I have to start with this:  I'm a runner.  (I'm also an American and I'm getting pretty tired of this shit.)  But, if you've never run a race, there is this absolute feeling of euphoria when you approach the finish line.  I sprint.  I shouldn't be able to sprint, if I paced myself faster during the race, but I still sprint.  And then I crumble at the end and take huge gasping breaths and people cheer and I eat an orange half or a bagel and I drink my water/chocolate milk/beer, and I loll about in a wasted sort of happiness.

That's how races are supposed to end.  And if someone had blown something up when I finished the half marathon in November, if I didn't get my bittersweet exhausted post-race bliss, I would probably never run again.

I almost married a sociopath once.  Little snippets of conversations came back to me when I was thinking about what sort of fucking whack job would go after people running.  Running.  Nearly a defenseless state because, once you've run twenty-six point two miles, you've got nothing left.  I wanted to saw my legs off after my little thirteen-miler.

We fall.  We get back up.  We're riders, we do that.  It's ingrained in our psyche.  Runners:  you fall, you trip, you break stride, you correct.  You keep going.  You finish.  And no one should ever take that finish from you.

---

On to horsie stuff...

Side note:  he undertracks on the right and overtracks on the left.

I only had minimal time yesterday to ride because the husband was expecting me at the apartment to officially close it.  I couldn't bear the thought of trotting in my normal little circles, so I took him out of the pasture and we warmed up on the dirt road, walking, back and forth, before I asked him to pick up a trot.  We trotted near the pasture for a little while and then I trotted him down to the meadow.  He lost his shit a little bit back there.

And I wish I'd taken a photo of this, but the owners of the property back there set up a little tiny jump.  I think it's a jump.  It's a skinny with three little rails.  And.. yeah.  We knocked that shit over.  I have all the best intentions of going back this weekend and repairing it.  We jumped it twice (already knocked over after I walked him over it) and he wasn't amazing either time.  The first, he stopped afterwards and started bucking.  The second, it was like his hind end almost couldn't come up over the jump and then it immediately slammed back down.  No bueno.

I'm not going by the barn today.  Instead, I'm going to try to go by the feed store again.  And then I'm going to hustle home and try to get as many boxes moved in as possible.