2011 Ride Season Goals

A new ride season has begun! I have been perusing the ride calendar and I am quite excited at the prospects. Of course, not all the rides for the year are yet calendared, which makes planning my season a little more of a challenge. Still, I have a rough plan and my goals in mind.

1. Complete 500 miles in 50+ mile rides
   
2. Complete two multi-day rides
   
3. Complete one 75 mile ride (or greater)
   
4. Have Hoss's heart rate coming down to criteria within five minutes of entering vet checks
   

So far, I have a rather grander set of rides laid out than I have a goal of completing. I am planning to do Death Valley. Initially, I planned to do the Limited Distance, and that is how I entered the ride. Since then, I have been giving much more thought to doing the endurance distances. At this point, I'm thinking of it as if I am going to do the endurance distances. Should we actually do that, and complete all four days, that will give us 200 miles toward our 500 mile goal before the first month of the ride season is over. I have also mailed my entry for Warner Springs, which is on January 8, one week after Death Valley. If we complete all four days of Death Valley, I have no doubts Hoss can do another 50 in a week. That's really not too much to expect.

I put into my personal calendar the Twenty Mule Team ride. There is a 100 mile ride at this event, and it's a reasonably flat, easy ride. It's not really where I want to attempt my first 100. I'd like to do that at Git R Done. Git R Done is not on the calendar yet. I anticipate that it will be calendared, and if it is, we will either forgo Twenty Mule Team altogether or do the 65 mile ride. Git R Done is an elevator ride. That being the case, if we do that, I will enter the 75 mile ride with aspirations of elevating to the 100.

I have two other multi day rides, the Cuyama Oaks Pioneer and Lost Padres rides. These are a three day and two day ride, respectively. Whether I do either of these rides will depend upon Git R Done. Cuyama is in March, Lost Padres in April. Git R Done, at least insofar as I have seen, has been done in April. If we do Git R Done, we will forgo both of these multi days in favor of attempting a 100 mile ride.

With the rides I have on my calendar, I have 655 miles planned out before June. I don't expect to actually do all of the rides I have listed. That's a bit much! If we were to actually keep on that pace, we'd do over 1000 miles this season. Well, Hoss is just 6 years old. I'm not ready to push him *quite* that hard yet. I will therefore have to continue to tweak my calendar to stay in line with my goals as rides are posted.

Completing two multi-day rides should be highly doable. Death Valley will be our first multi-day and our first ride of the 2011 season. After that, the next multi-day is yet to be decided for certain. I do want it to be at least three days.

Getting Hoss's conditioning corrected so that he comes down to criteria more readily is my biggest challenge for the year. I will continue with the strategy of long walking trail rides with shorter, faster ones in between. The real challenge is in finding the time to get enough hours in. Adding to the problem, I am very likely facing surgery to repair my left shoulder. How much that will limit me, how long I will need to recover, I have yet to know. I am hoping, however, to work that in to my schedule! I can always have somebody else ride Hoss while I recover!