Spring, spring, spring!

Winter has finally relinquished its grasp on Connecticut. Today, I saw the first caterpillar of the year, and suddenly realized that the grass all around the farm is suddenly turning bright shades of emerald in spots - not everywhere, but it's noticable. Gogo even had her first real mouthfuls of spring grass today while we were out handwalking. We've managed to attract quite a local crowd - all the neighbors came running from their houses to talk to us today while we were handwalking, and our 20-minute afternoon handwalk turned into a 45-minute handwalk plus chatting time. Gogo's very gentle with the non-horsey crowd, including a very enthusiastic 12 year-old child who lives across the road, and who came sprinting and shrieking to greet us (thank you for being a sensible mare Gogo).

Aaaah, spring. The mud in the fields has even dried up for the most part, and even when she rolled today, Gogo came in clean for the most part. She even had a fit for some random reason out in the field while I was away this afternoon, and went galloping around for a few minutes and DIDN'T COME IN CAKED IN MUD ZOMG YES.

My new personal fitness regime started today as well. I'm not totally sure what the schedule for it is actually going to be, but for today I did a good 1.5-2 miles of running, although I'm probably going to REALLLLY regret that tomorrow. I felt strong, and I never felt winded, but that's the problem isn't it... my muscles, I'm sure, will be rebelling. It's interesting how careful I am with my horse's conditioning, but my own? Don't know where to start, so I just jump right in and go for it. Tomorrow, since I am certain I'll be too sore to even THINK about running again (and my muscles will for sure need a break anyway), I'll be starting the 100 Pushups Challenge and the 200 Situps Challenge. To begin, you basically just crank out as many good form pushups and situps as you possibly can, and then figure out what category you fall into based on the number of situps/pushups you can do initially before taking the challenge. That's pretty easy to do. Hell, I could even do that right now! Maybe I will, when I'm off the computer!

Yes, springtime is in full swing, although there's no doubt that there will probably be some other freak snowstorm this month or next, because there always is. If the weather stays clear and dry, though, we MAY be able to sneak in a schooling at Mystic Valley this weekend - IF I can find someone to go with me. That's the huge question at the moment, finding a groundperson. If I can't manage to drag someone along, well, then.... I'm out of luck.
It's also time to revamp our schedule, now that we need to put a stronger focus on conditioning. This post on conditioning is something that I'm REALLY going to take to heart. I'll have to really figure out WHERE and WHEN I am going to do my contioning. Currently, she usually has either Friday or Saturday off, depending on the week, because those are my days off and I like to have a day when I can just do whatever I please without having to worry about her. But, if I have to trailer out, I'm going to definitely have to use both those days for all their worth, for important things like x-country schooling and off-property conditioning. Once I figure out a more concrete schedule, I'll let you know.

Days like these are lovely. I love just walking with Gogo, stroking her soft neck, playing hairdresser with her big thick tail, enjoying the way she roots around the old bits of grass to find the newest, sweetest spring shoots. Her legs were cool and tight today, and she showed no stiffness anywhere in her body at all. Of course, then I had to go ruin that by giving her the 5-way vaccine that's been hiding in the fridge for a week, just so she has a nice stiff neck tomorrow XD It's back to conditioning on the roads tomorrow. Watch out neighbors, wild mare on the loose!

Boy I wish I had a GPS watch. Now THAT would be helpful on so many levels.


EDIT: Just did my initial test for the One Hundred Pushups challenge and the Two Hundred Situps challenge. I managed 25 pushups before pretty much collapsing - according to them, that's pretty good - and I stopped at 80 situps, because I felt it was getting a little ridiculous that I was still doing them easily. I think a few at the end were no longer in good form though, so I'm going to back off a bit and start at a lower level than I'm technically qualified for. And now, to bed nice and early in order to get a jumpstart on a nice healthy day tomorrow :D Aaaaahhh!