The Drive Out

The drive from Boulder to Kirkland was absolutely uneventful-thank god.

Having driven through Wyoming too many times, I went through Montana instead which I have previously done before.

The only highlights of the 23.5 hour trip were driving past the south, middle and north forks of the Crazy Woman River. I think a few ex-girlfriends hung out there from time to time.

The other was passing through Clinton, MT and seeing a billboard for the "Testicle Festival". On the sign there is a bull standing up on its hind legs and covering its genitalia. Apparently, this is a pretty big thing (pun intended). http://www.testyfesty.com/

I spent the night in Bozeman the first night, and then made it into Kirkland early Friday evening.
I really thought I was screwed when I hit the Seattle traffic at 5pm, but it turned out to be fine. This will probably be the only time I say that about Seattle traffic.

The weather the first 4 days was fantastic with temperatures in the upper 80's. It felt like I had never left Boulder. However, I woke up this morning to rain falling. Man, I'm going to have to get used to that!

Last Couple of Weeks in Boulder

The last couple of weeks were a complete whirlwind trying to say goodbye to everyone, get packed, and get my athletes set up. There were times when I didn't know what day of the week it was or what I had done the previous day.

It was bittersweet to say goodbye to my friends and to leave Boulder. I felt like a housewife with planning a lot of lunch, coffee, and dinner dates. I don't think I've ever been so social in a such a short period of time.

I feel very fortunate to have such a great group of friends, especially when I moved to Boulder 11 years ago I didn't know anyone, nor for awhile an ex wasn't too keen on having friends (that's another story).

The going away party was a lot of fun and sad too. The house was pretty packed most of the night and concluded with a Rock Band. Dorky as that is, a fun time was had by all. Probably not as much when I was signing though.

The Writing Is On the Wall

One of the more interesting parts of making this comeback is making the change over to being a horseman from being an athlete. Over the last 6-8 weeks I am feeling more like a horseman and less of an athlete.

I'm not training like a used to and I know/have felt that I am not in great shape now (I know relative to other athletes). However, it came to a head on a bike ride yesterday.

I rode with a few of my athletes and I was completely humbled. We rode for 2:45 with most of it easy and on the flats/small rollers. On the short uphills, I got blown off the back without my guys riding hard.

We rode for 35 miles and then finished the ride up Flagstaff Mountain. Flagstaff is one of the famous hills in Boulder. You can ride all the way to the top or go about 3/4 of the way to the Ampitheater. I chose the later and I am glad I did. It's roughly 4.5 miles long and you gain ~2000ft elevation (click here for a map). Flagstaff will always hurt no matter what shape you're in. If you're in shape the pain is only over a shorter period of time.

I felt awful and got destroyed by my athletes. The steep sections (10-15%) I could barely get my legs over each stroke. I did get through it and felt good afterwards, but my god, I realized I am no longer an athlete, but a horseman. Still it was fun to hit up Flagstaff one more time before I leave.

And you know what, I am perfectly fine with that. Actually, really happy to be a horseman once again.

I did the double ride yesterday in that I rode a bike and then a horse. Now that should be a sport!

Things Getting Set In Motion

A couple of trainers have been in contact with me over the past few weeks about riding horses for them. One sounds especially promising as I would have the potential to grow my own business, which is exactly what I want.

Since nothing has been set in stone, I am not going mention specifics so as not to jinx myself.

This is really exciting for me as this is more than I was expecting when I made the decision to come back in January.

Thanks for reading!

In Case You Are Counting......

It is now 3 weeks to the day that I'll be moving!

Pictures from Nevada and the Horse Show

I set up photo galleries of the riding in Nevada and in Murrieta:

Nevada

Warm Up Day and Day 1

Day 2-4

Days 3 & 4 in Murrieta

On Saturday, it felt really good to have an off day from showing. Mostly because my inner quads were getting sore from all of the riding from the past week. Currently, Meyer is for sale (anyone want to buy me a nice horse ;)), and a potential buyer was going to look at him on Saturday while we were at the show. A difference in price in what the buyers wanted and what the owners wanted meant that they weren't going to come out so I had a schooling day on Meyer instead of Meyer being ridden by someone else.

We rode in the main warm up arena for the open show. In that ring, there are a fair amount of people watching or walking by the arena. I always like riding in front of people so that motivated me a little bit more. Picking up on the high note we ended with on Friday we put together a superb schooling day, only riding him 20-25 minutes. We schooled movements we would be showing the next day, primarily canter half passes and flying changes. Meyer felt super and the ride was one of the best rides I can remember on a horse in a long time. We received a lot of compliments from the riders in the ring and had a couple of people come up to me afterwards telling me how good Meyer looked with me riding him. Now, I have to admit, it felt really good having a small audience and the compliments.

On a funny side note, during that ride there were three or four other male riders in the ring and I was the only one without a European accent.

We were able to pick up a ride on Sunday. Following the trend of the show, we had another early morning ride, this time at 8:30am. So another early day was in the plan. We followed the same plan as before with the early lunge before getting on. I only lunged him 5 minutes to loosen him up as he was looking very relaxed.

The warm up went well and the flow we had the past two days was there, but just not quite a brilliant as the last two days.

We rode Third Level Test 2. Again, we put in another solid ride. Meyer's walk is not the best and the judge slaughtered (really scored us low) us on it. We scored 6's and 7's on all of the movements except for the walk movements and on one of the flying changes. I was really pissed at the flying change score because it was not as bad as she scored us (scored us a 4). That's the fun with dressage, you're at the mercy of someone else's subjectivity.

We placed third with a 58.9%. The kicker was, we finished one point behind first place and the low flying change score was the difference. Without the walk scores we had a 64% or 65%.

All in all the was a good show. I put together solid rides on a horse I rode for a week. For the first show in 10+ years, I couldn't have asked for anything better. I had great support from my sister Julia who came up for two of the days, my friend Amanda Olson, Meyer's owner Jocelyn Hamann, and all of Amanda's riders from Mandolin Dressage.