Fitness for Equestrians: Spring-Summer '20 Challenge

Hey there! I am an equestrian looking to get in better shape.

I do endurance on my Morgan. Would love to be a part of your group!

My main goals right now are to lose weight because I'd like to be lighter on my horse. Life is weird right now in the covid-age. Endurance events in my area have mostly been canceled this summer, and I stress ate a whole bunch over the last few months, causing me to be way heavier than I'd like to be for a ride.

Right now I am not able to ride much, unfortunately. I'd like to be riding 3x a week, but my husband has been out of town for work and I'm at home with our two young children, trying to telecommute. I am lucky enough to have my horses at home, so it's easy to head out on a ride, but that also comes with a lot of work. I do get to see my horses everyday though.

My little herd is a 14 year old Morgan gelding, a retired 30 year old Morgan/Quarter gelding, a BLM burro, and a Welsh pony (Section C) who belongs to my children. I also do retirement boarding for another old quarter horse.

I think I'll think about it and set some realistic riding and fitness goals, and I'll be back!

Good morning, I am envious of the arena riding right now, I would love to play around in an arena. Even though I'm not much of an arena rider, I do like it every now and again. Having my horses at home means I don't have an arena, although I can haul to several close by. But, both are closed right now due to covid. One is the fairgrounds so they have strict rules, and the other is a friend's barn but she runs a big boarding facility and is only allowing boarders in right now. Makes sense.

I do a lot of horse camping in the summer, and I've got lots of reservations lined up. I'm hoping they don't get canceled too! My kids are 5 and 7 and just getting started riding. This summer was the big plan to get them up and riding, so I bought the pony in February. He is an older pony and an absolute saint.

Thanks for the reminder about SMART goals.

Goal for today: is to log all my food and have a deficit.
My goals for the week are:
Lose a pound
Yoga 5x (2/5 done)
Cardio 5x (1/5 done)
Pony time with the kids 3x (1/3 done)
Ride my horse at least once

Cardio for me is a run or a hike. I find the yoga is pretty sufficient for strength training for me. I only have the weekends to ride right now because my husband is out of town for work and it's just me home on our farm with 5 horses and the kids, plus trying to work from home, plus the mandated distance learning thing.

The kids and the pony is actually a lot of work.

I will post pictures of my herd soon! Have a great day horse friends.

I'm starting to finally feel better. I ponied my daughter on the POA yesterday and got 15 min of real dressage in at the end after she was done. Raining this morning so not sure I'll get a hack in or not this afternoon.

Got closer to a real ride in yesterday. Longer warm up and cool down for me to take it easy. Did some light grid work and that got me winded and coughing again. I guess my body will force the slow recovery. Frosty was feeling Ms. confident. I love that mare, hot thing that she is. I need to start challenging her and keep her thinking so we both don't get complacent.

@Lhasandme the derby field sounds like so much fun! I am also jealous of all your arena work and 4x a week riding! Once the fairgrounds opens up in my county I am definitely hauling in for a ride.

@MomLarisa I am so glad you feel better! I see that you have kids riding too? I love POAs a good friend of mine raised both her girls on POAs. They are such a great size, too, her girls now are 15 and 13 and still able to ride them. I am thinking our next pony after my kids transition off the little Welsh will be a POA.

@MomLarisa I'm sorry you continue to feel winded. I hope it gets better, soon. I'm sure your daughter appreciated the riding time, though. How old is your daughter and how long has she been riding? The reasons you like your POA are exactly why I want a POA for our next kids' horse- I'd love something that adults can hop on too. Our little Welsh is really a starter pony, my kids were pretty timid around big horses and I needed something so super safe. Mine are pretty little, my daughter just turned 5 and my son is 7. My son is getting more confident with such a nice pony and he will ride by himself now. It's great I can just throw them on and they can just ride, he is so cooperative and listens to anyone however small or inexperienced. If he feels them get shaky up there, he just stops. We don't have the best time ponying though, when he's being ponied he tends to slow waaaay down and my arm gets pulled out of the socket practically just dragging him along. Haha. Another reason for a POA I guess!

@Lhasandme I always try to do too much. I am really consistent with getting my exercise in, but I really need to focus more on my weight loss. I tend to overeat. I've got a lot of weight to lose, too, about 40 lbs to get to a healthy BMI. Last year when I was training for endurance I lost 20 lbs but when the fall hit and ride season was over, I gained it all back which I am totally not proud of at all. I really want to focus on getting to a healthy weight before the end of the year. Thanks for the reminder about the water- I could really be better at that.