New objective

After another fun day of hiking with the pups Sunday morning

Those jerks have the energy to wrestle after 3k of elevation gain.  I have enough
energy to flop over and beg for snacks.

It was cold, I had to wear my "teddy bear" Patagonia R3 hoody

I went Iron Man and took Fawkes out for a hack Sunday afternoon. The key is to not sit down.  At all.  Get home, change clothes, go straight to the barn.  If you sit down after a 7 mile hike, you stay there and convince your husband to bring you St Lupulin and other delicious beers.  Instead, I managed to get a reasonable 45 minute ride in, just having him stretch and do transitions.  I am happier and happier with the saddle the more I ride in it, let's hope the honeymoon phase stays with us.  I did oil the everloving crap out of it which sadly darkened some of the red hues I really liked, but supple leather > color.

My trainer said Fawkes and I looked like we walked out of Dover's fall catalog.
Complete coincidence, I am sartorially challenged.

This picture reminds me that trainer R moved my stirrups up a hole on Saturday and now I am on the top hole of the children's leathers.  Sigh.  Hope they don't stretch (they are nylon lined).  Also, I don't know if this is a "being in my 30s" thing or a "you have no flexibility thing" but damn, it takes a full week for my leg to agree to the shorter stirrups without leg agony.

Fawkes had yesterday off and then we had another ride tonight.  We aren't pushing much until after the vet checks him tomorrow, but I had a small epiphany that Fawkes has developed a deaf ear when it comes to my leg lately.  I am working way harder than I should have to, and he is getting around to responding when he feels like it.  Once we get the all clear from the vet, we will need to have a mini bootcamp on responding NOW.  He is a smart boy, I don't expect it to take more than a few sessions to sharpen up.  Overall, he was pretty good and those trot/canter transitions are slowly improving.

I have started looking into shock absorbing half pads to protect Fawkes' back and think I have decided on the Ecogold.  I was torn because the saddle fits really well and I don't want to add bulk so I was leaning towards the ThinLine, but the super positive Ecogold reviews and their return policy have swayed me.  If it does mess up his saddle fit I can return it, but if not, people seem to swear by it for back protection.  Ah, byebye money!