In which it's a Goldilocks day for riding: not too hot, not too cold

I haven't written much about training rides lately

The Suspects were all busy today, so Fee and I went solo.

mostly because I haven't done a lot of "training rides" this summer.

Fiddle and I have completed 330 miles in competition so far this year, and also logged quite a few trail-building miles.  At this point in her career, the Dragon has the trail skills she needs to gracefully handle all kinds of terrain, and she doesn't need to build fitness. 

At age 13, with nearly 1000 miles of competition and at least triple that plonking around local trails, what my mare needs a lot of this summer is rest.

Real rest,  meaning no hill work, no speed work, no agility work.

All summer, our between-ride excursions have generally been casual jaunts with a friend or two, covering 7-10 miles in a couple of hours.  No hurry, no scurry.  

She's only been out twice since our 50-mile completion at Bare Bones on August 1st, and both of those rides were short and casual.  

She had a chiropractic exam and adjustment yesterday, and Dr Fehr pronounced her solid and good to go.  

Fiddle loves Joanne

She held the last adjustment really well, and (although my riding is increasingly lopsided as my organic hip continues to slowly fail) her back and neck are strong and evenly muscled.  

Our next ride is two weeks away, and I'll be gone next weekend. So today, we went for a longer ride:

(at this point, a truly tech-savvy person would insert the map of our track, but I'm under a Very Bad Tech Moon, so I'll just do the old fashioned thing and post the LINK HERE)

About 18.5 miles in a little over 3 hours.  A little less than 3,000 feet of elevation gain/loss--we didn't go up very high, but there was lots of up/down on the route I chose.

I'm not completely technically inept, by the way.  Here's a video of the trail.  Can you hear how dry the trail sounds under the hoof clops?



There was also

It's been a long time since I've seen a harvest of straight cedar trees.
Around here, loggers most take doug fir

active logging.  We stay out of the way of rigs, and wave at the truck drivers.

It wasn't too hot, it wasn't too cold.

I thought (hoped!!) it might rain, but the sky stayed dry.

The lower elevation trails clearly got more rain than the higher trails did.
These still smelled wet, whereas some trails up top were crunchy.

We got a little precip this morning, but we're still way behind on moisture.  The trees are already dropping their leaves, long before the calendar says it's autumn.

Undergrowth is still pretty lush on
Chanterelle Hill

I also looked for mushrooms, but it's still too early.  Ahhh well.

Back at the trailer

She's ginormous

My horse looks Good.