Success from careful planning

So, here it is in early January and I'm writing a blog about preparing for an event that takes place in the first week of May. It may seem like overkill, but when preparing for any three-day event, you have to start planning months in advance. In my case, my horse hasn't gone training yet, so I've had to carefully plan out my season in order to give us the maximum number of runs over training level courses while keeping in mind that some courses are going to be better preparation than others. His first training needs to be a good move up course, and then gradually I want to run over courses that our more like max training courses. As we get closer to the three day, I've chosen an event that still has a formidable training course, but may not be maxed out for the level. I want his last run before the three-day to simply be confidence building. By our last event before the three day, my plan is to not be introducing anything new, or be trying to work through any issues, but to be solid at the level so that his last run is fun and confidence building.

This first image is my tentative schedule for the spring. It's a best case scenario schedule that I hope we'll be able to stick to. It also includes a few schooling shows and cross country schoolings that will be a "prep" for our spring season. I've also included clinics that I know I'll be attending or hope to attend. While I will try to stick to this schedule, chances are it will change as the year progresses. Fortunately, we're only about 5 1/2 hours from Aiken which makes a few weekend trips there this winter possible.

In addition to having a long term schedule, a short term schedule can also be very beneficial. The main point of the short term schedule is to work backwards from events and have a solid plan for fitness. If you were training for a half marathon, you wouldn't just haphazardly start running with no plan; you'd - ideally - look at how much time you had to prepare and gradually increase the length of your runs while perhaps throwing in some cross training to keep other muscles in your body strong. Furthermore, you'd have to pay attention to how you felt and maybe even monitor your heart rate and respiratory rate to make sure that you were gaining fitness, but not overworking. At the same time, you wouldn't want to take it too easy on yourself and not make satisfactory progress.  My point here is - you don't want to go say "We have to be fit enough to do the T3D by May" and have no plan. It's best to work backwards and set small goals along the way. For example, by March I know that I want to be doi

ng 2x15 trot sets. By April, 2x20.  This photo over here to the right is an image of my calendar for January. Again, it's tentative, but I do try to follow it as closely as possible.

Depending on where you're wintering and what kind of facility you have access to, you may find that the weather puts a kink in your plans. Keep in mind that you can do your fitness work anywhere. Yes, hills are better and it's much more pleasant to do trot sets in a big open field than go around your dressage arena 30 times. That being said, when you need to get it done - do it.  If it snows and you can't trot, don't underestimate the power of a good, long hack.

Basically, the first step of planning for a Training 3-day is working backwards, both on a day-to-day basis as well as a long term schedule.