Despite the weather doing it's best to thwart us I've managed for the last few weeks to get Raf out 3 times a week. Our 'training' routes are all 5-6 miles and I started by walking with periods of trot and we are now trotting with periods of walk and short canters.
I've got Endomondo on my phone and am finding it very informative - not only can I track distance and speed but I can see whether I'm managing to attain a steady pace - Raf has been very keen recently and I've been struggling to get him to trot at a sensible speed, but I think I'm winning.
At the moment we're doing an average speed of just over 6 miles an hour over our route. How does that sound? I can't really canter more as a lot of the route is on roads. We're only aiming to start with pleasure rides and maybe some small competitive rides towards the end of the season. That was our aim last year as well, but awful summer followed by a lameness issue meant that we only managed to do two rides the whole seaons.
Hi just to clarify a bit further, EGB operates metrically, the minimum speed for a novice is 8km an hour. If you are achieving a steady 6 miles an hour then that converts to over 9.5km an hour (9.7km/h), so you are easily covering the ground fast enough. Hope you have a lovely season - I think we all missed out last year with all the rain.
Zahkira (GR Amaretto x Taffetta) Linda East Sussex
Thanks guys, that's great news. TBH at the moment he'd much rather trot faster but I'm worried about hurting his legs, especially after the query over his soundness last year, so it's really good to know that we're fast enough for now.
Training help
Posted - 31 Mar 2013 : 9:24:19 PM
Zahkira (GR Amaretto x Taffetta)