Have you practiced your “what ifs”?
Hey Athletes!
Sometimes things don’t go as expected… and when horses are involved it seems like the chances of that happening double, no matter how well prepared you are!
This past weekend was supposed to be the first endurance ride of the season here in Ontario. I am always a bit of a mental case preparing for the first ride of the season. It is less to do with the actual ride but more to do with the packing and preparation. Honestly it takes me days to make sure everything is moved back to the trailer that needs to be there for camping, all the memberships are current and other paperwork is filled, the logistics are all sorted (especially if I have additional riders or crew) and I have prepared for every other circumstance that I could possibly think of.
I told my rider, Alia, to pack for all weather.
Little did I expect we would be hit with a Derecho… a new term that southern Ontario learned. A devastating storm that went from one side of the province to the other, leaving destruction and at least 8 deaths in its wake.
We had already finished our ride for the Saturday (12 miles) and were all cleared for Sunday’s 50 miler. Everyone was looking GREAT. We went back to our campsite and shared updates about the day’s ride. Then we got an emergency alert on our phones about a severe thunderstorm incoming. So we sprung into action and put anything we didn’t want to get wet into the trailer, then sat out in the sunshine and watched the horizon to the east.
The grey came, and the wind turned cold. It started changing directions, circling. I called Alia that it was go time and to get in the trailer NOW as the hairs on my arm stood up. Seconds after we closed the trailer door, my large and heavy camping table got whipped off the ground, right past the door where we had just stood and landed at the other side of our campsite.
Alia looked at me and asked if we should go get it, ABSOLTELY DONT GO OUT THERE. Buckets, tents, EVERYTHING was flying around. We watched out the window as the grass flattened, other riders struggled to lock things down and get into shelter, trees started coming down on the corrals at the treeline. The trailer bounced up and down and shook. The horses wobbled, trying to stay upright.
It was genuinely terrifying. I still am choking up a lot typing out this story.
We were incredibly lucky for many reasons. Some riders were still stuck out on trail, hearing all the trees snapping above them, getting trapped in the forest. Campsites only a couple kms away had total destruction of trailers and campsites and required emergency evacuations. Other posts I see on facebook confirm that tornadoes were touching down around us. I can’t even imagine each individual experience through this disaster.
I honestly can’t think of a worse weather event that could happen at an endurance ride than a tornado. If you can think of one, I am not yet ready to hear about it but you can start preparing yourself too.
One thing that has me a little hung up though is the emergency alert we received. It was for a thunderstorm, and I had completely underestimated what we would get. Thankfully nobody in our endurance family or their horses were injured, but I do have a lot of “what if’s” in my mind if I had known tornadoes were possible.
My spouse, Lee, said on the way home when I was talking it through (and about the time my shock of the event wore off) that the best thing we can do is treat every storm alert like its the worst case scenario. I think we did a pretty good job, not waiting to prepare and taking action where we could. Not every thunderstorm is going to yield these results, but I had practiced the pack up many MANY times in the past which helped us (though next time the table is going DOWN).
While I don’t want to send this out as a message to scare you, I do want you to take a moment to think about some of the what if’s and whether you have a plan for it.
I do a lot of “what if” training with Mongol Derby riders too. Its not to be pessimistic, but to set up tools and processes that can get you out of a jam and could potentially save your life. And if you are someone who is anxious about all the what if’s actually writing these down and coming up with the solution is actually an incredibly empowering exercise.
What if you are in ride camp and a tornado is bearing down, what if you are riding? What if it is a fire? Or hail? Or flood? Who has your back? What will you do? Where will you go? Is someone keeping an eye on the storms and calling you with updates?
You can’t prepare for everything, but you can learn from the experience of yourself and others, and explore those fears to help give you the confidence you need when the stakes are high.
I hope this helps.
-Sarah