Winter Musings

Winter is here and I definitely love this time of year more than summer. The only problem is that even though it is cool enough to ride, it literally gets dark at 5:00 pm. So by the time I get off work, go to the gym, and get home, it's already dark. EVERYTHING I have to do is done in the dark, from riding, to exercising, to all the farm chores. It's quite annoying, and I wish we had the cooler weather, but with more daylight hours. That would be perfect for me!

My health issues continue to improve, and to date I have lost 30 pounds. I am so incredibly happy and thankful I figured out something was wrong, and was able to take steps to fix it. I am especially thankful the heat tolerance is improving, and that I'm just overall feeling better. I still have a good 30 more pounds to lose, but I'm well on my way!

We found out last week that when Gallant slipped, back in October, he must have struck his front left leg with his hind hoof. He ended up hurting his tendon, it's a small .5 cm x .6 cm lesion in the tendon but affects about 50% of it. So that is quite a blow. The vet rated it as moderate, and has him on hand walking twice a day right now. We will re-ultrasound in a month and see how the healing is coming along. I'm bummed because this means no 50 mile rides, and no Northern California rides, this year like we had been planning. Maybe we'll be able to do some LD's by the end of the year, hopefully.

I guess this means I get to bring Rio along, and start getting him conditioned, to see if I can complete easy LD's on him. Hopefully he will continue to stay sound, and get stronger as time goes by. I will know as long as there are no tendon injuries, and his stocking up gets less and less, that he is getting stronger. He is doing great to date.

I've posted my tentative ride schedule below, and there are also two NATRC rides in there I'd like to go to. There are fewer and fewer rides available to us down here in Southern California every year and it's very disheartening.

Even though we've had a setback, I am still planning on having a fun and busy endurance season!

30 pounds lost so far! So happy!