Luck O The Irish

Luck or fortuity is a belief in good or bad fortune in life caused by accident or chance, and attributed by some to reasons of faith or superstition, which happens beyond a person's control.

Since Indoor Track ended a couple of weeks ago I've enjoyed more time outside after work to train and play after school. This has led to some great runs and rides where I find myself cruising through some of the most breathtaking spots in the Adirondacks. On Friday I made it up to the potato fields at John Brown's Farm, with the most amazing view of the High Peaks, and I had to stop and take a huge deep breath. I did the same thing at sunrise on Saturday when I reached the top of a climb and turned around to a pink sky through the trees. Lucky, I feel lucky. When I first graduated from SLU and took my first job in Gouverneur I wasn't sure where I was going-Florida or Cali someplace where triathletes can be tan and frolic outside year-round, but I never thought it would be here. While I've visited so many beautiful places, the proximity to the best grandparents in the world makes it hard to imagine living anywhere else. Life here is slow, but I'm thankful for that. My brain moves fast enough. When I think about Ruby growing up here surrounded by endless outdoor opportunities I'm grateful for that I left the Ogdensburg City Pool 10 summers ago to sell wetsuits and chammy butter in the mountains-lucky kid! Ahhhhhhhhh


The other thing I'm feeling pretty lucky about right now is the new member of our family-Roxy. If you know me and my dogs, I haven't been blessed with the easiest dogs in the world. I had a well behaved, intelligent dog once, but he followed Quenton out onto some thin ice and never came back. RIP sweet Harry:) I had made up my mind that after these dogs, I would stick to one dream dog to make life a little easier, but then I had a couple of runs where Bandit and Q ended up limping and a lil lame and the search for a new running buddy began. I knew I wanted some sort of herding dog-a Border Collie or Australian Shepard because they like the work and could go all day. It's amazing what gets labeled a Border Collie or Aussie on petfinder.com! Rescue sites, breeders, shelters the internet is so much fun when you're searching for just the right dog. Ruby and I went to hold puppies at our local shelter and within seconds I knew a "puppy" puppy wasn't what we were looking for and I definitely wanted a herding dog. Back to the computer, I broadened the search to my sisters zip codes and hit the jack pot! At first it was a lovely border collie who caught my eye, but then I scrolled down and found her-Roxy the Catahoula Leopard Dog! A leopard print dog? After more research it was a no brainer and we were gonna spend our first day of spring break driving to an adoption clinic to stake our claim! I ran into the store like it was 1985 and there was a new batch of Cabbage Patch Kids being released. I scanned to crates to find Roxy and my heart sank until I got to the final crate and there she was. Phew! The volunteer came over and asked if we'd like to see her and Ruby and I both shouted "YES!" As I carried her away from the crowd I knew we were done for and without asking a single question about her I was telling Ruby we could take her home and my ex husband was filling out the paperwork for me. The vultures were circling and waiting for us to put her back, but lucky timing put us there just in time! She was so calm and relaxed that my sister Tammy and Kevin kept questioning what the puppies were going to be like when the sedatives wore off. Fortunately the sedatives (the volunteers claimed the puppies weren't drugged) have worn off and Roxy is the best puppy I've ever met-house trained in a day, comes when we call her, fits right in with B and Q, and allows Ruby to do whatever she wants. You get the feeling that she realizes she hit the jackpot and feels pretty lucky:)

My Winter Trails

Railroad tracks and frozen lakes are two of my favorite ways to see the Adirondacks in the winter. I've always loved running on on railroad tracks and beds and I really try not to be intimidated by sharing them with 4 wheelers and snowmobiles. Snowmobiles open up a new system of trails for us in the winter and while I pray for snow to ski, a big part of me gets psyched when I hear the obnoxious beasts zipping by on the railroad tracks a block from my front door. When we moved to Elm Street I happened upon the tracks early one morning and couldn't stop going back to explore on foot or skis further and further in every year. Last week the dogs and I spent entire long run on the tracks discovering ponds and lakes-all three of us grinning foolishly:) A couple of winters ago John and I followed some snowmobile tracks out onto Oseetah Lake for one of my favorite runs in ever, to be chuggin' along surrounded by these mountain views-breath taking! I kept dragging John and Jenny out there so we could play Alaskan Explorers and I'm pretty sure they never got bored with it!

My Little Beast

This morning Ruby dazzled my students with her fearlessness as she strapped on a harness and repeatedly climbed ropes and ladders in the gym like an old pro. The kids couldn't believe how easily she climbed a rope at 15 feet above the gym floor and one of the students said, "the kid's not normal, I've seen her ski." The kid is not normal. As a baby a man who met her called her "magical" and that just kind of stuck. When she was 3 or 4 she was dancing for me and some friends one night when she stopped and said, "whoa I gotta take a break, I'm really hot and when I get really hot I get really magical." Ruby is one of those people who can watch and think about something and then just do it! Hours spent at the pool and on a trail a bike gave her time to figure out swimming and riding a bike. The first time I looked over in the pool and she was playing "lifeguard" with her bff and swimming out to save 7 year old Emma, was such a beautiful sight it made me cry. The same thing happened on the evening when my 4 year old decided it was time to ride her 2 wheeler, so she walked it out into the street, got on and did it!

Ruby and I have been trying to hit Mt Pisgah and Big Tupper at least a couple of times a week this winter and it's been amazing to see her skiing progress-from her fear on steeps the first day of the season to her choosing the steepest line possible and following her dad off jumps without hesitation. She was so inspired watching Billy Demong race from 24th place to 6th in his first Nordic Combined event at the Olympics we went out for a cross country ski and she started using her own version skate skiing. A few days later we took advantage of NYSEF's Learn to Fly Wednesday's and she learned to ski jump! On the way home she was so enamored by the act of flying down and off a ramp that she couldn't stop saying, "I loved ski jumping so much, I wish I could still be jumping right now!" It was that day that I was certain-what an amazing place to raise a kid:) Ever since the ski jumping episodes she responds to every challenge by stating she's ski jumped she's not afraid of anything. Last night we got to Mount Pisgah just as it had frozen after a beautiful early spring day, Ruby shoved me off the T-bar because my snowboard was cramping her style and flew down the ice covered slope. After 5 runs like this, her flying like a bat outta hell, me slip sliding away I asked if the ice bothered her at all. She responded by saying, "What do mean? It's just louder than regular snow." Oh yeah, just louder.

The Llama Encounter-DEc 4, 2008

A couple of weeks I was out on a lovely late fall run with my beloved Garbage Hound, Quenton and my bff's beloved Lion Hound, Tucker. We were running on a trail behind the Saranac Lake High School that we've each run on at least 50 times-always with out a leash. Quenton, being a curious Garbage Hound, sometimes gets distracted on runs and requires help to get back to the group. So when Tucker and I were cruising along and noticed Q was missing we did what we always do and went back to get him. If his distraction isn't major-a squirrel or bird- he rejoins us quickly, if it's a biggy-a cat or fresh, hot bag of garbage he likes a little bit of a chase. When we discovered him it looked he had treed a cat, he was barking furiously and a saw some brown fur moving around. As Tucker and I got closer to the scene I saw more brown fur and realized it was not a cat, Quenton had discovered Sasquatch in the middle of the village of Saranac Lake! The thing was shuffling around, it had long brown fur, and was the size of a Snuffleupagus! Tucker stuck to my side like glue, when we realized that Q was barking through the fence at the biggest llama I've ever seen. He just kept circling the tiny pen that was attached to the back of a broken down shed barking at the top of his lungs. Tucker and I gave chase and Q quickly slipped under the cobbed together fence and was face to face with the giant brown monster. These are the parts of subnormal dog ownership that make me ask why he survived getting hit by a tractor trailer 9 years ago? I started to worry that I was never going to get him out on my own, so I decided to go find the owner of what appeared to be a junkyard full of broken down cars with one shed for the llama and another for the humans (the human shed cam complete with a tarp on the roof). As I walked across the driveway I noticed a small mob of neighbors standing at the bottom of the driveway so I asked "do you live here?" And an old man replied, "no, but the guy who does is not going to appreciate this!" No shit! So Tucker and I headed to the front door and I prepared myself to get shot. I'd had a dream the night before that I was in a plane crash but I woke up before the cabin filled with water, so I was convinced today was my day to die and I was probably going to get shot by a gun from at the scary house with a llama hidden in a tiny pen behind the shed. I held Tucker close on a leash now because he's not a subnormal dog and I figured he loved me enough to attack my shooter. I yelled hello a couple dozen times on my way to the door, so they wouldn't be surprised when I finally did knock. I knocked and tightened every muscle in my body, ready to take the shot, and waited. No one came to the door-oh shit, do I leave my now unbeloved Garbage Hound and hope he can someday find his way home?! I've been in some messes with Quenton before, but this was the worst! Suddenly Q was silent! Totally silent and backing away from the llama. For the first time in one of his big messes he looked to me for help-uhn what? He came to the side of the fence by Tuck and I and I clipped his leash on over the fence, passed it to my other hand under the fence, and snuck my baby under the fence to freedom. I've run by a couple times since then, always with dog on leash, and I see the scary shack of a house, I see the junkie cars, I see the shed, what I don't see is the goddamn llama!