Saturday, the 21st was the XTERRA Big Elk trail marathon and half marathon. I did the half (plus a bit as it turned out). We started right outside the Walls building, but started out going across the bridge (which I've never crossed on foot before). We ran through a lot of areas of the park that I hadn't seen before. Early in the course, I missed a turn (along with a fairly large group of runners) and ended up tagging on an extra 2.1 miles to my day. All of a sudden, I see two very big jumps and we were running in the CCI jump field. Then toward the end of the run, we cut across the middle of the horse trials jump course, on the water side of the mound and then took the trail that we come up on the horses to xc back to the starting area. It was hot and humid as well as fairly hilly, so I took it slowly, but was doing OK. I ended up walking more slowly about the last four-five miles as a fellow marathon maniac had fallen and cut her knee pretty badly. She said having me with her helped and the knee looked bad enough that I thought it a reasonable idea to stick with her. She ended up heading to the ED for some stitches at the end, but got credit for a half finish. It turns out she also broke off a bone spur, but that shouldn't cause any issues going forward. Trail runners are tough. Minus the big green arches, this should look familiar to my area II eventing peeps.
Then, Saturday the 28th, I spent the day volunteering at the Fair Hill unrecognized horse trial. I was dressage steward down at rings 1-3, so had many opportunities to chat with folks. Sadly, I missed June's test as she was in Ring 4, but did snap this shot as she hung out while her friend Chester did his dressage test.
It was Chester's first BN and he was excited, but a good boy, thanks to David's excellent calm riding. Here they are waiting to do their stadium round.
June put in a very nice dressage test and was tied for 1st place after dressage and stadium. She had a green moment or two leaving the warm-up to head out on course, but once she got into the rhythm, Rachel said she was very bold. They are headed back to Fair Hill today to do some xc schooling.
Meanwhile, Keebler was at the Longwood South jumper show with Jordan. I hear many blue ribbons ensued, but no details. We need a guest blog!
To kick off the summer, last evening we had lovely Henry margaritas on the roof deck in the city. It was great fun and made Monday a much better day. Looking forward to a busier than usual holiday weekend, complete with a wedding and xc schooling and/or jumpers at Windurra as well as Henry's birthday. Usually, I'm excited about baseball this time of year, but the Phillies are 8.5 games back and the cubs 14.5 (despite yesterday's really excellent almost no-no against the Red Sox and a 2-0 win), so I'm rooting for the US to defy the odds in Rio and for Andy Murray and Eugenie Bouchard at Wimbledon this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment