Having seen the earlier post from Louise Rich on her Cirencester ride, Ally Knight emailed me to ask if she could submit a report on her Cirencester ride; 'Of course', I said in reply. Am loving hearing how you are all getting on with your rides this year, here is her report -
'When I read that the Cirencester ride was back on the calender and included in its schedule was a 65km class for novices that had not yet upgraded to open, I decided that must be my plan
for the year ahead.
I had planned for Gypsy to upgrade at the
beginning of the season as she was easily coping with the faster speed the
season before, but instead decided to wait until Cirencester. The
qualification to enter was to have successfully completed 3 rides between
30 - 50km in the current year. Due to work commitments I could only go to 3 rides
before Cirencester, so there was a lot of hoping and praying things went well at
each one. I decided there was no point doing any more mileage than I had to,
so I entered the 30km at each ride. Gypsy went really well at each one and kept
up good speeds with good finishing heart rates. I had to submit my entry to Cirencester
before my third ride so it became nail biting stuff at the third
ride as she went to vet; thumbs up, we'd done it, Cirencester here we
come.
Ride day. 6am we left home and arrived at a very chilly Cirencester venue at
7.30. Would we be using all that ice we had bought with us? I went off to collect
my number, check for route changes and vetgate hold time, while Hubby claimed a
space at the vet gate for our buckets/water/spare tack etc. We vetted at 8.30, with a heart rate of 43, her lowest of the year! Finding myself parked next to Gaynor Rose, whom I had
ridden the last couple of kilometres with at Barbury, we decided to to set off
together and see how it went.
So Garmin
set, watch set, for 5 1/2 hours of riding time, optimum time 12kph, we set
off on the black route of 35km. The route was easy going
and we cantered a lot of it, which was great as it kept our speed up around
13kph, however we were very grateful to see our crew at each crewing point for
lots of sloshing. At the last crewing point we fed Gypsy to keep her energy
levels up, something we always do, roughly half way round. Into the park
we went, still mostly cantering, knowing there was plenty of watering points on
route. The marking was excellent and 2 hours 32 mins later we arrived at the
vetgate. It was getting hot by this time so we decided to use the iced water
and 11 mins later we handed our card to the vet steward, vetted at 60 and still
full of beans to trot up. Back to our hold area for a 30 minute break where
we fed Gypsy again and she drank well, the time flew past and in no time we
were tacking up again to head off to the time keeper and off out onto the
green 30km route.
Gypsy being the least tired we let her lead the way.
The green route started roughly the same, then took us further out
into the country, again we were very glad to see our crew as the heat was
starting to get to us. We kept up a good speed until the last watering
point where we lingered for too long and lost a bit of time which meant the last
5km had to be ridden at a canter all the way home. Gypsy was happy to steam
ahead taking Gaynor`s horse with us.
Crossing the finish line just over the
12kph optimum time we went back to the trailer get ready for the final
vetting.
Using iced water again we sloshed and scraped until her heart rate was in the
early 50`s then decided to vet in case the heat pushed it up again. She vetted at
54bpm and with an enthusiastic trot up we got a thumbs up from the vet.
I was absolutely
delighted, gave big hugs all round and Gypsy was well fit to continue which is what
its all about. My finishing time was 11.89kph which meant I came 2nd! I was totally amazed at this especially as it was my first 65km.
So what's
next? Watch this space next year.'
Ally Knight
Wow, well done Ally and Gypsy, sounds like you had a fabulous end to the season, and just to prove it, here they are collecting their rosettes. A very well done indeed from all of us at -http://160kminoneday.blogpsot.co.uk
Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThank you, the girl's did good!
ReplyDelete"Your" ride routines and "our" ride routines are so similar...but it's fun to find the differences. Thanks for the reports!
ReplyDeleteThanks AareneX, glad you are enjoying the reports, me too!
ReplyDelete