And then there were marathons

Before I get to the main marathon part of this blog, a few eventing shout outs.  Plantation was last weekend.  The scores are here.  Caitlin was first and fourth in the preliminary on Callisto and Ballyneety.  This weekend, Fair Hill is going on up here.  David and BG finished 5th in the Intermediate and David said it all felt quite easy.  Kimberly Kojima finished 9th in the CIC*** and also served as David's SJ coach.  Busy weekend there with preliminary XC running until after 5:30 today.Scores from FHI. 

In Aiken, Jordan and Keebler were completing their first recognized training level event together.  They had a successful day, adding just one rail to their dressage score and, according to Cyndi, almost getting speed faults xc.  

I had a lovely hack, hill canter, couple of logs ride on Keegan today, enjoying the warm weather.  It was the first time I've used fly spray in 2014.  I felt good, although the legs still felt a little heavy. This resulted from my first multiple marathon adventure. 

From last Saturday through Wednesday, I completed the Mainly Marathons Riverboat Series. This consisted of doing 5 marathons in 5 days in 5 states, a total of 131 miles of marathons plus 1400 miles of driving.

Friday, I flew down from Philadelphia to Nashville.  I considered it an auspicious sign that my rental car was a VW Jetta with Michigan plates.  I drove to Mayfield, KY and checked in at the Wingfield Inn, then hit a CVS for the last of the needed supplies for the week.  I sorted gear into a few different bags and pop-up laundry baskets for ease of organization during the week.  I went out to check out the site and then had dinner and headed back to the hotel, where I met my roomies for the week, Chavet Breslin and her mom Alexis Milosc.  We hit the sack fairly early, ready for the adventure to begin.

Day one was at Columbus-Belmont State Park.  As for all of these events, the course was a fairly short loop (in this case a figure 8 type loop) so that we passed the start/finish/support area frequently.  At each pass, we collected a rubber band.  This course had a first loop on asphalt trail (with some hills) and a second loop on dirt/grass trail that was more of a traditional single track trail, although not too technical (photo credit Cynthia Tanzi).

I took it pretty easy, not at all sure of what 5 days of marathoning were going to be like.  It was also fairly warm and humid and there were definite hills.  I finished feeling fairly good.  Got in the car and drove to Millington, TN.  In Millington, our hotel was the Plantation Oaks.  We got upgraded to a very nice suite there.  After settling into the room, I had some dinner and then pretty much went to sleep.  In the morning headed to the park.  I ended up doing most of day two with a new friend, Deb Lazerson.  She had injured her ankle, so we took it fairly easy.  This group of folks completes many, many races per year and often compete through injuries and illness in search of their records.  I finished up with Mike and Frank.  I was excited to hear that Frank will be completing his 600th marathon at the Madison Marathon in Montana in July, which is also on my schedule.  After finishing, it was off to the next venue.  I had gotten us a cabin in Leroy-Percy State Park in Mississippi for two days.  I was a bit confused thinking it wasn't too far between day 3 and 4 venues when in fact, we ended up having to drive a little over an hour for day 3 in Arkansas (and my GPS was a bit confused about the route), but got there successfully Monday morning and completed all of day 3 in the rain (photo credit Cynthia Tanzi).

It was fairly chilly as well, so I didn't mind the slightly long drive in the warm car back to Leroy Percy State Park in Mississippi.  I did some work and then had dinner with Deb at her hotel before once again heading back to the park for the night.  We had some confusion about the heating system, leading to the night being fairly cold and reminding me of the night in Florida when Hilda had set the system in the coach to cool for the night and it was 42 when I got up.  It didn't get quite that cold this time, but was still a bit chilly as we got ready.  We didn't have far to go as we were already in the park.  It was a chilly day, but I was still feeling quite strong and finished faster than any of the days before.  There was then a fairly long drive to Winnsboro, LA where I had a lovely Mexican dinner before heading to bed prior to the final race.  The final race had the most loops (22 as opposed to 20 on days 3 and 4 and 12 on days 1 and 2).  I once again felt very strong and pushed a bit for my fastest finish of the series (still turtle slow, but nonetheless).  At this race, Patrick Weldon, a neurologist based in Mississippi finished his 100th race!  He runs to raise money for a great cause http://www.upwithdownsteam.com/ and is another of the Mainly Marathons extended family.

Major props to Clint Burleson and his team/family for putting on these races.  They were super organized and very well supported.  While many runners did all 5 races, several others did 1-4 and volunteered at the ones that they didn't run.  Alexis planned to do her first half marathon ever on day 4.  She ended up doing the full marathon and I think we may have another addict. She supported us at the other 4 races.  Chavet will be doing the Keys 100 in less than a month.  Eddie Vega is working on 50 full marathons Barefoot! in a single year and ran again today (as did at least a few of the others) at the Kentucky Derby Marathon. Sabra Kurth did both running and volunteering and several who did half marathons stayed the rest of the day volunteering.  It is another one of those groups that one is proud to be a part of (and can't quite believe one is).  Following the final event, I got in the car for the long drive back to Nashville and a nice night at a bed and breakfast there before heading home in the morning.  I assembled the medal when I got home - most excellent swag!

Eventing Rocks

This was a COTH post, but I'm putting it up here because I'm too busy to write a new blog.  On the countdown to Marathon craziness.

We are all sad about the loss of two lovely horses this weekend. We feel for their riders, owners, grooms and other connections. Hopefully, those who bash are 1) in the minority and 2) not really eventers because those of us who are eventers know how much we care for our horses (and each other's). A couple things I noticed over the last 48 hours or so:

1) Phillip riding Boyd's horses at the Fork. The fact that everyone just accepts (as lovely, but still not that big a deal) that Phillip would give a competitor's horses a final run so that they might have the opportunity to compete (against him) at Rolex.

2) Posts #7 and #8 here http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/sh...ianapolis-area!

3) Kate Chadderton withdrawing from the Fork to gallop Cole (who had some time off due to a bruise) with full support from the owners of the other horses (Liberty and Buckharo) and then posting on facebook, "my all consuming problem of Cole's bruise seems totally irrelevant now. I'm stopping on the way home to buy my horses some carrots to go with the hugs I'll give them tonight."

4) Sally Cousins winning an advanced and an intermediate (with Minion tape on her xc boots https://www.facebook.com/13930022275...type=1&theater), continuing to take it one step at a time with Taz, giving him time to grow into the big time horse she believes he is capable of being

5) This excellent story on EN http://www.9news.com/story/news/mili...arity/7389389/ 

So: hug your ponies, cheer for your friends, coaches, and competitors, give to support those things that touch your heart (including the USEA Equine Medical Research Fund if you want to help understand more about what contributes to horses dying in our sport) and Go Eventing!!

In which we are still waiting for Spring

March came in like a lion and seems to be going out like a raft of sea lions.  My Aiken season wound down with no more notable accomplishments.  Keegan spent some time grumy about his tummy and then managed to slightly wrench his back.  In between, Sally did ride him around at Sporting Days, which was fabulous.  We're both back in the North now and waiting for Spring.  I've gotten a bit of spring while volunteering.  I enjoyed the weekend at Red Hills as I haven't been back since 2008.  It remains an impressive event, although the new xc course took a toll http://eventingnation.com/home/red-hills-cic3-live-cross-country-updates/.  Still, it was reasonably warm and sunny all weekend.  Last weekend, I volunteered Saturday at Poplar where it started out quite chilly, but warmed up nicely and was sunny through the day.  A lot of the Florida riders were there, although many others were at the Carolina International.  It is pretty cool that there can be two CIC competitions running on the same weekend, with both of them full.  Poplar certainly was.  We ran xc straight through from 8:00 (if I remember correctly) until 5:45 and that was only the preliminary, training, novice and BN horses as the CIC, intermediate and advanced were to run Sunday.

I was not at Poplar for Sunday as I headed into Atlanta to run the Publix Georgia half marathon.  I had originally planned to do the full, but the weather report reported dropping temperatures and rain starting as the day went on, so I decided to go half.  I was glad of the decision as the temperature dropped from 60 degrees and cloudy to 44 and rainy as I moved from start line to finish.  The free cup of tea offered by the Omni was the best thing ever.  I also really liked that the Omni was right at the start/finish line.

Saturday Brigitte, Carli and I spent some time filling in the Blue Hill schedule for dressage shows (schooling and recognized), CTs, schooling jumper shows and recognized and unrecognized events and xc schooling. The board filled up when we got to June (the advantage of SE PA).  I rode Keegan who was wonderful and then hit the Expo for Sunday's half marathon and then Chris' Bachlorette party at the Valley Forge Casino.  It was good fun, although I ducked out early to get some sleep before the run.  It was raining and cold and cold and raining.  I thought, the weather guessers forecast say it will be better tomorrow.

In the morning, I got up and looked at clothes.  It seemed not totally freezing so I put on a short sleeved tech shirt, a long sleeved capilene and my Patagonia Houdini.  Decided I didn't need gloves (major error), but did put a rain hat on under my houdini hood - yes, I looked ridiculous, but my head was dry.  Nothing else stayed that way.  It was barely drizzling at the start and off we went. I tucked my hands into my sleeves, but they never got particularly warm.  My feet got warm somewhere around mile 5 as we went up an unexpected (to me) hill from mile 5 to 6.  Then the rain really picked up and by mile 7, everything was soaked (except my head - combination of hat and hood still working).  By mile 10, I could no longer feel my feet and I have no idea why they though have the last .2 miles be the steepest uphill of the run was a good idea, but there you go.  I finished successfully (2 minutes faster than last weekend) and headed quickly through the finish chutes to walk home.  I was really cold.  And then, thank heaven on the corner about halfway home was a 7-11.  I went in and got a hot chocolate which I clutched between my hands the rest of the way home (I didn't really drink much of it).  Once home, I peeled off all the soggy stuff and slid into a hot bathtub (no need for icing - that was kindly done by mother nature).  I do feel good today, no soreness at all, which I find is true of the colder runs.  Now starting the less than two week countdown to http://mainlymarathons.com/home/riverboat and hopefully the even shorter countdown to some nice spring weather.

In which I stay home, but Keebler and Jordan rock!

The snowpacolypse contines!  I booked three flights, one on Wednesday (SW - fully refundable), one on Thurday (the original plan, regular non-refundable) and one on Friday (using miles).  All three were cancelled, so I got refunds on two and moved the Thursday one (without charges because of the storm) to my final Aiken trip in March.

Eventers being the intrepid lot they are, Paradise Horse Trials went on, despite no power across most of Aiken.  Eventers kept the horses watered and fed (and sometimes themselves as well).  There are still spots of no power.  The house that I rent had no power or water, so maybe it is just as well the weekend was cancelled.  At home, we drank some good wine, ate some yummy food, saw Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (excellent) and exercised a fair bit.

Further south, Rocking Horse took place without drama (why I usually do the winter thing in Florida).  Peter and Henny won wire to wire in the advanced with helmet cam, of course.  And, I was incredibly proud, that Jordan and Keebler won wire to wire in the novice, with a dressage score of 30.5 (which I might have told you was impossible had you asked even 6 months ago).  We're hoping for a guest blog with details of their outing, but meanwhile, Go Jordan!  Go Eventing! and Go far, far away Winter!!

in which Keegan rocks as we tackle the training

Another weekend, another trip to Aiken.  This weekend for the Pine Top Winter event.  Thank goodness, it was much less wintery, with warm and sunny for both Saturday and Sunday. I won't say more about the weather as I feel badly for those trapped in the north, many in our area still without power since Wednesday (power at Chadds Ford went off Wednesday and came back sometime between noon Saturday and noon Sunday).

After an easy flight down to Columbia [sidebar - the tank of gas seemed a decent deal, but with tax it would have added $72 to the rental - filling the tank myself $44 and 2 minutes in the cold and dark Monday morning] and slightly less easy (due to a couple of road closures) drive to Aiken, I arrived at the farm to hear from Sally that their truck had broken down at Pine Top where Sally was running the Intermediate with Wes and Taz.  She didn't get back until after dark, so I prepared as best I could, mostly doing flat work, but adding in just 3 jumps working on the things she has been helping me with. Friday at Pine Top saw many top horses and riders getting their pipe openers. Eventing Nation provided some coverage  They didn't mention that Jan Bynny and Inmidair won a division or that Sarah Dunkerton came 1st and 4th in the intermediate rider division.  Becky Holder was 2nd in the division that Peter Barry won and Boyd was 2nd on Peter Barry's Sir Donovan in the division Jan won, so nice Friday for Peter.  Caitlin and Hoku finished 5th.  Unfortunately, Remi ended up with boots on in the dressage so they had a TE, but were able to jump and had a good day.  Sally and Wes ended up 5th.  Taz did the dressage and sj to see where he was, but Sally decided to save xc for the big event in two weeks. The Full set of scores are provided by xentry.

Saturday morning, Nat Cousins was kind enough to meet me at the farm at 4:30 to take Keegan to Kate Chadderton's place.  Because Sally was not competing over the weekend, Kate was kind enough to offer us a ride.  It was still a bit chilly in the morning at Pine Top when I headed out to check out the cross country course.  It seemed tough enough, but doable to me, although at a speed of 470 m/m, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make time.  The course was open and galloping with some biggish and a few fairly technical questions.  1. very inviting log 2. odd choice I thought as it was a bright yellow and green hay wagon with a big round bale on the left side 3. nice table 4. a. up bank, across to slight down hill to b. big rolltop then a long gallop to  5. another hay wagon, this one with round bales on both sides - straight away to 6. an ascending timber jump in the fence line followed by a 90 degree left turn to 7. the trakehner (in between two water jumps) and then through another gate to 8. the yellow and green corner (a bit more cornerish than some at training, but still a table in reality) then 9. a. filled in box and a 3 stride bending line to b. a rolltop another bit of a gallop to 10. a biggish table (no tables look big after Rocking Horse) and the combination at 11 a. bank up one stride to b. hanging log and 4 strides to c. coop then slight downhill on right turn to the 12. log drop and across the bridge to 13. a. cabin 1 and 4 strides to b. cabin 2 then a gallop through the woods to 14. the bench and 15 a. over a log into the water b. bank out of the water with one stride to c. table with the alligator on it and finishing up over 16. a "hanging log" oxer.  Important to turn 90 degrees right to finish, but everyone got that.  But I'm getting ahead of myself as cross country was not until Sunday.  I took a look at the SJ and then did this and that until it was time to get ready for dressage.  Meanwhile the preliminary was going on.  Check those scores above, but I especially noticed Erin Sylvester's ridiculously cute Paddy the Caddy (who ended up 2nd) and Boyd riding VS McCuan Civil Liberty as Kate was spending her last 72 hours with her jaw wired shut.  I chatted a bit with Lindsey Taylor about the talk she is preparing for an area IV meeting and let Benita Strini know I had bought June from Andria Pooley as they know each other from when Benita bought Cody from Andria.  Got on and headed for warm-up in good time.  Gone was all silliness from last week.  Keegan stood on the trailer quietly (other Bucky and his finding it necessary to grump at each other about sharing a hay net) and was quiet and focused as we headed to warm-up.  I was very pleased with our test, it felt a huge performance improvement over last weekend.  In the way of dressage, my subjective opinion and the judge's did not match and I got the same score as last weekend.  Her overall comment "Talented horse and determined rider...have the potential to be competitive with more understanding of dressage basics."  Well then, dressage boot camp will wait until April, but it will be happening.  Unaware of this, I got ready for SJ and headed over.  Thanks to Molly Rosin for watching my warm-up and making sure I didn't ride backwards.  SJ was great.  There was the moment when I made the turn from fence 2 to fence 3 completely wrong.  Keegan would have been well within his rights to stop and possibly dump me in protest, but being Keegan, he just did his best, barely taking a rail.  The rest of the course, I did a better job of staying out of his way and he was great.  Saturday evening Curran Simpson hosted a barbeque.  I didn't stay long, but enjoyed meeting some more eventers and having a yummy dinner.

Sunday morning was a couple of hours later.  Kate picked us up at 6:30 and we headed back to Pine Top.  I walked the course again with Rhiannon Bosma, Kate's working student who rode Buckhard (owned by Beth Sokhol).  Then a bit later, Kate walked the course with both of us.  It all seemed doable, but I was very nervous about it.  I kept reminding myself that we had several successful training outings under our belt girth  whatever and this one shouldn't be any different.  My goals were to ride forward and stay balanced.  Mostly this worked out well.  Keegan didn't look at anything, except in a "I've got this, let me at it way"  The "scary" green and yellow #2 was completely ho - hummm.  He did go more slowly than might have been optimal to the big rolltop following the bank (I'm pretty sure there were a couple of trot steps in there), but the scope button made it a non-issue.  Then super to 5, 6, 7, 8.  9 was surprisingly easy as several people (Kate included) said it was the toughest thing on course.  10 and 11 (picture) super, 12 excellent jump, but enough of a drop that I was a bit unseated on landing - luckily the balance kicked in.  Keegan was suspicious of the bridge, so there were more trotting steps, then on to easily tackle 13, 14, the water and the finish.  I had been a bit concerned about having enough power through and out of the water, but Keegan was a champ, totally on his game.  I'm hoping there will be pictures of those.  Pictures aren't fully posted yet, but should end up here.  And amazingly, while we had time faults, we only had 5.6 or 14 seconds slow.  My prior time faults at training were 43, 34, 19.6 and 16 so while I had been getting faster, this was a big jump in speed, especially realizing that this course was running a 470 while all the others were at 450.  In fact, doing a bit of math said our average speed was right on 450 m/m, so I was really pleased.  Thanks to Sally for her help in getting us to this point halfway through our winter training. Sunday evening was pizza at the Juvonen's lovely place in Aiken.  Densey and Ron throw a great party and it was great to hear other stories of the weekend at Pine Top and of other horses, plans and adventures. Eventers rock and event horses even more so.

in which my eventing season gets underway

Back to Aiken.  As I arrive I get a text from Sally. "The footing seems to be thawing here, can you jump around 5:30?"  Sure, no problem on the scheduling, but waiting for the footing to thaw - in Aiken?!  There is something wrong with this picture.  Still, I got there, lunged a bit, but Keegan was very quiet.  Sally said there had been much silly behavior, but the two OTTBs, Finn (Folk Hero) and Keegan got the good behavior stars for the day. We had a great jumping lesson, continuing to focus on quicker reactions times on landing, keeping control of the shoulder (especially when turning to the left) and finding the right pace.  Keegan was jumping fantastically, and I was starting to feel more in sync.  Friday, I did flat work on my own, which went well and then jumped a little more with Sally.  We didn't want to overdo, although to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever seen Keegan tired. Saturday was Sporting Days.  An early start as Sally's first ride was around 8:00.  The weather was not terribly cooperative.  Forecasts had suggested clouds, with relatively warm weather and then rain late in the afternoon.  Instead, the rain started almost immediately.  I went off to walk the last fence of my course.  I had walked on Friday afternoon, but peeled off after fence 16 (of 17) to take a look at the training course and never walked to the final fence, so I did that and checked a couple of other lines (don't want a repeat of Radnor).  There was still snow on the shady side of a couple of the ramps and houses, rather surprising. A little soggy, I headed back.  Keegan decided that Wizard was his very bestest friend and that he couldn't possibly stand on the trailer without Wizard.  Never mind that Stash was standing on the trailer with him perfectly well behaved.  So, I took him off, walked him a while, lunged him a while and then when Wizard got back from dressage, put him back on.  Then when Wizard went to jump we repeated, but this time, I went ahead and got on after a brief lunge and started warming up for dressage.  Keegan wasn't hot, but he seemed pretty distracted the whole time.  He was responsive, but tight.  This showed up in our test even after an hour (and he wasn't tired at all, in fact kept getting better).  The judge said that we had lovely moments (and we did), but they were marred by moments of screaming and staring back at the trailer during the downward transition to walk and other moments of distraction.  We ended up with our worst score to date, but were not in last place as the scoring was fairly tough in the division.   Mary Coldren was kind enough to move my jumping time up so that I could be available to volunteer late in the day in case anyone was getting too cold or just had to leave.  Jumping was perfect!  My position, especially in the SJ stills leaves a fair bit to be desired, but Keegan jumped everything easily and happily (several people commented on how happy he looked).  Ditto on the xc.  The fences all seemed pretty trivial and I was able to concentrate on trying to go on the faster side and steer.  I got a little tired around fence 13 and backed off a little, but we still finished 35 seconds under the optimum time, so I was pleased.  The clear jumping moved us up from 10th to 6th, so I even got to bring home a ribbon.  Keegan was neither blowing nor particularly sweating when I got him back to the trailer.  I'm pretty sure he was ready to go another three or four times.  I'm still deciding about pictures, but you can see them here at the GRC Photo site.   Thanks Gary and team for being out in that undesirable weather all day.  Once Keegan was back on the trailer, I headed over to see if they needed me to volunteer and finished up the day as the stadium steward for the beginner novice.  I had the fun of watching Amanda complete a picture perfect round on a very cute pony along with several other nice rounds and lots of smiles across the board.  The Cairn O'Mount team had a great day and it was fun to see them.  Sally finished up with Hannah's Stash in the BN (since poor Hannah is out of the saddle for a bit after a fluke accident). We headed back to the farm and I headed for a hot shower and dinner, very pleased with our first outing of the year.

Birthday Blog

Being in Aiken instead of Florida this year meant no birthday weekend competition.  Actually, that was mostly the result of being a cold weenie as Full Gallop did run this weekend.  Sally had two novice horses, her own Tommy and Hannah Ong's handsome Stash.  My Aiken weekend was great.  Friday was much colder than it is supposed to be in a southern state. I believe the high was in the neighborhood of 33 degrees.  The horses did notice this and there was quite a bit of leaping about on the part of many, including Keegan.  Once we started jumping, he settled right down and we had a great lesson focusing on reacting quickly after the jump to be well set up for the next.  Using both hands and legs to steer around corners and continuing to remember to go forward to the jumps.  Sally is very impressed by how well Keegan does the figure 8 over the jump exercise landing smoothly on either lead.  Thanks to Hilda for working with us on that exercise from the start of Keegan's jumping career.  After the lesson I headed downtown to Aiken Yoga.  It is great having a real yoga studio in Aiken.  Sydney Hayday and Amy Borun were both there as well, so in addition to the cold, that made Aiken feel more like Pennsylvania.

Saturday was more yoga, some work and then cross country schooling at Sandy Hills.  It had warmed up a bit, but the gale force significant wind made for the coldest version of 50 degrees.  Sally brought Wizard along for his first school of the new year.  Interestingly, there was almost no jumpiness despite the wind.  I think it was bothering us (the riders) more than the horses. Apparently, the wind knocked the rust right off as the school went super well for both horses.  Keegan jumped everything without a second glance and all from great distances.  I even got myself going forward after the first couple.  It was a lot of fun.  Sally paid Keegan a huge compliment (she had taken him schooling a couple weeks ago), saying that by her (very high) standards, he qualified as a really fun cross country horse.  I can't disagree at all and while he would be a great horse for anyone, I think he fits my needs incredibly well having all the attributes of being quiet, able to take a joke, think for himself and bail me out without holding a grudge - and being good enough at it that Sally said she didn't really see any fences where he had to take a joke...

Sunday, Sally was at Full Gallop, so after a couple of hours of work while I waited for it to warm up a little, I met Caitlin for a dressage lesson.  It was quite pleasantly warm and the wind had headed for some alternate venue (possibly Chicago from what I heard later). We had a great dressage lesson, with much use of the half step approach to get Keegan's trot more correct.  His canter transitions were quite good.  Caitlin said she thought that his trot was going to be quite good once he figured out what to do with his front legs when he was actively pushing from behind. So that was a great success.  We also had lunch and time for more horse gossip.

After another relatively uneventful trip home (the flight was about 30 minutes late), I watched a little of the Pro Bowl. Nick Foles ended up being the MVP which is pretty good for a 2nd year, third round pick. I totally missed the Grammys somehow, but heard about it through friends and facebook.  I was glad to hear Macklemore won best new artist and heard the singing might not have been the best, but the thought behind having same-sex marriages serended by Same Love definitely was. I also liked seeing Darius Rucker win best country solo and the Skyfall soundtrack win.

Yesterday was my birthday.  I started the day with a spin class at Body Cycle Studio.  I miss getting there regularly so it was nice to be in the city for Russell's class on a Monday morning.  Then Henry and I had breakfast at the Four Seasons.  Perfect way to start the day. Work was pretty usual and then dinner at a new BYOB in Philly called Entree.  It was fairly good and the bottle of Laurent-Perrier Cuvee Rose was fabulous as always.

As I kicked off my new year (fairly coincident with the Chinese New Year of the Horse) on my yoga mat, it was easy to feel thankful for the blessings of wonderful friends and family, engaging work, rewarding hobbies (that bring more friends) and hopeful that the year to come will bring more of the same and excellent adventures to report in this space.