29 – Queen’s Birthday – Last Chance to Impress the Selectors

Taupo Equestrian Centre. It was winter. It was cold.  The forecast was disgusting.  We had 120km to ride and needed to do a good time and crew fantastically.  The weather the day before at least was not bad.  I guess it being cold would make the crewing easier… as long as Lace didn’t get too cold and start shivering…

I’m over at the Charisma Hall entering, and a selector turned up, all excitement and enthusiasm, well she wasn’t going out in the rain and cold tomorrow!  “I’ll be interested to see what clothes you wear.”  Huh? I was planning on warm stuff and my most likely to stay waterproof raincoat… the concept that I could be wearing the “wrong clothes” had never occurred to me.  And what’s more now we were already at base there was nothing I could do about it.

Now I often have trouble sleeping the whole night through.  In the truck I have a fold out bed with a lovely thick foam mattress down in the horse area, a very comfy set up that lets me have my headlamp on and read if I’m awake,  my best strategy for getting back to sleep as it stops me thinking – usually.  I did not sleep much that night, even reading wasn’t working.  It is a good indication of how stressful everything gets.  It was enough to have been working so hard towards this for so long now, to have my horse here ready to go, and now I suddenly was worrying about what clothes to wear, worrying about them being the wrong clothes… stupid I know but you can’t control what your brain gets up to at times like this.   I kept trying to switch off and just read, it kept not working.

Of course it turned out to be a non-event.  As with a lot of things that got talked about, there was no follow through.  Clothes were not mentioned again.  And anyway I had a raincoat on, you couldn’t see what was under that!

There had been a big event at the Equestrian centre the previous weekend, and a large marquee was still up beside the Charisma Hall.  It was decided it would be good training for Lace to shelter in there during the holds, thus giving her experience that might be useful overseas.  Now I think about it I wonder why we were the only ones who had to do this.

So the ride started, in the dark as normal for a 120.  The first loop the weather wasn’t too bad, cold though.  Lace vetted well, 1:44/56 after having done the loop at 17.5km/h.  She did not particularly like being in the tent.

Second loop… wet…. 18.5 km/h.  This time we were to push the vetting, go in at a higher heart rate to learn whether we could get away with it.  Would her heart rate continue to drop enough as we walked to the vet?  So we were calling time and going in at 67.  Lag time 1:25, heart rate 64… made it!

I was thoroughly wet now, and that’s ok while you’re riding… but can get tricky in the hold, even if you are under shelter.  I was shovelling food down, exercise plus cold equals hungry!  Kerry had horse rugs wrapped around both me and Lace.  Lace was not happy in the tent and wasn’t eating well.  More stress.  I was starting to get upset about it and that doesn’t help anyone.

Out on the third loop.  Wet.  18.3 km/h.  Coming down the hill at the end of the loop, 3 km from home and I start realising my vision is wonky.  Oh crap another migraine.

Again we pushed the lag time, 1:42/64, the vet warns us we’re pushing it, “that’s the idea!”   I had a migraine; I wasn’t quite with it.  The selectors had a discussion about my health and it was decided that Lace would be withdrawn.  Only 22km to go.  My crew looked after Lace, I went off to have a hot shower – there are some bonuses to being at Taupo! 

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A selector came over to the shower block and congratulated me in a very pointed fashion… so unofficially it looked like we were going to Kentucky!  She expected me to be bouncingly excited, I had trouble working out which way to turn coming out of the showers, Kerry had to correct me.  Probably a good thing I wasn’t out there in charge of a horse!  Although Lace would have got me home, she’s pretty good at following the markers. 

It can be weird when there is so much pressure and then you get good news, it’s good, but the pressure is still there and there’s going to be a whole lot more to do.  It seemed a bit unreal and hard to celebrate. 

Now I had the task of keeping my horse fit through winter, when the weather was crap, and I had a job to go to during the day and it was generally dark the rest of the time… and everyone else got to turn their horses out for a few months.   Joy.  Not to mention fund raising…

Interestingly, now ten years later, I have never had another migraine.