In which it's hard to write something new about a familiar routine

The annual PNER Convention is done, the sn*w is melted, 

and the Swamp Tulips are beginning to sprout....

...and so, it's time to start legging the horses back into condition for endurance season.

The Usual Suspects try not to take training too seriously

My challenge right now is to write something new about a process that is not new to me--or to this blog.

So tonight, I'm using special effects.

Dory told me about the free app called "Prisma"
 that does crazy things to ordinary photographs

This way, maybe it won't be too boring when I gush about the glories of blue skies overhead in February !!!!

The blue only lasted for an hour, and then the grey returned.
But I was out under the blue the whole time it was there!

The Prisma app makes a "blue sky" into quite a different experience!

Our forests are very green, but it's still a moss-and-fir-tree greenness.

The grass is still dormant, and the leaves haven't budded out yet.

The trails are still muddy, so we train on the armored logging roads.  Fiddle and I covered about 7 miles today in 2 hours--a nice, easy start to the training.  

It would be easy to over-train right now.  When I talk to other riders, especially the Green Beans, I am a little jealous that they are logging 20 or more miles a week.

But I know better.  A super-fit horse in February will be accruing micro-injuries and getting tired by May, and I don't want that for Fiddle.

She's 15 this year, and my task is to be proactive about preserving her joints and tendons, while getting her back in shape for distance following a year off to recover from a stifle injury in 2016.

I'm in no hurry. 

My intention is to enter the 25-miler at Coyote Ridge at the end of March.  If that goes well, we'll try the 50 at April Daze a month later.

The rest of the season--the rest of her career, really--depends a lot on how well we get through those first two events.

So, we're taking it easy.  Lots of walking, lots of hills, some trotting.  

No hurrying.

It's a good time of year to pay attention to my horse.

And that is, of course, a Good Thing.