Goal 1: Finish the year with horses and humans intact. I don’t really have any control of that but it’s a constant hope of mine that I won’t be spending winter rehabbing. In fact only 33% of my 2024 goals are actually controllable, which begs the question am I goal setting wrong and setting myself up for disappointment. The short answer is no, I can put process goals in place to ensure I have done everything possible to achieve what I want and I have to accept that sh*t happens, especially with horses, and without actual external aims I wouldn’t be working towards anything, but it does make me mindful of setting goals within my goals that aren’t as affected be external factors.
So my actual goal 1 is to get Estrid to advanced, which I’m hoping to do with two 80km GER’s so that they also count towards her FEI qualifications. I have pencilled in 13 opportunities to do this from the EGB events schedule that also fit in with my diary so that gives plenty of room for error. If that goes to plan I would like to do her first race ride, whether that be at the National champs, a random ride or a very slim possibility of an end of season 1*.
Tissy has a pretty chilled year and all I want for her is to go to 3 pony parties. I’m going to aim at doing pleasure rides we haven’t done before so we can just enjoy some new routes and views together. I want to continue to keep her as muscled and fit as possible and I want to make the most of the time we have together. She loves getting out and about so I want to make sure I have scheduled the time to do that.
For myself I’d like to capture, review and reflect on my training sessions in more detail. I want to focus on not only what we can do better but also the things that work and highlight them so we keep doing them. I always set a little goal for each time I train but then I frequently forget to think about how it went and make note of that. With Estrid upping her training this year I think it’s going to be super important to monitor her response and I want to do that in a more formal documented manner that I can then look back on. So I have decided to add two columns to my training notebook (Yes, I am the nerd with a training notebook) so I will set a goal for the training, then a column for reviewing the session and another to reflect and set actions. It’s something I did religiously when I was competing at FEI level, but I haven’t gone back to it since 2018 so I think it’s time to bring it back out as it’s also a really nice way of seeing how far you’ve come and appreciating the work put in.
Beth Endurance 