We made sure to do a little warm up before the ride this time, but as we walked towards the starting line we were told to wait as there had been an incident on the track. It turned out to be a rider who had taken a fall and the road was blocked by an ambulance. I still don't know the outcome but we were told that an ambulance helicopter left without him or her so we concluded that it couldn't be too serious. I'm hoping they were just being very precocious and that the rider was alright.
The wait gave us a chance to warm up some more and even pop to the loo one last time. When we eventually set off Juniblest seemed very inspired by the arabians in front of him considering his rather airy trot and despite all my attempts to calm him down slightly (a very unusual situation for both of as lazy as he can be sometimes!) he just wanted to take off like a space ship!
He just kept going and going, and clearly leap frogging other riders and even large groups helped maintain this feistiness. I'll remember that for future rides ;)
We even had a little race against two other riders (+ Anna and Rosie of course) just as we came towards the finishing line laughing. Juniblest was about to win when he decided the line itself was scary enough to shy away from or that he should wait for Rosie or something like that, and we were beaten by a huge black horse. Typical! ... =)
Anna and I knew we did a great ride but as none of us are brilliant mathematicians we couldn't really figure out what speed we had done - and the surprise was huge when we got the Rufus score sheets back showing 11.6 km/h! Yippeeee =D Probably not a good speed for a pro, but a LOT faster than last month's ride and definitely the fastest ride we've done so far. With a heart rate of 48 bpm I'd say this was a brilliant end of a fantastic season where I've learned a lot. Next time I'll try not to race someone towards the end in order to get a lower heart rate ;)
Anyway - picture time!
Getting ready:
The venue:
Even my saddle had sweaty patches:
A well deserved roll and a hippy shake:
Shake it to the left...
...Shake it to the right...
...Do the hippy shake shake with all of your might...
...Oh baby!
11.6!
Rosette!
Anna letting Juniblest out of the van
'Yes, you're allowed to get out now'
Pictures of us somewhere along the track are on their way - I just have to buy them off the photographer first.
Hope you enjoyed reading, I'll write more soon (ish)!
cool blog, I've decided to follow your every step.
SvarSlett-Thea and her own Northland Pony from Norway :)