Just published in the WNY Horse Council! - Riding 100 Miles in a Day
/Riding 100 Miles in a Day
by Caroline North.
I know a lot of people are curious about the sport of endurance racing, and many ask HOW CAN YOU DO THAT? Well, after 4 years of learning, conditioning, and competing at the 30-50-mile levels, 2020 was the year to try the ultimate test, a 100 mile race in 24 hours. The Oakleaf race was in cool October weather, on nice sandy Michigan ground. We had extensively prepared and I was supremely confident in our conditioning. So here goes, travel 100 miles with me!
Prep Day 1: Wednesday before the ride. I pack and repack the trailer. We glue G’s special hoof boots on for the best support and traction. I am happy with my glue job (this is HUGE, as it will make or break the race) Then I check my pack lists 5 more times and give Glorfindel, or G a trace clip.
Prep Day 2: We (my very important crew Audrey and Barbara Hager) drove 6 hours to a fellow endurance rider friend’s house. We are met with the nicest hospitality and lay over there to break up the 8-hour drive. Making new supportive friends across the country is a huge perk to this sport.
Prep Day 3: We get to ride camp in a beautiful oak forest. There are lots of trees. We take an hour to back the rig in our site. Amazingly tempers remain cool (Even experienced truckers had some trouble, so pooh). After setting up camp, G gets vetted in by the ride vet who is basically the ‘judge’ of the whole race and keeps horses safe. She says his gut sounds are louder than his heartbeat. He gets all ‘A’s’ on his vet card with a pulse of 42. In endurance, this is high praise! I triple check everything, tack, electrolytes, instructions to crew, the hoped-for timetable of loops. This is how I cope with the risks of the sport (I mean come on, you are miles out in the woods often with crap cell service, often alone, where ANYTHING can and does happen!). My goal at this point is the finish the race by 1:30 am.
Race Day: Get up at 4 am. Try to eat and stay calm and focused. Tack up in the pitch dark. I have glow sticks taped to saddle and my headlamp on. We warm up and walk around. I am calm. He is calm.
5:30 am: Trail is Open! We start off. I focus on finding the red LED trail markers with the goal of keeping him calm and slow behind the front runners. Feeling good. G knows his job.
5:35 am: We catch up to the ‘ride pack’ on single track dark trail. G gets strong and a bit race brainy (competitive). I try not to freak out and hold him back. We manage. Barely. Just need to get this loop done.
6:00 am: It’s still pitch black out. All of a sudden, I her a voice on my left saying ‘PASSING’. G flat out bolts from a mystery horse coming up behind him in the dark! We are super shaken, it is the first time he’s ever bolted on me. Regain stirrups and continue.
6:05 am: My left stirrup is falling off. Now I am really, really freaking out. I ask a rider to stay with me while I get off and fix it. I turn off the part of my brain that is going nutz. Get on and continue.
6:20 am: We get to a water stop. Glory doesn’t want to do anything but take off after the leaders. I put my boss mare foot down and say to him ‘NO WAY, we are hand walking until you get your head on straight mister!’ We slow down until the sun comes up.
7:39 am: We walk calmly into the first vet check and pulse in (His pulse has to be below 64 bpm). 15 miles down, 85 to go. I realize just how much I hate riding in the dark. Focus on keeping G well. He wolfs his mash down. I vow to start further behind the leaders to stay out of the melee next time.
8:24 am: We head back out on the next loop of trail and actually start to enjoy ourselves. Glorfindel is feeling fantastic. We start some canter sets on the straighter trails. We are by ourselves for most of the loop until we catch up with some other 50-mile riders riding the same course. We chat and cross the dam together. As in we ride across the top of an actual river dam. You never know what you’ll encounter on these rides! The power plant unnerves G a little, but he does his best for me.
10:02am: We ride into our second vet hold. 30 miles down, 70 to go. G is dragging my crew and I crew to the hay and mashes to eat like a spoiled pony. Well, okay, he deserves it. He vets in with all A’s (the ride vet judged him VERY fit to continue). My crew sit me down and make me eat and drink too. If I sound a little obsessive over the eating and drinking, welcome to endurance riding. All the little metabolic details are something all competitors go over in great detail, because if a horse gets into metabolic trouble (i.e. colic or tying up), it is truly life threatening at these extremes because of the dangers of dehydration and lack of gut function.
10:48 am: We leave for the longest loop of the day, which is 20 miles. Through the woods and trails we go. We truck right along, but not too fast, I am afraid of missing a turn, these trails are complex. I tell G, ‘Let’s get this over with so we can go take a nap at the next hold!’. We settle in a rhythm. If he canters on the left lead for a stretch, then on the next transition he must take the right lead to stay even in his muscles. He argues a little about this because he doesn’t care for his right lead, but for the most part listens well! We finally get to the ‘Candy Shoppe’. This is a check point where volunteers are there to help hold your horse and let you get a drink and eat. We stop very briefly, but then trot on.
Noon: As we are about the midway point of this loop, I feel G getting the mid-day blahs. He’s not as forward and prefers to walk on the hard-packed gravel roads. I try and pep talk him (remember nap time is coming!) Then we spot another rider up ahead! G goes ‘Whew a friend!’ and trots merrily up to them to say hi. We let our horses coast with each other and chat for the rest of the loop to keep our minds busy. At the Candy Shoppe, I let Glory have a long snack on the horse candy (molasses and oats YUMMY) and I get some candy too.
1:56 pm: We finally get back to the hold. This is the longest at 50 minutes, so after my snack and successful vet in, I leave G to my crew and they push me in to the truck to take a 20-minute nap. They are the heroes here. I actually sleep too! 50 miles down. 50 to go.
2:54 pm: We head out of the next loop. We are both a little groggy after our nap, but I make sure we are by ourselves by design. We have more fun that way. (Famous last words…) We head back out and get to cross the dam again. Since we are alone, I elect to hop down and jog G across so he wouldn’t slip on the pavement and to wake up a bit. One of the volunteers commented ‘Wow, he just jogged with you like a really big dog!’. Yep, That’s my Glory.
3:45 pm: We catch up to some riders we have been tailing all day. We coast behind them taking it easy and enjoying the loop we did earlier in the dark.
5:16pm: Hold # 4. Vet in fine. Okay. 65 miles down. 35 to go. Realize I am going to have to ride in the dark again. Oh poop. I start to narrow my focus down. To surviving.
6:03 pm: With new headlight in place, we start off again on the pink loop. I am loving G. He walks out of camp with no complaints for more miles. He’s cheerleading me now. We catch up to the group we’ve been coasting with. Glory’s big trot stride allows him to do this easily, but coasting is getting old and I want to use every bit of light I can. So halfway through, as politely as I can, we hand gallop ahead on a nice stretch of sandy road. I am completely in awe of how much energy G is giving me. We truck along fast for 2 miles and then keep going. I decide to trust G as the sun does down and put the red light on the headlamp, so his night vision is sharpest with no shadows. We trot effortlessly down the darkening trail. The we hit hard road. By himself, this is the first time G gets whiny. I feel bad for him and let him slowly walk on the hard shoulder to save his legs. But we lose time. It’s full dark, and on the roads, car headlights are absolutely blinding. I start to cuss at people to dim their lights. They of course can’t hear me. We finally get to the last 2 miles into camp. I realize I can barely see the trail markers and slow down to not get lost.
8:41pm: Hold 5. 80 miles down. 20 to go. I am resolute. I am not last in the pack, and he’s still going strong. I get some warm food in me and change clothes. My crew takes charge of G and forces me down and commands that I eat more. Okay ‘yes mama’. This is the furthest we’ve ever gone! My crew is my rock. I know I could not be here without them.
9:24 pm: Start off on the orange loop. It’s only 10 miles! Except yeah, it’s 10 miles of mainly deep sand. Walk only. We haven’t come this far to just pull a muscle trying to trot through that! I start thinking just get from ribbon to ribbon. Boy, is it dark. G and I try to motor (trot) where we can. Then ooohhh poop. I lost the ribbons while trotting. Shoot. I keep going a little way thinking I just got distracted and one will pop up. Nope. Okay don’t panic, just back track. Okay. After a half a mile of absolute rising panic, we see LED’s. Whew! Then I doubt myself, okay are we going down the loop or still backtracking? My sense of direction is shot. I make a decision. Turn left. And pray. Continue down the dark woods. See a light up ahead! It’s a crew (not mine) waiting for their rider! They graciously give Glory water and shove candy at me, keep the blood sugar up, good call. The last rider catches up. Glorfindel is happy now for company! We book it together down a stretch of road. Then at mile 88, the lowest low happens. We stop at the last water stop. Just as G starts to drink, the other rider books it on ahead (note this is NOT cool, always wait till all horses are done drinking unless told not too). I lose it and cry. Glory doesn’t finish his drink, and I am faced with the prospect of doing the final loop alone with no one behind me. Okay. Suck it up time. A voice in my head is telling me to not let the ‘Kid’ (Glory) know how scared I am. Of course, this is useless, but Glory just stays with me.
11:44 pm: Hold 6 of 6. Glory vets in and gets a C grade on muscle tone, probably from the deep sand. I try not to worry about it. My crew has it handled, they start massaging him. Only 10 more miles! I’ve got plenty of time (I have 24 hours to finish and its only midnight). I get caffeinated. My crew tries to cheer me up. I am not having fun anymore.
12:19 am: Start off on last 10 miles. My logical brain is gibbering with fear and telling me to just stop, what if there are axe murderers out there in those dark campgrounds and fishy dirt roads (I mean, really, cars were passing us in the middle of the night on these back roads!)? What if we get lost? What if we fail? I pull up some mental superpowers I developed from my yoga training. And told my logical brain to shush. I tap in my yogi powers of presence, peace and strength and keep walking with Glory down the trail. The silence is deafening. I start talking loudly to G. He politely keeps walking through the deep sand. The trail is the same as the last loop, but things looks different in the deep night. I feel the shadows stretch my concentration. I realize the pricks of shiny light in the trees are not just reflective bits on trees. They are EYES. As soon as this thought takes hold G spooks. I stamp that thought out big time. We continue on. I start to remember the yoga mantras we sung in Yoga Teacher Training. The light and love of that time filled me up. I resolve to NOT look at my watch. And I start singing. Aud Gurah Nameh. Aad Guray Nameh is a very powerful mantra used for protection, to gain clarity, and to receive guidance from one’s highest Self. This mantra creates a protective field of energy around the person chanting. And it works. I lose all sense of time. Ribbon to ribbon. Stay on track. I get off and walk a bunch. G gets a snack of grass. I keep singing. We make it through the section where I got lost last time. We get to the final 2 miles. I am overcome with energy! I get off G and we jog for a mile. (You better believe it, I also trail run to stay in shape) Then I tell him, ‘We are trotting the last mile into camp victorious!” Glorfindel says ‘Great idea!’ And we trotted in the camp at 3:07 am. The vet and my crew have been up all night waiting at the campfire. We vet through clean. We get better marks on the final scorecard then on when we started the last loop. I get lots of hugs. I give my crew lots of hugs. WE DID IT! Glory gets even more hugs and grain mashes; and generally looks pleased with the whole state of affairs. And we are done.
Day 5: After a few hours of sleep, I have only begun to process what we just did. G is fine and healthy; he says to me, ‘I still love you mom’. He quite willingly gets on the trailer to sleep and go home. I cannot really say this event was FUN, but it was life changing. I tapped into depths of horse and human strength and connection that I still cannot quite believe now. I still hold by this truth ‘To Finish Is To Win’ (The American Endurance Riding Conference motto). Maybe we will do another 100-mile race next year….
February 2021: Yes, I am already planning on another 100 mile ride. It’s a year long planning process to figure out to stay in peak condition. For more information on endurance riding in the USA go to AERC.org.