A Series of Thoughts During our Last Calaboogie 100 Ride

Over last Labor Day September 2nd, 2023, my mother, sister (Audrey), and I traveled to Canada for a 100-mile endurance ride in the Madawaska Highlands north of Kingston, Ontario.  This is the last year they were having this ride, and since it’s in the cooler North, it is perfect for Glory and me. Instead of giving the usual ride report, I wanted to weave a tale of thoughts and impressions.  When we got home, everyone asked ‘Did you have fun?’.  My answer is it’s not about ‘Fun’, riding almost 24 hours is never totally fun, to be honest sometimes it’s dreadful. What is it then, why keep doing it? Read on and see…

Getting to the start of an endurance race is a mini adventure all its own. The day of travel beforehand, the crossing of borders and bridges into unknown lands, of strange signs and speed limits.  Driving a horse trailer across the very high and narrow 1000 Islands bridge is a bit hair-raising. We met a stern customs officer in Canada who actually wanted to see all our documents on the horses and kept our Coggins papers.  (Note to self: bring more than one printed copy, because I doubt the border patrol officers would acccept a glance at your phone as proof of Coggins negativity.) Driving by Ian Miller’s farm and seeing miles of ancient-looking stockade-style fencing in the style of colonial times is neat!

We settled into camp as usual, after moving our temporary fencing 3 times which was time consuming and a bit annoying.  The horses loved the fresh lush grass, and happily munched and they explored the different tastes of the region. We vetted in cool as cucumbers, even though we were late from playing with the fencing so long, the horses were all business, and said ‘Get this vetting over so we can taste more!’, and then got our own dinner after some good conversation with old and newly made friends.

The morning came clear and cool, perfect riding weather, and the list checking went on as we triple checked tack, electrolytes, shoes, clothes, food, and on and on, the list checking being how I and my mom deal with pre-ride nerves, the feeling that if I can prepare for everything, nothing wrong will then happen.  I know in the back of my mind that this is ludicrous, but the front of my mind is peaceful. 

Glory and merri are on the far right. note the wishful smily face on g’s hind end…

The start went like clockwork, we were prepped and ready. Audrey and I rode together, our horses pretty much insisted on it, the feeling of the mini ‘herd’ of 4 is formed and made solid.  We started near the back to let the front runners get their horses settled, and then on the first loop, through the ups and downs and variety of the Canada woods, started to pass the other riders steadily through the first 5 miles.  When we broke out of the woods onto the rail trail, everyone was warmed up, and we were in the lead!  What else is there to do on 4 miles of straight, smooth rail trail but to gallop!  The horses took the cues gladly and we raced the wind! The horses found a smooth pace, calmly trading places in the lead, as Audrey and I pretended to shoot imaginary targets in the woods with imaginary bows and arrows, and feeling the trust and elation of Horsemanship, of gracefully staying on top and working with powerful muscles as their manes flew in the wind.  For a few minutes at least.  When we came to the short hold, we stopped and cooled off, game faces on.  The horses knew we were in the lead, and waited patiently to go on, but Glory had a game face on, ‘Let’s get on with it!’ 9 miles in, 91 to go!

matching game face expressions…only 90 more miles to go!

The rest of the first loop was full of small hills and twists and turns, balancing the need to move along quickly with the need to balance and hold steady for the long haul. This constant balancing is a feeling all of its own, balancing my posture on Glory’s back, balancing his needs to speed up and slow down the hills, a feeling of striving for equilibrium.  It’s a pleasant working feeling, full of effort, and yet not too much effort, to reserve energy for later.

The hold came and went, and we set off on the white loop.  This loop I paid extra attention to every little hole and hill on the trail, as we would be doing this in the dark twice later on.  I felt the challenge of navigating and remembering a path.  Did Glory pick up on that? He seems to remember trails from previous rides done a year ago.  This sharpness of mind also let me see other things, like the different plants that grow that far north, the variety of ferns, the crows that are larger in Canada along the path.  I spot butterflies and wonder what that pile of junk is in the trees. All part of the adventure. 

The white loop includes a long, long stretch of road that leads into the lake village of Calabogie.  Is it my imagination or can I feel the slightest changes in the dirt and tarmac along the should as we trot and trot and trot?  Woods slowly give way to cottages, that grow nicer and more luxurious the closer we get to town, and we can see more and more open blue of the large lake to our left. We get to the golf course and wonder at the few brave souls that are playing in the morning.  By this time, there is a thunderstorm brewing out over the lakes, the wind starts whipping and the sky turns dark, we hear rumbles that are so deep they are almost at the edge of our hearing.  The horses are unperturbed, we keep moving, a simple storm won’t slow US down.

nothing can stop us!

As we get to the next hold at camp, we are told that all of the other riders in the 100 race missed a turn, so they came into camp way ahead of us, and left again. Audrey and I were a little disappointed, as our lead was lost (the other riders had to make up the miles on another loop). Glory and Merri didn’t care, they just wanted yummy mash. 

Out on to the next orange loop, the day started to get hotter.  We knew from doing this ride last year how long and long this section was, and how it demoralizes everyone (it was a long 23-mile loop that repeats itself). We found a steady balance of jogging along, up down and over little hills and sandy dune-like sections in the blackberry thickets.  I made a game of trying to snatch a couple of berries without ripping my hands on the thorns, all while jogging by on Glory.  On a section of rail trail, we heard a loud roar behind us, and we stopped and let a caravan of about 12 motorsports vehicles by (there is a motorsports park down this road).  Each member of the family had either a side by side, four-wheeler or dirt bike according to age!  The horses were unfazed, and we waved cheerfully.  The day was gorgeous after all!  As the heat increased, we plugged along a little slower, hitting the low point of the loop after telling the horses at the halfway point that we had to do the same thing all over again, boy were they unhappy about that! The horses wanted to stop and eat dusty dry but lush and tender grass in a few sections. We gave them electrolytes and fretted about them drinking, but they were fine.  I got off and hiked for a mile, knowing my hips needed the release and my feet needed the ground under them for a while. We helped a fellow rider on the 75-mile race with our extra tube of electrolytes, as we could tell her horse needed it, her horse was starting to flag and get that dull look in the eyes.  She wisely walked the rest of the loop on foot and kept her horse safe.  Audrey and I started to run out of things to chit chat about at this point, I usually don’t mind.  Riding in silence is a fascinating exercise of listening to all.  The creak of the pines, the crunch of stones under hooves, the different bird sounds, the echo of distant cars and planes.

After the long and hot orange loop was finished, we took a little longer at the hold, letting our horses tank up.  I laid down on the warm grass next to Glory’s pen for five minutes.  Releasing my back and chest muscles felt sooo sweet.  Then I took some Tylenol and got back on.  We had 45 more miles to go, and only 3 hours of true daylight left to us!

On to the red loop, which was Audrey and I’s main goal of this ride: To finish this loop of 19 miles before the daylight disappeared! (I had a mild panic attack on this loop in the pitch-dark last year when the dark was so black, I lost all sense of up and down and I could sense the deep waters of the lake on either side of me). Audrey was so confident; she didn’t even wear her headlight.  Cue ominous music here…Du Duh Dum…

We picked up the pace and boogied along the trail in the deep woods.  Thankfully the trail was great for trotting.  Glory had a deep, cool, glorious (this gave me a great sense of relief) drink at a plastic tote ride management had thoughtfully placed in the deep woods at the 5-mile mark. (The next morning, I thanked the water crew profusely for this tote of water.  They said it took them an hour to drive there on 4 wheelers with tanks on the back and fill it.  I told them their efforts were deeply appreciated by my horse!) We watched the light change to golden dapples through the trees. At the start of the coolness of evening our horses got their mojo back and started to really move out.  It was a good thing too, because the deer flies also felt the coming night, and yes, Canadian bugs are truly more blood thirsty.  Even at a good trot they managed to bite us, and bite us HARD!  Audrey got to see that a rock she SWORE was a turtle on the trail on the first time through was indeed just a rock and assuaged her guilt at running over top of it.

deep in the canandian woods

The light turned magically dusky, and the trail turned into a storybook path of adventure, moss covered rock, twists and turns through the trees, a sense of hurry creeping into all of us.  We passed by a rider whose ride had ended, she ended up getting very ill mid loop.  We gave her a bottle of water while the ride volunteers stayed with her waiting for a ride out of the woods on a vehicle instead of a horse. Her ride partner ponied her horse back to camp.  Horse fitness isn’t the only consideration on a ride of this length and trial, and out of the 9 riders that started in the morning, only 4 finished the full 100 miles.  The non-finisher’s horses were all fine, but the toll it took on the human element was too much.

We climbed out of the woods on the long stretch of rail trail and Glory grabbed the bit and said, ‘Let’s MOVE’.  I said OKAY! We cruised onward as the sun started to set.  I watched with trepidation how it got lower and lower on the horizon.  But we still had light, no cloud cover this time! We moved as fast as was safe, and just as the last of the light was creeping away and the woods were twilight gloomy, we made it back to camp!  Goal achieved!

After a change of clothes, hot soup, and small comforts making the biggest difference in the willingness to continue on, I packed my ginger chews and mint candies, and prepared for the last 2 loops in the dark.  Glory and Merri really struggled leaving the light and safety of camp.  We hand walked them a ways out, keeping our energy as cheerful as possible in the darkness.  As we all adjusted to the darkness and the glimmering, bobbing soft white light of our head lamps, we slowed down and started picking our way along the white loop.  We avoided the deep holes, jogging where we could, all attention turned to placing our feet one in front of the other.  The woods held the wonders of the night, owls softly swishing by, and lots of bats, attracted to the insects that might be drawn to our headlamps.   We heard the call of the loon, everything seemed right in the world in that second. We reached a more open trail, and the long stretch of village road, and a beautiful full moon came out framed by the clouds.  In the moonlight we trotted by a few fires and parties on the beach of the lake.  Everyone cheered us on! We traveled over the empty golf course in pristine moonlight, the grass and trees shades of blue and shadow. We finished these 13 miles around midnight, and had a short rest and then out we go again to repeat it!

by the moonlight

The last loop is the hardest, the crucible of the ride.  Glory’s legs felt heavy underneath me. The darkness grew deeper and the woods even quieter. My brain was getting tired from the hyper vigilance, but a dose of caffeine kept me going and awake.  That and the misery of nausea!  After 87 miles my stomach decided to settle into a pattern of low-grade sea sickness.  I was prepared, and the ginger candies helped me measure the miles.  Every 2 miles, I would have another ginger.  The horses settled into a pattern of fast walking.  They seemed quite content at this speed, and I was too.  How to explain this feeling of utter contentment in the dark, traveling on a tired horse (but not unhappy, Glory felt he was doing his JOB, and maybe it was his contentment that I enjoyed).  The feeling of utter quiet yet holding such sacred space even as I was physically uncomfortable, I was spiritually complete. We walked into camp as the moon went down at 3:30 am.  We had no idea how long we had been out there, I had lost all sense of time, and we took 3 hours to travel the 13 miles. 

We vetted through, and all was well, and the horses ate and ate, and we bundled them against the chill and then crashed into bed.  I awoke at 7 am, my body still convinced I was still moving on a horse.  Glory and Merry were happy and healthy, adventure complete.

So why do I ride these distances if they are not fun? Because everything is set in sharp relief, senses are heightened, and Purpose is Clear. Do I need to ride a 100-mile race to feel all these things? No, I can feel them every day if I remember to stay present and focused.  Maybe that’s what a 100-mile race is, a reminder to Live, Love, Stay Present, and stay Clear. As long as my horse is enjoying himself for most of the ride, I will continue on.