Looking back at my last post, all the hopes & dreams of the 2020 season were very much alive & we were counting the days for the Eventing season to get started. Oh things have changed since then.
One by one events are continuing to fall by the wayside as COVID-19 picks the world up & turns it upside down. Obviously there is enormous disappointment & frustration for everyone involved in the sport, but it feels so much bigger than that. Small things that we have always taken for granted, popping to the shop to buy milk, meeting friends for drinks or hugging our families, are no longer possible. We will weather this storm & I am sure we will come out of the other side stronger and when we do I have no doubt that we will appreciate these small things so much more.
Life in Lockdown
We are in total lockdown at home at the moment, Oliver’s asthma, which although managed very well with medication, is very serious, and therefore he’s required to ‘shield’ for 12 weeks. It means that like so many other people we are both working from home and trying to find our new ‘normal’.
Working as a freelancer in the sports industry, having lost pretty much all of my calendar for most of 2020 already, should (in theory!) mean that I have lots more time on my hands. I wrote myself a list of all the things I wanted to do (including writing this blog!) & I hate to report that the list was basically as far as I got! All working mums will understand the juggle is very real – I’ve come to accept that what should take me an hour generally takes me at least 3, sometimes 4!!
The house project is still very much a project but we are making progress! I’ll do a separate post soon with a little update, it’ll be good to step back and look at it as while it feels very slow going we are definitely getting somewhere with the clearing & tidying about the place.
We hit 30,000 downloads of the Eventing Podcast in March which was a huge milestone & have continued to work on lots of different episodes. The lack of actual Eventing has meant that we can explore a few other interesting subjects & it’s actually been great fun in thinking outside of the box a little bit. The schedule is a lot more flexible than usual at this time of the year so if you’ve any requests then send me a message & I will see what we can do!
You can find all of the recent episodes by clicking here.
It’s been great fun working more closely with the EquiRatings team over the last couple of months too, there have been some really exciting launches including the OnForm & Eventing Manager Apps. We have another simulated competition planned for Chatsworth weekend, leg 2 in the ERM Sim Season. We’ve made a few changes & are trying to make it as good as possible. It’s obviously not real like Eventing but we’ll take what we can get for now!
Time to get fit
On a recent episode of the USEA Official Podcast I spoke to Coach Sando about rider fitness, training and ways it can help both performance and safety. From there Tony very kindly offered to help me out over the next few months to see if we could reduce the pain & stiffness I have in my lower back and improve my strength too. When a man like him offers to help then it is definitely something that you take seriously! He’s coached some of the top riders in the US and has an online platform which means he can train me on a day to day basis even though we are in different countries. I’ll be honest & say I’ve done very little in recent years, especially since having Toby and I am embarrassingly weak. Week 1 is done & I’ll do a separate update later but so far, so good!
SAP, EquiRatings, Event Rider Masters & others have teamed up to bring you #RidersConnected. A great way of keeping people together at such a difficult time. Go & take a look at the website for lots of video messages of support from riders all over the world, some great blogs & a quiz, who doesn’t love a quiz?!
I hope everyone is keeping safe & coping with the difficult situations being thrown our way.
We will get through it & I can’t wait to see everyone soon.
In the meantime, stay safe & take care,
Love Nicole x
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