to no avail. Finally (after a huge sigh) I have to wade through the big drifts of snow in my pajama bottoms and slippers and literally push him down the mountain of snow into the yard. SHEESH! So now here I sit soaked with melting snow while he sleeps all curled up and warm on a blanket on the couch. Must be nice to be a dog.