With Barbara heading to Florida, Lauren and I are "taking over" while she is away. Most importantly, I will be keeping her horses in training. In preparation, Barb and I have been working together with all of the horses... so throughout the week, I watch her lessons and she works me through riding all of her horses so I know what to focus on.

This means that I have been riding (in lessons, no less!) almost all of her horses and all of my horses in training! I LOVE it and feel like my riding has matured by about 3 years in a month!

But... Saturday morning, I felt like I could barely lift my arms. Let alone ride in a lesson. The warmup was not so great and I finally rode through it, but it wasn't award-winning :/

Learning experience of the day: When I got on the next horse, I felt fine! My muscles felt somewhat loose and warmed up and I could actually ride!

I was reminded of something I learned from a baseball pitcher. His coach told him, the day after he had pitched a hard game, to run. Why? To release the lactic acid buildup from his pitching muscles with exercising less-used/tired muscles.

My new goal, tip for myself: After days that I know my butt is getting kicked, make sure to exercise before I get on my first horse. Not just warmup, but exercise until I feel loose... I will report back when I figure out how much that means. Maybe running to the barn in the morning (just kidding! That is 35 miles!).

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