Racking Up the Miles

For Christmas I received a smartphone from my parents. In the beginning days of 2012, I downloaded the Cardio Trainer app, because reviews said it had a horseback riding option.
Who knew this phone app could be so motivating? Now I get out to ride and I think "Hmmm... let's see how many miles we can do today."
The Cardio Trainer app calculates how long I ride for, how far I ride, where I ride using the GPS, and how many calories I burn (however this function I don't really trust all that much for anything beyond a rough estimate perhaps). 

So far this month of February, four days in, I've ridden 11.6 miles. 30.7 miles total this year. 7.65 hours of riding. 

This includes only road rides; while Daisy was at Jenny's in January and I rode indoors a lot, I didn't calculate the arena rides. 

This week on Monday I rode Daisy for a 3.5 mile ride, in which she was very much 'up' and wanting to gallop a lot. I thought I got it all out of her system, hoping she would be good to go for my students lesson that afternoon. Not so. She was still a bit of a handful, full of herself. I took that as my cue to give her an even longer ride, so on Tuesday I took her for our usual summertime 5.2 mile ride. This exhausted her a bit more, and a good thing, because the next day's weather wasn't really that great for riding. 

This morning I had just finished eating breakfast when I happened to check my phone and saw a text waiting from Jenny.

I'm choosing to keep Daisy home for now because we still have such mild weather. 

Jenny said they (her and her leaser) were out riding up my road and wondered if I'd like to ride along.

 Of course I said yes! I hurried out and tacked Daisy up really quick. She was excited when she saw the two horses coming up the driveway.

The ride ended up being 6.4 miles, but the majority of it was walking with a few short canter stretches, so it was the perfect workout for her. I think she enjoyed it. We headed up this private road that I had the opportunity to ride on recently with a fellow equestrian I met. There is an absolutely gorgeous view there of a huge pasture and the surrounding hills. It was a lovely ride. 

If you have a smartphone, download the Cardio Trainer app and get ready to hit the hills! Your horse will thank you :) (Well.... maybe. ;) )