We headed off to Shipley Park near Nottingham for Estrid’s first outing of the season. A really different ride for us, we had never been here before, it was such a suprise to have a ride somewhere so urban! Maybe not quite as urban as the famous Concrete cows ride which goes through Milton Keynes but still not your usual country side.
Firstly Estrid did very well with all the dog walkers, runners, push chairs, children and general busyness of the park. However, Estrid and Fluffy do not make the best adventure companions. Estrid is very nervous of overtaking horses and if they are close behind her. Fluffy doesn’t really enjoy being up front. So although if Estrid had a good lead she did really well out front and was also happy behind when Fluffy got going it was a little messy in places with the flow of our speed as we struggled to keep a good rhythm when one of them wasn’t happy.
Despite that we still had fun and managed a nice 17km at 9.7kph. It was also quite a hard ride underfoot with gravely tracks or paved paths so a great test of Estrids bare and booted feet. I’m still so unsure about doing her 40km’s barefoot, and about when would be the best time to shoe her, but so far she hasn’t been sore and her feet are holding up well. So I guess I’ll keep as we are and see how we go but I’m pretty certain that I want her shod for anything over 40km, but we’ll see it’s such unknown territory for me.
Her heart rates weren’t great, 60bpm at the start and finish but she was beginning to settle down and I am quite confident we could manage this for a graded ride so I have entered our first 40km, everything crossed that we make it to the start line!
Beth Endurance 