Quote of the Day...

Here's a pure Ruby-
On the way to practice today she told me "I just can't ski slow. It's just not me to not ski fast. I love my friends but when they ask me to slow down and ski with them I have to be honest and tell them I'll try to slow down, but it probably won't work."

ps-never tell Ruby you've read this. I recently found myself in hot water for posting a comment she made about thinking she'll be a nerd in high school on facebook.

Ruby Turns 8

It's 10:57pm on 12/28/11 and I'm looking back at baby pictures of my now 8 year old. If I look for more than 30 seconds at a time I well up and sob-How did this happen? When did she become a BIG kid? When I gave her hug before bed I said "exactly 8 years ago I finally regained the feeling in my arms and got to hold you." Began to well up again so I told her I loved her and said good night and ran away. And now I've stepped back in time with these damn pictures and all the amazing moments Ruby has given us in 8 short years. The power of parenthood is frightening at times, the entire time I was pregnant with Ruby I was crippled by thoughts of things going wrong. When she came out with all her fingers and toes I sighed a huge sigh of relief.

Driving back from Grandma's today she asked her usual million questions and then took a nap, while she was napping I realized how much all of those questions have shaped her. Not only questions of me, but of all of the people in her life. She's always been dragged on buses full of crazed teenagers, out to ski where little girls shouldn't ski, to do mile repeats with 4 dogs in the baby jogger and she's taken it all in and made it pure Ruby.

Crawling Out Of The Hole...

Yesterday one of my friends said, "if you're committed to something you just behave better." This comment is resonating with me. For the last 18 months I've been working out primarily to stay sane and tire out the pack. I've had ideas of goals throughout this time, but just haven't been able to get my act together to make a plan, stick to it, take care of my body and stay healthy. I finally got tired of bitching and moaning about missing my badassedness and decided it was time to get off my ass and get it back! As I don't feel like I have the time for Ironman or even half Ironman races, the marathon was an easy choice. There's also 5 months left to hit an Olympic Trials qualifying mark, but that's a secondary goal to finding the badassedness. I found a great coach and have recruited a couple of top notch training partners, NCAA Champ Wendy Pavlus & NYS 400 Hurdle Champ Kyla Kenyon, and am crawling out the hole I slowly jogged myself into. It's amazing how great it feels to challenge myself again, how excited I get when I check out the next week's plan, how willing I am to invite the girls to kick my ass once or twice a week! Being committed to running the best marathon I can makes me a little bit more conscious about everything I do from eating, to parenting, to cleaning motel rooms. I'm definitely feeling renewed and relieved that it's not all over, that I can train properly for this race, learn from past mistakes, and see what I've got!

To My Beloved Running Sisters....

As I ran away from Handy Suites this morning, where my beautiful daughter was ill and sad about missing our first family ski vacation, I felt strangely calm about having a grip on the situation. As most of you know, I'm kind of a freak. Fortunately, as I've aged you have helped to tame the freak in some situations! While I was cruising along I spotted a group of spandex-clad girls shuffling away from the St. Michael's campus laughing and chatting in the sun. It brought a tear to my eye as I thought of all the runs through Ogdensburg, Canton, Lake Placid, Tupper Lake, Arizona, or New Hampshire with my own groups of happy running girls, where the running part is almost an after thought. All the miles spent solving problems, hatching tremendous plans, laughing so hard we pee our pants have made us who we are today-women who find the positive in seriously yucky situations, women who understand just how precious it is to simply get out the door, women who can remain strangely calm when their first family ski trip gets puked on! Thank you ladies for everything you have taught me, it was great running with you this morning! The St. Michael's girls greatly appreciated getting passed by an old woman:)

Take advantage of the fearlessness in toddlers...

and strap a pair of skis on their little feet! Since the first few weeks of her life when she was bundled up and strapped into a baby jogger Ruby has been carted all over the Adirondacks, so the minute we could get her on skis we went for it! Over the last couple of seasons I've been had too many grinning from ear to ear days chasing the lucky little brat down slopes to count. Ruby gets to live out all our childhood dreams-including my childhood dream of being a pizza eating triathlete! Today Ruby and one of her friends kept begging me to take them into a trail in the woods so they could point it down a nice steep chute, only they didn't need to beg because it was so awesome watching them squealing and flying down the hill. It's amazing the terrain she can handle and the endurance that she has-hopefully it will keep me young until she's 10 and I really can't keep up! So do your toddlers and yourself a favor and get them to the mountain before they learn what fear is!