The LD That Wasn't, Part 2

Full disclosure: I had pondered on the walk back to ridecamp whether I would still want to ride.   On the one hand, it seemed crazy.  On the other hand, the horse seemed fine and we could probably make the cut-off.  On the third hand, it seemed crazy again.  I toyed with the idea of walk/jogging and leading Tucker and honestly I might've gone for it if I'd thought I could walk/jog the full distance, but that was definitely not happening.  So I figured I should probably just call it a day.

But the panic started to wear off, and a few folks encouraged me to take him out, and as Amanda said, we had seen most of the loop while driving around, and damnit, I wanted to ride through a covered bridge.

So we tacked him up and off I went, figuring that I'd turn back if he felt the least little bit funny.

He didn't even have the grace to feel tired.  The second the saddle went on, he was all business, and lined right out down the road.

We left ridecamp at ~10:30am.  The 50-milers had headed out on their first loop (25 miles) at 7; the LD started at 8 or 8:30 on their first go-round of 15-mile loop that was also the second loop of the 50; both rides had had a 45min hold.  So the first couple of horses that we saw were going past us!  I chatted briefly with a fellow rider at the first water stop and thanked the landowner while trying to convince Tuck to worry about the water instead of about the donkeys.

At around 4 or 5 miles, a rider caught us; he ended up being our buddy for the rest of the ride, thus continuing my streak of accidentally falling in with 100-milers; he was prepping his horse for the Vermont Moonlight 100 and shared lots of great info about local rides, including cluing me into a local-to-me rail trail that I will definitely be checking out for conditioning purposes.  His horse moved along a bit more on the downhills and my little lead dog was happy to serve as rabbit on the ups.  I was really happy with our pace; it felt comfortable and unhurried, with plenty of pauses for grass and water (and Tuck did do a little sipping on trail!), but purposeful, too.

I got my covered bridge photo!

My favorite parts was cantering along the bits of trail with especially nice footing.  Most of the ride was along the road and Tuck was delighted -- he adores hardpack -- and our trot was moving us along just fine, but a few trails wound through the woods and a few stretches of those just begged for a canter, and Tuck felt wonderful: really balanced and happy and strong.  I decided during one of those that we would stop after the loop for sure.  We'd had an adventure of a morning with a happy ending and now we were having a lovely ride around a pleasant loop in good weather with good company and there was just no need to get greedy; one loop was enough.

Around 12 miles, I was glad to have made that decision.  I ran out of water and had left ridecamp in too much of a hurry to elyte my bottles or put sunblock on, so the warm-and-sunny was getting to me, as was the mental and emotional fatigue of the multi-hour search.  Tuck felt fantastic all the way in; I have zero doubt that he could have gone around the second loop just fine.  But I was ready to be done.

Grabbing a snack and loosening girths.

 

Derping on in to the finish.

Crew area.

More crew area.

 Tuck finished up looking and feeling great, ate and drank well in the crewing area and back at the trailer, and resumed making a nuisance of himself.  I was wiped out and mostly sat around telling Amanda how grateful I was for her presence and help (thank you again!).  We'd done the 15-mile loop in about 2.5 hours, so averaging 6mph, a nice CTR pace, and like I said above, that felt great to me.  And I'd gotten to test out some gear with good results -- but more on that next (and final) rock.