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[50] USA East Cranberry - Sunday, April 2, 2006 - Sunny, 71 degrees, breezy

Also known as "The Twilight Zone"

Ahhhh - season has started.  I am SO ready to be riding like a hellion down the trail and this particular ride was a real challenge for me this year. 

(1) This is the same trail system (Kowboy Korral) that Numbers and I ended our 2005 season  and didn't complete.  Horrible way to end a ride season (I'm sure you've all read THAT story).  I was determined to get her through the 50 miles of sand and complete this one.

(2) This was also to be Jen and Connie's first 50 mile ride as well as their horse's first 50 mile ride.  A real challenge to me as a mentor to keep everyone safe, sane and sound. 

(3) It's the first year I ever started the ride season right off the bat with a 50 mile ride.  Coming off a 4 month winter lay-up I like to start with a 25 or 30 LD to see where the conditioning REALLY is. 

PRELUDE to the actual ride day:

I begged Skip Siefert (ApHC BOD Zone V) to loan Connie his mare Flipper to ride this season.  We promised to get her qualified for the June 2006 ApHC National Ride as well as earn her a medallion for the 2006 ride season.  I really admired this mare at LBL last year, and was thrilled when he agreed.  Flipper has a lot of desire to work hard and can move down a trail effortlessly.  I truly enjoyed watching her work conditioning this past winter with us.  Unfortunately, whenever we did a hard and long conditioning ride, she would come up sore afterwards and we have been unable to determine why.  As we were not doing an LD this year to start off the ride season, I took my group of riders to Blue Marsh on March 26th to do the 27 miles around the lake as our seaon kick-off.  Numbers and Joker completed that ride with flying colors.  Flipper, however, came up sore again and was still sore on Saturday April 1.  Bummer bummer bummer.

Also, those of you that know me are aware that on January 12, 2006 I blew out my left knee.  Tore both the medial and lateral collateral ligaments, and strained the posterior ligament.  Along with that injury, I managed to bruise the top of the tibia bone down into the marrow.  Obviously, I didn't walk too much for about a month, then as I started working my leg again, I found that the quad thigh muscle had atrophied so bad, I had no strength in my left leg for anything...climbing stairs and mounting a horse were right out.  I did not ride from January 12 to February 25.  I couldn't.  I kept trying, but the pain was so horrific, I would be in tears after about 20 minutes.  Through-out this 6 week lay-off, I tried riding every other day.  By the 25th of February, I was able to stay in the saddle for about an hour until it got to me.  Not a very good conditioning winter for me and Numbers!  Of course, she thought she was in heaven being a pasture potato.

On to the ride story....(note, story modified due to several readers taking offense to some parts.  This is my point of view on the ride warped by my bizarre sense of humor and should be READ with your humor cap securely fastened to your thick skull.)

I have been praying for rain all week.  I did my NA rain dance and everything.  We have had little to no rain through the month of March and the trails in New Jersey are SAND SAND SAND.  If we had gotten rain the week before, the sand wouldn't be too loose and hard to get through.  These gaited horses don't do very well in sand because they only have one foot on the ground at a time and it really wears out their backs.  I prayed and prayed, and danced and dances...and was finally arrested for public drunkeness (but that's another story) .  Other than a couple passing showers the day before the ride, no rain.  (sob)  It's very dry here.  Everything is coated in dust and those people riding behind me on trail look like Pig-Pen when the ride is over.  I am sure hoping this isn't the start of a fifth year of drought for us in PA. 

I packed all the truck and trailer Friday night, ready to go.  As I lugged item after item and packed hay and more hay, and fell over three water containers, I started missing going to rides by myself.  One horse, one person, little to do (grin) but I sure love the company of taking other riders with me, so it's a give and take.  And mostly, they help me out with all the rigga-ma-role so it's not as bad as I'd like you to think.  I was READY.  God, I have missed the rides over the winter.  I was lucky to find Cheryl (Hi Cheryl!) up near Hazelton.  She has the loveliest trails and she loves to go out for hours like I do.  I rode with her quite a bit after my knee got to where I could handle riding again.  We had a blast conditioning together.

I gave Numbers a neck clip knowing it was supposed to be warm and she was just as black under that clip as the rest of her body.  Man, she gleems.  I'm glad I did that clip because it really helped her cooling off on Sunday.  Now, if she'd just shed the rest of that heavy body coat we'll be in good shape.

Saturday afternoon, I arrive at the barn after teaching at the college ready to do up my chores, pack and go.  Jen is wired like a little terrier...running here and there, jumping at the slightest little noise, moving like her ass is on fire.  I'm getting tired just watching ehr.  She said she's so excited and nervous at the same time.  Goodness me....I was afraid she was going to give herself a heart attack.  I told her to burn off some of that energy and trot out Joker for me so I could see.  Three weeks ago, Flipper kicked the shit out of Joker, tore her leg, chest and face all the hell, and Joker was lame for awhile.  She still has a huge knot on her shin bone although the wound is healed and clean.  Joker trotted out wonderfully...no effort, just like always.  I said, "Load her up."

Connie is looking cool as a cucumber until I have her bring out Flipper and trot out for me.  Flipper is still off.  I told her to lunge her out and let me see her again.  After a warm up, Flipper looks better but is still off.  She asked me what to do.  Okay, here comes meanie-mommie Dodie.  I told her that she'd been riding with me for two years now and it was time for her to start making her own decisions and caring for her horse on her own, both on trail and off.  She needed to evaluate the situation and make her own decision.  Knowing she had promised Skip to bring this mare through the ride season with an ROM and get her ready for the June National Championship Ride, she opted to take her to the ride and hope that she could get her through it.  I shrugged and said, "Load her up."

I had Alec trot out Numbers for me.  Perfectly wonderful as always!  "Load her up."

Off we go.  Now, I want you to know that I have been to this ride camp on 5 previous occasions so I should have NO ride travel story...right?  WRONG.  I seem to have this blank spot about going north on the NJ Turnpike after we cross into NJ off the PA Turnpike.  GO NORTH young lady doesn't stick in my brain and I always turn south.  Then I have to go 6 miles to the first exit, get off the turnpike, turn around in the shopping center, get back on the turnpike and GO NORTH.  Man.  And I've done this with Jen in the truck...you think she'd remember to tell me GO NORTH.  But no, I think she likes to visit the shopping center parking area.  There is a construction site there and she's looking at the nice arms and shoulders of those construction dudes.  And no, I didn't personally notice how fine they looked in their muscle shirts and jeans.  Trust me, I am a married lady and didn't even look at the ripples across their backs as they were lifting railroad ties into the back of that dump truck.  Nope, not me.

Okay - now we're on the right track and the trip goes very smoothly.  I even remembered where the drive into Kowboy Korral was this time and didn't blow past it.  Remarkable.  In we go and Connie and Jen get the paperwork all taken care of.  We got to park all the way out in the boonies again (remember last year?  Well, this year it was Connie that needed to walk and lose some weight, not Jen.)  I actually like being out there in the middle of no where, 90 miles from the ride management area.  No-one comes out there and pesters us.

We get all unpacked and I set up the new corral and shocker I bought over the winter.  It's very nice, runs on 4 D-cell batteries.  Very small and convenient.  Let me tell you, I wasn't going to have Numbers running all over camp at night anymore.  She's such a busy body.  I really think she would do this to psych out the competition with her good looks, beautiful gait and freedom from human containment.

This shocker was SHOCKING that fence corral so I have no fears about escapees.  (Well, okay, I did have a little annoying voice in my ear going..."Tie them, tie them." but I ignored it.)  We walk 90 miles down the ride camp to vet in the horses.  It's a very sad vet-in because they won't let Connie start on Flipper.  I am not saying this to be mean, but if Flipper had been my horse, I would not have brought her.  Connie wanted to give it a shot as Flipper needed this ride to qualify for Nationals.  I can't blame her for her enthusiasm and optimism.  Fortunately, the vets don't care about those two human emotional attributes...only about the horse's health, which is a very good thing for us smartie pants humans!

Back at the camper, we discuss our options for Connie.  They did tell her if she trotted out sound in the morning, they'd let her start but she'd be under watchful eye.  Connie opted to pull her and be crew for me and Jen (thank goodness, and you'll see why later.) We sat there eating veggies and dip waiting for the dinner gong.  Upon hearing it, we high tailed it 90 miles into ride camp to eat some dinner and get the scoop on the ride.  I have to tell you, all the walking I did Saturday and Sunday was actually good for my knee as I can tell the quad muscle got used - it hurts like a mother today.

Good food...it always is at this camp (Kowboy Korral).  The owners host the rides and do the food themselves.  It's great.  After we stuffed our faces and rolled over several times with a colicky bely, the ride manager got up to tell us about the ride.  Now, remember this is her third day of telling everyone about the trail.  The USA Cranberry is Friday, Saturday, Sunday.  She was just a tad weary by Saturday night.  As I'd been on this trail system 5 times previously, and have a really good sense of direction, I wasn't too concerned that her description of trail was "Follow the blue ribbons out first 19 miles.  Follow white ribbons out second 12 miles.  Follow red ribbons out last 19 miles."  Fortunately, Mike ate supper with us and he rode on Saturday so gave us the trail low down.

Speaking of Mike (Hi Mike!) his remarkable gelding pulled a muscle on Friday so he pulled him.  Saturday, he was offered to ride Mary L's mare...Mike was on a mare he never met before and he completed in 3rd place.  That's awesome! 

Okay, also at the ride meeting, they told us that Mary Coleman (Hi Mary!) got AERC's team award for 2005.  Her and Hawk (her Morgan gelding) are awesome.  Congrats Mary!  And for those in the know, Mary and Hawk rode and completed all three days at USA East Cranberry.  Now, THAT is remarkable to me!  I'm all ready to try my first multi-day rides this year and she's my inspiration!  And believe me, that's truely endurance riding for her and Hawk to ride 150 miles in one weekend.  Bless their hearts.

Being the three stoogies that we are, we forgot to take flashlights with us to the supper and ride meeting.  Of course, until it was all over, it was pitch black and now we have 90 miles to trek back to the camper in the dark.  That's okay, I'm pretty sure that the north start will guide us safely back and I don't let on to Connie and Jen that it's cloudy. 

We start down the trail, feeling our way through the sandy ruts, and I hear this familiar sounding voice speaking from the shadows to me and Jen, "Hey, do you know anyone with 3 horses that could be loose?  Two of them are Apps."

(groan and double groan)

I quickly reply, "Yep, those would be mine." and I'm thinking, "Where do I know this voice from?" 

Immediately after that, I'm thinking, "Freakin' Numbers."

The person owning the voice steps closer to me and says, "Dodie?  Is that you?  I should have known you were here with the Apps."

Suddenly, I recognize the voice.  "Hey, Kay."

Her and her husband David have the escapees captured at their trailer so off we go to get them.  Now, Connie was at the ride manager tent pulling Flipper out of the ride so she missed this exchange of the "Famous Dodie Sable" being recognized in the dark, without a flashlight, wearing black clothing.  Is that too wild?  Connie has given up on ever being recognized for herself and ordered a T-Shirt that reads, "I'm With The Famous Dodie Sable".  I think Jen asked her to get two so she could have one.

We grab ahold of our horses and walk them back to our camp.  Guess what?  I had to apologize to Numbers for my nasty thoughts about her.  She didn't do it, Flipper did.  Not only that, but Flipper managed to pull every stake out of the ground and wind it up around the corner of the trailer, drag the fencing 60 yards into the woods, and break my brand new charger that I paid $80 for.  Dammit.  Now, I was hoping not to have a ride camp adventure but Flipper didn't get that memo.  It's too dark to do anything about it at this point, so the horses spent the night tied to the trailer and I slept like a baby (crying all night over my broken fencing).

Remember it's Saturday night - daylight savings change over - spring forward.  Oh yes, we get to lose an hour of sleep, just before our most exciting ride of the year, the first ride of the year, Jen and Joker's first 50 miler....great.  We sat up talking about lots of different things (very few of them ride related) until 10:30 (daylight savings time).  Connie spent 30 minutes trying to change her watch to daylight savings.  Jen SAID she changed her watch to daylight savings and set her watch alarm for 5:00 AM.  Now, Marc had bought me this nice clock from the drugstore that was satellite sync'd.  The instructions told me it would automatically change to daylight savings so I set it for 5:00 AM and prayed it wasn't lying to me.

It did change (Thank you, Marc - the clock worked slick!)  And Jen's watch alarm did not go off, and Connie never figured out how to change her watch to daylight savings time.  Connie and Jen both slept through my clock alarm.  But that was okay, I had been up for 30 minutes already when it went off.  I simply turned on all the lights and started making lots of racket.  That got them up.

Connie (our new crew member and ex-rider) took very good care of us starting in the morning.  She fed and groomed while me and Jen ate, changed and got ready to ride.  We trotted the horses out to make sure everything was still good and they looked fresh and ready to rock-n-roll.  I'm so excited and Jen looks like she's going to puke.  She told me she'll be happy when she's an old pro like me and stops getting flutter-bys in her tummy.  (Who is she calling OLD?)

We tack up and are ready to check in at 3 minutes before ride start.  I wanted to start about mid-pack, which we did.  I wanted to take this ride slow to get Joker through it safely and sanely so she would qualify for Nationals.  Start went very well and the trail on the first 19 mile loop was awesome, not a lot of loose sand at all.  Maybe one three or four mile stretch that was loose and hard on them to travel but the rest of that trail was a sand packed service road that allowed us to eat up the miles.  We did the first loop in 2 hrs 15 minutes - averaging 9 miles an hour.  A little faster than I wanted to be traveling, but as it was still cool for that first loop, I let them move out because I knew the heat and sunshine were coming.  Anyone that's been on the beach on a sunny day knows how sand heats up.  Being spring and the trees not having foliage yet, those trails were going to get hot by afternoon.

All looks well after the 19 miles, even though there was very little water on the trail and it was miles apart from each other when we did find it.  Numbers gets straight A's, pulsed in at 48 (what?  Is this Numbers???  Mrs. High Pulse???).  Joker only got one B, pulsed at 44, the rest A's and although I always take what the vet says with all seriousness and use that information to better care for my horses, I truly believe that vet was looking at her wrong because she said she was slightly off in the front and no-one else could see that, including her assistant.  (NOTE:  As a rider, always listen to the vet, never argue with the vet, and if the vet says your horse looks off, look at your horse with fresh eyes.  This sport is about your horse, not your ego!!!)  We're to leave hold in 14th place out of 26 starts.  That's very good!

45 minute hold and off we go again for a 12 mile loop.  HORRORS.  The entire loop is loose, deep sand in wide trails with the sun beating down on it.  Poor Numbers...I allowed her to trot some to try and keep her back from getting sore.  That single footing ride is NOT good for this kind of footing.  Joker looks great, trotting through the sand like, "Whatever."  It took us 2 hr 10 minutes to finish this 12 mile loop, 5 miles an hour.  I was afraid to allow Numbers to travel any faster than that.  Remember, we ended last year's ride season with her sore from a muscle pull on this trail system.  I wasn't about to let that happen again.  But, you know what?  Even at that slow pace, only one horse passed us...I was very surprised.  So I felt wonderful knowing I was still running us middle of the pack. 

All looks well after that 12 mile loop, and that loop had no water on it except in the first mile.  The horses are very thirsty.  Now we're at 31 miles with a ride time of 4 hrs 25 minutes.  Numbers gets all A's, pulsed at 50 (that's still very low for Numbers) and Joker gets a different B this time, on her back, pulse at 44.  Awesome, Joker is really made for this work.  Apparently the "off front leg" healed itself and now her back is sore.  Is it at all possible that Joker can EVER get a straight A report card?  I swear, she's the only horse I know that moves that B around her card like that. And I see that we're scheduled out at position 19.  HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?  Only one horse passed us!  How the heck did we go from 14th to 19th?  I was too busy worrying about my knee and my two black horses to fret about that anymore.

We're doing very very good, averaging about 7.5 miles an hour.  Good good pace.  Not too fast, not too slow.  Numbers really got fatigued on the 12 miles of deep loose sand so we fed her a ton of junk food and sugar at hold hoping to keep her energy levels up.  I'm sure she wasn't complaining about all the carrots, cookies and apples she got fed.

45 minutes and we're off down the trail again.  19 miles left and the sun is hot.  With the lack of water available on trail, I'm very concerned for my two black horses.  They told us no water until mile 9 so I needed to take it really easy and stay to the shade.  I have to say, Numbers wasn't too happy to go out again and she tried to run me into a tree when I bent over her nexk to get under a low branch.  What the hell?  Fortunately, the trail is again those packed sand service roads, not a lot of loose stuff at all.  We moved out at a fair 5-6 miles an hour and I worked very hard to keep it there and not let Numbers do her bursts of 12-14 mile an hour sprinting maneuvers. 

Joker is very steady and moving very freely in a good rhythm.  I know she will be able to up her speed by the end of the season. At about mile 7, a young girl on her Arab passed us.  He looked tired and she sounded tired, but they moved away from us at a good pace.   At about mile 8, Mary Coleman and her two riders passed us.  Of course, Mary was shouting "Morgan Power" as she cruised on by.  I love Mary's dedication to Hawk and his breed!  Kinda like me and the Apps and Walkers.

Pay attention! that's 4 riders that passed us.  We should be next to last position, right?  Doesn't matter....I wanted to complete 50 miles, safe and sound and sane.  On this last loop there was no water until mile 9 and again at mile 15.  There were some off the path puddles, but they were very discolored from the pine needles and must not have smelled good to the horses because we made several attempts to get them in the water to drink and they refused.

Okay.  We're chugging along and we have a white pick-up following us on the service road.  At mile 9 there was a huge mud puddle so we walked into it and let the horses drink their fill.  The guy in the pick-up pulled along side the puddle, shut his truck down and came out to talk to us.  I asked him if he was stalking us and he said, Yes!  Two fine looking ladies like yourselves looked like you needed a stalker."  God, I almost died from laughing.  Turns out he's the "sweep rider" picking up the ribbons behind the last riders.  WHAT???  How can we be the last riders?  (shrug)  Whatever... it's only 3 o'clock, we're making very good time considering, and we have until 7 o'clock to finish our 50 miles. 

Bad thing about this gentleman (who was very nice, by the way!  He would check on us each time we stopped, offered us water and asked us lots of questions about endurance riding.)...bad thing, he was right behind us the entire last 10 miles and I needed to pee like no-one's business.  As the trail was wide open, I couldn't stop to pee.  This guy would see me...(like I really care about that, but appearances are important.)  Man, oh man.  And you all KNOW I ride bareback...so now you can feel my pain when I can't get up off her back to relieve the pressure in my bladder.  AND, because she's fatigued, we're no longer doing that wonderful single foot gait, she's racking or trotting to relieve her back.  BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE.  I swear to you, by the time we crossed the finish line, I thought I would die.  The pain in my bladder far outweighed the pain in my knee.

We passed the finish line at 4:22, there was an empty folding chair next to the red sign that said FINISH.  We came in to the hold at 4:29 but didn't get clocked until 4:40 PM - yes, 3 1/2 hours to complete 19 miles, about 5.5 mph.  We won the turtle award as we were the last riders in.  Honestly?  I'm not at all disappointed!  (NOTE TO SELF:  Don't ever ride the turtle position again.  And if you do, don't say one peep to anyone about arriving into an empty base camp.  I got more flak than bombers over London about the next part of this story.)

I'm not exactly sure how we got last because only 4 people passed us, but we finished in a good time, with sound horses that still had a little go-go juice left in them.  I got Jen through her first 50 mile without her puking on me or passing out in the middle of the trail leaving me to drag her along with the one good leg I have.  We got Joker through her first 50 mile ride while she has a healing leg injury and we did it without laming her up or getting her soured on the job she just did.  We did fantastic for the first ride of the season.  I am thrilled because now Joker is qualified for Nationals and Numbers survived 50 miles of sand.

I don't know how many people were pulled (I have to assume at least 7).  We had a very anti-climatic arrival back at camp and no-one was available to tell us how the rest of the riders did.  (Picture the Twilight Zone - Do-Do-Do-Do) Everyone had packed up and gone home.  Base camp had three rigs, one of those bring the ride manager's.  Everything was gone from the hold and there was no-one to be seen anywhere.  There were no timers waiting for us and poor Connie, who trekked 90 miles back and forth from our camp to base camp several times that day had to go and find the vet to check us out.   It was my first experience coming into camp as the turtle.  It's not a good feeling and I hope it never happens to me again.  I know that this was a very long weekend for all those volunteers, ride management staff, and grounds people.  Three days of constant horses in and out, worrying about everything and not getting enough sleep will wear you out in a hurry.  I do not hold an ill feelings and do not intend this story to accuse anyone of forgetting us. 

NOTE TO READERS: I am going to remember this when I put on my first ride (which by the way, my friend had the idea and has the trail system that is perfect for a ride. I am going to assist her and use my wonderfully charming self to gather up volunteers and pick ride managers brains...we're thinking to do this in the fall of 2007.)  The turtle riders will have the same courtesies and treatment as the front runners even if I have to bring out my sleeping bag and nap next to the finish line.  Completing a ride, no matter where you finish in the group is very excellent and I felt that Jen got cheated out of her "ego boost" by having someone from the ride congratulate her on her first 50 mile ride completion.  It was very depressing actually not to have anyone there to time us in, vet us, or even care that we managed to finish. 

CONGRATULATIONS JEN!  On your first 50 mile ride!  And we did it with a ride time of 8 hours 15 minutes.  That's an average speed of 6.25 mph.  Slow, but safe, sane and sound.  Numbers got all A's, pulse 58 - I told you she was fatigued. Some of her A's had a minus.  Considering the level of fatigue she had, I was very surprised not to see a couple B's.  Of course, this morning she looks like she's ready to do another 50 and bucked when I trotted her.  Obviously, she isn't sore this morning. 

KUDO's TO JOKER!  She had a colt on January 1, 2006, we continued to work her through her nursing period.  That colt got into great shape, let me tell you, as he floowed along the trails.  She weaned that colt two weeks ago and come to this ride and completed with only one B (yes,  another different B) pulsed at 46.  This B was on attitude.  Let me say that Joker had enough poking and prodding and wasn't very pleasant at the final vet check.  I think Joker should have won an award for the most different B's...

THANK YOU CONNIE.  She was my savior.  She was the most awesome crew and mothered me and Jen very well.  She never complained, she took care of us, and I truly do not think I would have got through this ride without her because my knee was really in trouble.  Connie trotted out for me, helped me and Jen with holding and treating.  She brought us food and cookies and chocolate and lots of yummy stuff to drink.  She dragged that little red wagon through the sand, fully loaded with our tack.  (You should see the size of Connie's shoulders now!)

Today, it feel grand.  I'm only sore on the left thigh quad (the one that is atrophied so badly) and I have no tiredness or soreness anywhere else.  I had a lot of pain that last 19 mile loop (not to mention my bladder was exploding) I didn't say anything to Jen because she looked like she was falling asleep in the saddle and had quit talking to me about 10 miles before we finished.  I didn't say anything to Connie because I didn't want her fussing over me like a mother hen.  I also didn't want to clutch that truck home and about halfway home I broke down and took three Tylenol (I'm such a weenie). 

GREAT RIDE!  Thank you to all who made it possible to start my 2006 ride season with such a bang.  Thanks Patti for having a great ride to get us started and for checking on us before you left the camp.