What a lovely spring morning.

I didn't take any pictures of it, just enjoyed a fun 6 mile ride on Shade. Mia felt good this morning. She went a mile out with us and took herself the mile home while Ole tagged along as Shade and I did an extra 4 mile loop before going the mile home. I'm trying to keep more of a conditioning pace when we ride and I feel like Shade and I did well at that today. Someday I should start using the GPS gizmo mom got me for Christmas to really track pace and mileage when I ride. I just hate adding that extra monkey work to my fun though.

Today I asked Shade to maintain a trot for 2.5 miles with just a few 10-20 yard stretches of walking for short rocky sections etc. and a bit of canter at the end. Shade is getting really good about this too. I've had a bad habit of letting the horses drop to a walk to look at stuff or just because and I'm trying to break this habit and actually achieve some conditioning when I ride, as well as riding more miles than the last few years because I really want to complete 155 miles in 3 days at my favorite ride July 4-6. Then we walked through the CRP field with lots of pocket gopher digging and prairie dogs although I think the dogs are not over by the fence where I ride. Then we trotted some more and sprinted up our few hundred yards hill.

I really tried to keep my feet under my knees instead of letting them creep in front and also worked on sitting on my seat bones instead of rolling too far forward so my back stays flatter like V worked on with me in our lesson on sunday. Riding in the LJ and really working on trying to ride correct on my shorter weekday rides seems to be really helping me handle the longer rides on the weekends. Its nice not to be thinking 'well Shade is just well warmed up and could go double this distance but I'm too tired and need to just get home and collapse'.

Ride season starts Apr 26th and Shade and I will be tired afterwards; as I'm not achieving the weekly miles needed to cruise through a ride with ease but we are getting there. I feel good that by July we will be at that point and it will be only a bit of a stretch to ask ourselves to repeat the next 2 days.