Spokane polo

I was Virginia's groom this weekend at the Spokane tournament. It was a great weekend! Met a lot of great people and saw some awesome polo. I warmed up Waco, one of Virg's two horses, on Saturday but that was the only riding I did over the weekend. It was actually really nice just to slow down and enjoy the game. As usual there were some incredible meals and parties in the evenings.

The nine goal polo on Monday was amazing...I've decided that I definitely don't want to play at that level any time soon. Polo at this level is very physical (as in crashing into each other) and I'm not to keen on getting hurt in polo at this point in my pentathlon training. But my how its great to watch! One of the highlights of the weekend was Augustine, one of the Argies that stuck around to play some more polo this summer after the larger group of Argentines went home. At 19 years old, Augustine has servants in his home and several grooms to take care of his polo ponies in Argentina. Well...here he had to stay in a cold, went tent and do his own grooming. But he smiled the whole time, especially when George Dill pulled the tent out of the box and called it Augustine's "Estancia in a box".

Highway running in Spokane

I was in Spokane, WA for a Labor Day weekend polo tournament...grooming and tacking for some friends. On Sunday, we had a long break in the morning schedule, so I slipped away, put on my running shoes and headed out for my long run that I usually do on weekends. This time, I was scheduled to do an 80 minute run. I haven't done much work at any kind of elevation (not that Spokane is that high at 2500 feet), so I wasn't sure how it would go...would I make the whole 80 or settle for an hour? The route was completely flat, so that was one good variable. I ran out along for 40 minutes...no problems. The 40 minutes back were just fine too. Yee Haw, I did the whole 80 minutes...even after a biscuits and gravy breakfast at the Longhorn restaurant just across the road from the polo field. I didn't get a long swim in over the weekend, but it was a holiday anyway, I deserve a break now and then. Back to the regular schedule on Tuesday.