Episode 291- Lessons Learned on the Trail and Foal Update

Episode 291- Lessons Learned On The Trail And Foal Update: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 291- Lessons Learned On The Trail And Foal Update: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Stacy Westfall:
It's strange to be riding out of my driveway without having started some kind of an app or mileage tracker to count how far I'm riding today.

Announcer:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Stacy Westfall:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I'm here to help you understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In today's podcast, I'm out on the trail riding Willow, and I'd like to give you a Tevis Cup update and basically recap my experience with choosing to do the Tevis and some of the things that I learned that I think will be applicable to you and any goal that you might set, including if you want to still join the Tevis ride. So for those of you who are new to the Tevis concept, in case you haven't listened to those podcasts, the original Tevis Cup or the Tevis Cup is an endurance ride that takes place within a 24 hour period. The Tevis Cup Virtual, which is what I'm talking about, is a benefit ride that takes place over 100 days. In both situations, the goal is to ride 100 miles, so 100 miles in 24 hours is the actual Tevis, and the Tevis virtual is 100 miles in 100 days. And this competition for the virtual began back April 10th, 2024. And Willow and I have completed the 100 miles now, and Presto and I have completed the 100 miles now. So when I started out in the challenge, I knew that I probably would ride that many miles, but I wasn't quite sure because I'd never actually tracked my miles in the arena. Although I do typically track my miles out on the trail, so I figured I'd be able to learn a lot by doing it.

Stacy Westfall:
The virtual Tevis challenge came at a perfect time for me, not just because April happens to be the beginning of when I can really get out on the trails and ride, but it was also perfect timing for me because of some of the things that were going on in my life at that time. I actually just went to get my hair cut a few days ago, and I said to the hairdresser, I don't understand what happened. How did I get so far off? I haven't seen you since January. And then as soon as I spoke it, I thought, oh, that's right. I remember what happened to my entire spring. The orphan foals happened to my entire spring. So in case you haven't heard those podcasts, my husband's mare died after giving birth, leaving us with one orphan and orphan. Foals don't do well alone. So we adopted a second orphan. Since I brought up the orphans. I'll give you a little update on Lefty and Stormy. They are both doing amazing. They're a little over three months old now. We are just starting to wean them off from the liquid milk replacer and replacing that with a milk pellet milk replacer. It's still mind boggling to me that when I say we're weaning them off from it, we cut them back from drinking 20 gallons that is shared, but 20 gallons of milk replacer a day.

Stacy Westfall:
Now they're down to 15 gallons of milk replacer a day, and they are slowly eating more and more of the milk pellets, which at this point they are actually eating 5 pounds of milk pellets a day in addition to the 15 gallons of milk. Let's just say they look really good and healthy. They are not lacking for calories at the moment, when they are completely weaned off from the liquid milk replacer and they're eating just the pelleted milk replacer, they're supposed to have an unlimited amount free choice access to it. So that will be actually kind of exciting to see what numbers they get up to consuming. They are also eating hay very regularly, and they finally figured out that the grass in the pasture is the same as the grass that I was picking and putting in the bucket. For the longest time, they would only eat grass that I picked and put in the bucket, and they would not eat it out of the field. But thankfully they finally figured that out. So they spend the sunny, nice days out eating grass and grazing, as well as eating us out of house and home with liquid milk and milk pellet replacer. So my spring has been spent raising orphans, and when the Tevis virtual came along, I felt like many of my original. Plans had been put aside because I had chosen the orphan path.

Stacy Westfall:
But I really do love having a goal. And I knew that the Tevis was going to be a perfect complement to both my spring situation and anything that I would want to do later in the year, because riding my horses 100 miles would get us all fit. So the very first success for me with the Tevis Virtual was having a specific, measurable goal that I knew supported my future goals. I was curious when I began the challenge to see not only how many miles I typically rode, but also if it was going to change my behavior at all. And it definitely did. Number one, it changed my behavior because tracking my mileage in my indoor arena was a challenge. The Garmin watch that I use wasn't very accurate. It kept shutting off the mileage. It would act like I hadn't gone any miles after riding for 45 minutes, as well as all of the other apps that I tried, whether it's because I was in my indoor, whether it's because there's such low service even though I have good Wi-Fi in there. I'm not sure why, but none of the trackers were accurate when I rode indoors, and because of that, I ended up changing my behavior quite a bit. I aimed, first of all, to do more of my rides outside on the trail, which is amazing unless the weather doesn't want to hold up and cooperate.

Stacy Westfall:
But the other thing that it did was when I rode inside. It changed my behavior during my inside rides because I was having to do math to calculate how far I was going, which meant that I was timing different portions of my ride so I would know how many minutes of trot I had done, how many minutes of walk I had done, how many minutes of Canter I had done. So I noticed it changed my intention during my indoor rides, which was not something I had planned at the beginning of the ride. That's actually probably one of the things I would change if I do this again next year. Or should I say when I do this again next year? I would actually probably just track my outside miles. A few people told me that they basically weren't counting their arena miles, they were only counting miles on the trail, and that would be something I might consider for next year, just because I changed the way that I rode so much inside, that I would rather have kept my indoor rides more of training specific rides instead of what I call timed rides. And I ended up instead this year doing them as timed rides so that I would be able to mathematically calculate how many miles I'd gone. One thing I did learn, however, from calculating my inside rides is that I do ride more miles, or at least more miles in the same amount of time, because basically I ride faster when I'm in my indoor.

Stacy Westfall:
I think the reason for this is because I tend to do a fair amount at the trot in the Canter, and when I'm out here on the trails, I mix in a lot more walking. So it was interesting for me to track the inside miles and to feel what that felt like, because I'm pretty confident that if I set up a video camera just plain rode, like I was schooling and training for either dressage or reining, I believe that if I then backwards watch the video and broke out the minutes of walk, the minutes of trot, and the minutes of Canter, I believe that those sessions would cover even more miles inside than what was reflected this year, because instead, this year I opted to say trot for five minutes Canter for five minutes. I was doing it structured more towards the time than towards, say, preparing for a reining competition or a dressage competition. I do think I will do some of that math over the summer just for fun, especially if I haul to some outdoor arenas where maybe the tracking would work and I wouldn't have to actually sit down and rewatch the entire ride, breaking it out minute by minute, because I'm really sort of resistant to doing that much work to figure this out. But I think that's something I would switch out if I were to do it again, or when I do it again next year.

Stacy Westfall:
One of my favorite aspects of the Tevis challenge was actually the fact that we were all doing it as a team, the fact that we could have team members and that they have a Facebook page dedicated to the Tevis Virtual. I really enjoyed watching the other riders as they posted pictures of where they were riding. There was a mini that had more miles logged in the first few weeks than I did, and I was so impressed. I've really enjoyed watching everybody as they post their mileage and the milestones that have been unlocked, the way that the virtual challenge is set up. Is stellar. I really enjoyed logging my miles and having it unlock certain mile points along the actual Tevis ride. It gave me a much more in-depth look into the actual 24 hour Tevis than I've ever had before, because it really did feel like I was getting to know it mile by mile as milestones were unlocked. So if you haven't checked it out, definitely go over either on the Facebook page or the Tevis Cup website, and look up the either actual Tevis records, or look at the virtual and check out the different places that the trail travels. It really is amazing. So much history and so much history that you can learn while riding horseback.

Stacy Westfall:
Because a large number of people joined my team. I was also able to talk with a lot of people who had not planned ahead to do this, but jumped in and decided to go ahead when I started posting about it, and that's been really fun to hear their take on it, because again, I was pretty confident that I was going to ride this number of miles by default by what I normally do. But what's been really fun to hear are the stories reported by people who have never tracked their miles before and started tracking because they were riding the virtual Tevis, and some of the things that they've discovered. First of all, they discovered that, you know, maybe they weren't riding as many miles as they would have guessed before, so they stepped it up. And what they've noticed for side effects have been pretty impressive. They're bodyworkers. So chiropractors or massage therapists or even veterinarians have noticed a difference in their horses because of the intentional mileage that they are aiming to rack up. Other people have told me that their horses behavior has changed, which again, can happen when you step up the amount of work and that intention and you begin to ride with that real focus, it's amazing how that actually transfers over to ending up with a horse that is more focused. So I love that people were reporting physical changes in their horses as far as more sound less issues, when the chiropractor or massage or body workers came to work on them, the vets being impressed with their improved weight, their improved muscle tone, and then the behavioral aspect of it.

Stacy Westfall:
Also, that's a lot of really good reasons to set a specific, measurable goal that gets you and your horse out there and moving. Another aspect of having done this in a specific time frame, with a very measurable goal of 100 miles and in a large group, is that it's been fascinating to see how everybody has approached it. I talked in some previous podcasts about how there can be a temptation to rush when you set a specific goal like this, and many people reported that same feeling. It's also worked out to be a really great time frame because with it being 100 miles over 100 days, it's a long enough goal that you may start out a little bit rushed, but it gives you actually enough time to settle in. So for contrast, if it had been a ten mile goal, that would have been something that you could have rushed and probably maintained that rushing energy for. But I really think that the 100 mile goal made it a little bit more likely that riders were going to discover that ability to settle in. This definitely seemed to happen more with riders who had never tracked their mileage before. Which makes sense, because without a concept of how far you're riding, it is a little bit challenging to anchor into how much time you're going to need to dedicate to this goal that you signed up for.

Stacy Westfall:
So I think that people who repeat this goal again next year would probably have a completely different experience of it, if this year was the first time that you'd done it, and you've never tracked miles before. And if you're listening to this in between this year's Tevis and next year's Tevis, that's something you can keep in mind is you might want to track a few of your rides now so that you can find out how far you happen to ride on a casual ride, and what you may have to adjust or not, in order to hit the 100 miles in 100 days. There are some people who have had the opposite experience with doing it. I actually know one rider who hit pause and stopped tracking her mileage, because she actually plans on hauling over with a friend and riding that last portion of the miles that she submits on the actual Tevis trail. So it's been interesting to watch all the different responses that people have to tracking miles, getting miles, finishing at a certain amount of time. So I think overall the challenge had lots of physical challenges involved, but also a fair number of mental challenge. Challenges that have been very educational to different riders.

Stacy Westfall:
As I record this podcast, there's still well over a month left in the Tevis virtual for submitting miles for the virtual Tevis. And in fact, somebody just joined team Westfall. Hi, K. Thanks for joining. Which means that you could still enter if you wanted to. I know for me, it was great timing to have a goal that was going to fit with raising two orphans and getting my horses in shape while supporting a great cause. So whether you are just learning about it, whether you are participating now, or whether you are listening and considering participating in the future, I would highly encourage you to give something like this a try 100 miles in 100 days, especially if you do it in a group of people where you can support each other, cheer each other on, see all the creative ways that people are approaching something like this and at the same time supporting a great cause. I am so glad that Denny Emerson posted about this on his Facebook page, so that I could learn about it and give it a try, and I hope someday you also give it a try too. You can actually enter with or without a horse riding or leading your horse, so there are many ways that you can participate. And as I said, K just joined. You could too. That's what I have for you this week. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Announcer:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit StacyWestfall.com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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