  Chiral effective field theory can provide valuable insight into the chiral
physics of hadrons when used in conjunction with non-perturbative schemes such
as lattice QCD. In this discourse, the attention is focused on extrapolating
the mass of the rho meson to the physical pion mass in quenched QCD (QQCD).
With the absence of a known experimental value, this serves to demonstrate the
ability of the extrapolation scheme to make predictions without prior bias. By
using extended effective field theory developed previously, an extrapolation is
performed using quenched lattice QCD data that extends outside the chiral
power-counting regime (PCR). The method involves an analysis of the
renormalization flow curves of the low energy coefficients in a finite-range
regularized effective field theory. The analysis identifies an optimal
regulator, which is embedded in the lattice QCD data themselves. This optimal
regulator is the regulator value at which the renormalization of the low energy
coefficients is approximately independent of the range of quark masses
considered. By using recent precision, quenched lattice results, the
extrapolation is tested directly by truncating the analysis to a set of points
above 380 MeV, while being blinded of the results probing deeply into the
chiral regime. The result is a successful extrapolation to the chiral regime.
