Monday April 12, 2010

Back on track and making tracks

It Poured rain last night – very late season storm for Southern California. But Robin and I agree that the rain is cleared out and we need to ride. I am running late, lots of little extra chores on a post rain day – have to check every horse’s blanket to make sure it stayed in place, empty out grain buckets that have water in them, etc. I had wanted to be at Robin’s at 10 am – and at 10 after I am not even hitched up. I call her, and say I will be there in 45 minutes. I hitch up quick – got aligned on the first try!!! Only a horse person can fully appreciate the deep abiding JOY of hooking up to the trailer by yourself and Nailing the position! Anyway, I take a quick glance at the tires and think the right side ones look ‘a little low’. But I feel pressed for time and decide they will be OK for the trip. Belle loads like a champ, and we are down the road. For about 10 miles. Then a passing car waves at me and convinces me to pull over and check my rig. I am bugged – I KNOW I did up all the latches, no doors are flapping, but UH OH – the right rear tire is flat and ruined.

I confirm that I have my Jiffy Jack in the back of the truck, but where is the star wrench? Not in the front of the trailer, where it belongs. Small panic. I can change a tire – IF I have all the tools. Happily my emergency lug wrench is under the truck’s back seat. But it is small, with very little torque. And some tire jockey must have really sat on the air wrench to tighten these lug nuts. I can break two of them loose, but the other 3 don’t want to budge. I try stomping, I lever it with a 2 x 4, nothing is moving. Except Belle inside the trailer. She is stomping and swaying and basically making it known that if we are parked, she expects to be unloaded. NOW!!! But happily with a jiffy jack, you can have a busy horse in the rig and still safely change a tire. LOVE that thing! But I am hating the guy at the tire store who put this tire on. I don’t know who he is, I can’t even remember which tire store did the work, but I am envisioning a voodoo doll dedicated to him with LOTS of pins stuck in it!!! Finally, I figure out that the trucks jack handle fits inside the lug wrench opposite the one I am using. This gives me more leverage. And with some wicked pulls on that while stomping on the other arm, I break all 3 lugs loose.

At which point the calvary arrives – in the form of Tyler – the hay delivery guy from my feed store! I could have really used his muscles about 10 minutes ago. But at this point, my back is screaming, and I am happy to allow him to finish up the job, even if the hard part IS done. Finally, 30 minutes later, I am back on the road. It is clear that those tires on the right are Very low, and I stop at the gas station and add air before finishing the trip to Robin’s. A simple 15 mile haul has turned into an hour long effort – just because I didn’t have time to put air in. Now, it is possible that I hit a nail or some other hazard and that is why the tire died. But it is also possible that it was just so low that the road tore it up. I will never know. But lesson learned – take the time to ensure that all 4 tires are properly inflated. Grrrrrr – I hate when that little voice inside my head is SOOO right!!!

But finally we are tacked up and down the road. It is cold and windy, so Robin took the extra time to lunge Aries really hard. She says he was bucking and snorting and leaping around on the end of the line! She only worked him twice this past week – we both fell off the wagon, I guess. But the lunging paid off, and he was calm and steady, even in the wind. Belle jigged softly beside him, and I let her be. We cruised up the first .6 mile to the start of the trail in 12 minutes, and then we hit the gas. Sadly, the Garmin Again quit on me. I must need to get a new battery, this one just does not hold a charge. But it recorded the first 53 minutes and said we did 4.8 miles – so taking off the walk warm up, we did 4.2 miles in 40 minutes, which averages to 6.3 mph –considering that included a long down hill that we opted to walk, to preserve our horses knees and front legs we were ‘making tracks’ most of that first hour. And overall, we completed the 10 mile loop in 2 hours. Subtract the 1.2 miles of walk at start and finish going up and down Ave P-8, and we are sustaining a 5.5 mph speed. STILL need to go faster, longer. But we do have 4 more weeks of training – allowing for a 5 day recovery before the race. Some of what is slowing us is still Robin’s leg – she is trying to carefully build strength rather than risk another shin splint. She prefers to avoid trotting over the ‘whoop di doos’ that the 4 wheelers form on a lot of the trails, as the jarring really endangers HER soundness. We also opt to walk down hill, when we will trot in competition. When we ride a long stretch of strong trot, neither horse gets winded, and they don’t even get very sweaty. I am sure we could both complete a 25 mile race right now. So, the next month is just confirming and accelerating.

We still hope to ride up to Jackson Lake – to get some real long hill climbing work on the actual trails that we will race on. But it was actually Snowing up there while we were riding. We will wait for a warmer day!