Athlete

Sand Box

I’m really sucking at writing posts. What’s it been, a week?

Anyway, today we went to Cambridge Meadow Farms to work in a sand ring with Charlene and Mike, as our upcoming show, Beach Party, is in sand.

I’ll start off by saying, Cambridge Meadows is a beautiful facility. Privately owned, equipped with a outdoor sand ring and a good sized indoor ring. Lovely. We started out the day hacking around while the jumpers schooled. Katie and Lauren both rode awesome, and it was fun watching them! Then Katie hopped on her hunter, Stumpy, and schooled with me and Willard. We just did some basic stuff, a couple single verticals, to a diagonal oxer, to a four stride line. Nothing too complex or big.  Charlene just wanted the horses to get a feel for the sand, as we’ve been competing on grass all year so far.

Willard was having a bit of a fit with bugs today. So the nose flicking started. Which was a tad annoying. He got better throughout the session, focusing more on the jumps and less on what was touching his nose- be it sand, bugs, or air. At the beginning of the lesson, he almost ran right through a jump because he was busy throwing his head around. Hopefully he doesn’t do too much of this at Beach Party!

 

Da dum, da dum.

Long time no post, eh?

I worked with Charlene all weekend. My Saturday lesson went very well. Mom brought Monty up and hacked over from Bluebear with me.  I galloped for about 3/4 of a mile with Willard, and he was hardly even puffing. It’s nice to have a superbly fit horse sometimes! Since we did most of our warm up hacking over, Charlene just had us to some basic warm up and then we got right into jumping work.  We did a two stride exercise consisting of a pole to a gate vertical.  This exercise really helped us establish our pace and enabled us to see the distance every time coming to the gate. Then we galloped to a wall off the diagonal going away from home after the two stride gate. He backed off the first time, but I rode him forward and he jumped it after his moment of hesitation. We then continued onto a log vertical off the other diagonal, which he also handled well.

Then it was time for line work. We started with a small oxer in going away, with four strides to a pole out. Then built up to a vertical out.  Charlene made up a plan for me.  If I got in deep to the oxer in, I was to quietly sit and hold his stride and wait for the 5 strides out. If I got a medium distance in, I relaxed my hold and let him open his stride a little. If I got a long distance I didn’t touch him. Throughout the exercise, I don’t think we had one ugly distance in or out. I credit this to the first exercise we did, because our pace was superb the whole lesson. After working this exercise for a while, we moved onto the single wall jump, this time going the other way.  Facing home the wall was white with white poles on top, about 3ft. White jumps look more impressive to horses.  Willard decided to drift out and away from the jump the first time, and the second time (which he had no reason to do). The second time, however, I caught him and he got a good smack.  After this he was happy to jump over the scary white wall.

Our lesson today was probably the single best lesson I’ve had to date. We worked on much of the same exercises as Saturday, except the jumps were a hole or two bigger. The boy went to every single jump perfectly the first time, and continued this trend.  We had our pace, and I was able to see every distance and make good decisions in the line and throughout the course. Usually my lessons run and hour and a half, this lesson however lasted 30 minutes. The only way I can describe how things felt is perfect. Just perfect. Hopefully we can carry this on to the show next weekend! That’d be fantastic, and it’d certainly make up for the last show.

Therapy Cocktail.

Yesterday after work mom and I went in to the MHC workshop with an esport physiotherapy specialist (http://www.esportphysio.ca/). It was very interesting! A lot of what the clinician covered was stuff that I knew from my coaching courses in University (nutrition, fatigue, basic muscle training, etc), and another good portion of it was stuff I’d experienced and still am experiencing myself. She provided me with many exercises that I’m sure will be beneficial to my riding!  Another point she brought up was that sometimes riding habits/errors can’t be fixed by the rider and coach alone. It sometimes does take a athletic/physio therapist to target muscles that have been injured or strained at some point in time. I can vouch for this, as my riding has definitely improved since I started athletic therapy.  Of course there is more benefit if the therapist has some idea of what the sport entails, but in Manitoba this is very rare. My AT is very good at figuring out what I do, and what I need to do. I think she is the best I’m going to find right now, and she’s been doing a great job dealing with me so far!

Today I decided to take a trip to my chiropractor (who I haven’t been to since December), because my lower back has been a little bit annoying the past few days. I wanted to see if getting adjusted helped some of my other issues, because it did in the past-before I started AT. I think it did too. I mean, I’ll definitely be sore tomorrow -he wasn’t gentle- but the shooting pains down my hip are gone, where they’d been constant all day. He suggested that I consider combining his treatment with my AT’s treatment, which I agree with. The better I feel, the better I ride. I’m determined to make BOTH betters happen. Nobody can perform up to their full potential when dealing with even a small amount of pain, and I’m tired of trying to disprove that fact.

http://bcove.me/aq65czi6

Ready

I realized driving home from the city tonight how absolutely ready I am to get out of this place for a little while. I never thought I’d say this. I mean, I love it here, and I love all the people of course, but I just neeed to go somewhere else and find out who I am without everybody else I’ve known my whole life. You know? Everyday I’m growing as a person, and I really think that moving across the planet for a while is going to help that process reach it’s full potential. Whether the experience is good or bad, pray it be good, I’m ready for it. Bring it on.

My AT worked her magic tonight, and I’m feeling much better. My leg was going numb because the major nerve that runs down the leg goes through this muscle in your butt, and that muscle was rather tight in my ass so it was squishing that nerve.. causing the numbness and tingling. For the moment that is gone! Yay! My hamstring was also super tight, which is new. So I’m going to have to remember to stretch that out more. If anybody out there is in need of a fantastic athletic therapist, I have the perfect one for you.

After my AT session, I went for supper with my dad at Stella’s (yummy), and then booked it over to Jysk and Winners to get some pants for me, and some shower gifts for my co-worker Jolene! Got home at 10, and now I’m thinking seriously about bed. Mmmm. yeah.

Willard heads off to a show in Birds Hill tomorrow with his part boarder. I’m hoping he behaves himself for her this weekend, and I’m nervous for them both. Hopefully this weekend goes better for them then last weekend did for us. I’m sure I worked out most of the first show jitters for the horse last weekend though. *crosses fingers*

110 days. Let’s go.

Rain?

This is Felix, he’s our little project. He’s just a year this month. He’s my mare, Flash’s, replacement. Hopefully he’ll turn out just as talented.

The week’s been filled with sunshine, sunburns, sunscreen, and lots of dust and wind and everything else that comes along with seeding time when you work on a farm. Got lots of overtime from the past few days, so that is a very good thing!

Mom and I are headed out to Birds Hill tomorrow afternoon for the Victoria Day Show. I rode Mr Willard outside yesterday, and he had energy flying out of everywhere. Hopefully he’s a little calmer tomorrow for schooling, I’m sure he won’t be. It never really works that way, does it?

I managed to pull my hamstring somehow over the past two days at work, or last night working with mr hyper. Hopefully that calms down a little before the weekend. I’m interested to see how my hip holds up over the next 4 days. It’s been decent this week, just some random tingles. Not a whole lot of pain. Which is a brilliant change!

117 days!!!

Stages of Riding

Stage I: Fall off pony. Bounce. Laugh. Climb back on. Repeat.

Stage 2: Fall off horse. Run after horse, cussing. Climb back on by shimmying up horse’s neck. Ride until sundown.

Stage 3: Fall off horse. Use sleeve of shirt to stanch bleeding. Have friend help you get back on horse. Take two Advil and apply ice packs when you get home. Ride next day.

Stage 4: Fall off horse. Refuse advice to call ambulance; drive self to urgent care clinic. Entertain nursing staff with tales of previous daredevil stunts on horseback. Back to riding before cast comes off.

Stage 5: Fall off horse. Temporarily forget name of horse and name of husband. Flirt shamelessly with paramedics when they arrive. Spend week in hospital while titanium pins are screwed in place. Start riding again before doctor gives official okay.

Stage 6: Fall off horse. Fail to see any humor when hunky paramedic says, “You again?” Gain firsthand knowledge of advances in medical technology thanks to stint in ICU. Convince self that permanent limp isn’t that noticeable. Promise husband you’ll give up riding. One week later purchase older, slower, shorter horse.

Stage 7: Slip off horse. Relieved when artificial joints and implanted medical devices seem unaffected. Tell husband that scrapes and bruises are due to gardening accident. Pretend you don’t see husband roll his eyes and mutter as he walks away. Give apple to horse.

Order may vary.

Passion

Through everything we experience, all the great feelings and all the pain, there are things that not only keep us going, but also define our very being. It’s the challenges, life’s little tests, that either break us down or help us find strength and grow as a person. Sometimes both. We go through times where we feel completely alone, and like no one understands what we’re going through. It’s so hard to see clearly when all you can feel is pain, physically or emotionally.  For athletes, injuries are common and probable, especially for those of us who push ourselves everyday in the pursuit of greatness. Many of us hide our injuries and work around them. Eventually, though, this stops working because the injury gets worse, or we gain more injuries because of compensation. It’s impossibly difficult to “rest” or take breaks. Every day off is a day lost. Nobody understands how important it is to keep pushing, keep training, no matter how bad it hurts. If you quit even for a day, people will see you as lazy or undedicated. Nobody wants that reputation.

All you really want is a teammate, a coach, someone to say it’s okay. That nobody will judge you, and you’re doing good. But how often does that happen.

Our bodies aren’t built to handle half the things we put them through. We push so hard, overtrain, and expect to perform under stressful, sometimes impossible conditions. We compete with sprains, tears, chronic pain, dislocations, sometimes even fractures and then ask why didn’t we do better. It’s hard for anybody to understand the amount of pressure athletes at any level feel. The feeling of competition, challenge, achievement, and trust are what keeps the passion alive. Once you lose that part of you, that’s when things unravel. At some point, everyone loses sight of their goal and in turn feels lost and alone.

It takes an unbelievable amount of strength to realize what’s the best way to deal with every challenge presented.  Some of us can’t deal with the pressure, the stress. Every single one of us breaks down. The one’s who can face those moments of uncertainty, pick themselves off the ground, dust off, and keep on pushing towards their goal are the people who get hurt the most, but they’re also the ones who get the most out of life.

Comments anyone?