Outdoor Recreational Activities

Quarantine has made a minimal change in my routine for the past few weeks. I'm already a sedentary person and tend to spend most if not all of my free time at home, in my room, completely away from society. My job (though non-essential) does not yet have the ability to let me work from home, plus our IT guy has been elusive as of late. Outside of work though? Nothing in my life requires me to leave the house at the moment.

And on god, I am losing my damn mind.

See, my "sedentary" lifestyle is more of a bug than a feature. I thrive off of having a set schedule with obligations that have consequences when ignored. Issue is . . . I need other people to establish those consequences. I'm so friggen bored and exhausted sitting in my house and felt another wave of depression coming on until my body just flipped a switch and refused to let that happen. You wanna know what I did this morning? Woke up at a reasonable time, brushed my teeth, laid down again to answer some messages and get some morning inspo. I then cleaned my room, and made my bed, and went on a walk in my neighborhood to start the day. It's like I'm turning into the gayer, younger version of Brooke Shields that I always wanted to be.

Don't worry, I'm not going to start a podcast, just going to practice basic self care :)

I'm taking advantage of this situation to settle into a new routine. Not only will it benefit my overall mental and physical health, but it might help with my own accountability and motivation. Despite Miami being under a shelter in place mandate right now, we're still allowed to engage in outdoor recreational activities. I've gone on a couple of runs and feel a bit safer doing them at night now, especially since we're getting back into summer temperatures during the daytime. Of course, spending time with Miss Lucie also falls under recreational activities.

Prior to the mandate, I had my first lesson since August. Boy did I get my ass kicked. Earlier that same day, someone came to try Lucie as well, and I think that kind of set me off. I also missed a lot of riding time at the start of the semester, and I haven't been working out, and I don't usually ride for long, and yadda yadda yadda. These aren't meant to be excuses per se, but there were a lot of factors playing into that ride, and I'm trying to not boil it down to me being a bad rider. Since I'm putting together a more clear plan with the mare going forward, I'll break down the lesson in future posts.

This is only funny because I have asthma, and a flare up can be caused both by Coronavirus and laughing too hard

For now though, here are some things I'm looking to accomplish:

• Actually riding at least once per week (most likely on Fridays)
• More work at the canter, especially to the right
• Longer rides/endurance
• Adjustability in my form over fences
• Working outside of the ring
• Lead changes

Look out, Tubby, shit's getting real!