Caroline and Glory’s 3rd 100-mile Endurance Race: A Tale in Numbers

On September 3rd   at 6:30 am Glory and I set out in Calabogie, Ontario Canada to ride our 3rd 100-mile race with my sister and her horse Merri. Here is a chart on how it went. I rounded numbers for easier reading.  There were 6 loops of trail with 5 vet checks with a rest hold in between each loop.

For this ride’s recap, I thought I’d do things a little differently, and give you some approximate numbers on how a race like this works. The sport of endurance riding can be hard to wrap your head around, so this might help! The numbers tell a story of their own…

Number of Hours it Took to Complete the Race: 22 Hours

# Of Hours in the Saddle: 18 Hours

# Of Hours of Mandatory Hold/Rest Time: 3 Hours 30 Minutes

Cumulative Minutes of Pulse Down Time:    25 Minutes (This is when the real racing happens, at the holds when your crew helps your horse get down to a pulse of 64 the fastest)

# Of Near Catastrophes and Spooks: 3 (picnic blankets should not move, riding at night is really really hard)

# Of Times Glory Cardiac Recovery Index was reversed: 4 (this is really really good)

# Of A’s on Glory’s Vet Card: 86 (awesome)

# Of times Emily had to run with Glory on the trot out’s because I was looking lame: 6

# Of Major Freak Outs: 1 (when your brain does back flips because you are on a moving animal in the pitch-black darkness because there was rain coming and large bodies of deep water on either side of the trail you can sense and there is NOTHING to focus on, yeah I freaked out.)

# Of Awesome People Met:   I lost count (Special thanks the lady who fixed my headlight after I freaked out)

# Of Times I got off and ran or hiked with Glory: 5 or 6

Weight of me and all my tack that Glory had to carry: 189 lbs.

# Of Missed Turns: 2 that were pretty minor

# Of ATV’s, Quads, golf carts going ridiculously fast, and moto bikes we passed: At least 20

# Of OMG that’s pretty awesome sights on the trail we saw: 6 my favorites being the waterfall and the golden light before the storm as the sun went down in the forest

# Of Caffeinated Beverages Consumed:  Only 1

# Of Ginger Chews eaten: 10 I think… but I didn’t vomit off the horse.  Night riding sucks.

# Of times I let Glory set the pace and make decisions:  Pretty much all day and night

# Of times I asked Glory to go Faster: 3 or 4

# Of times I asked Glory to go Slower: 4 or 5 during the Last Hour of the whole race.

# Of Songs sung: Out loud 3.  Audrey didn’t join in so it must have been pretty bad.  I was humming the soundtrack to the Rings of Power tv show in my head the entire ride though.  I’m still not sick of hearing it!

Number of Times I told Glory how much I love him: Lots and Lots and yet not enough.

Number of Times Glory answered me back: Always.

By Caroline North