Baby Steps

On March 3rd, we had our baby, our little nursing champion: Callum Andrew Slane. At just over three weeks early he managed to hang onto a solid 7lb and 12oz of pure adorableness. Thankfully, he knows that his neurotic mama needed to get out for a run at the earliest possible convenience and so he decided to make his grand entrance into the world before his due date (he's getting an extra inheritance for this decision).

I went out for a run two days ago and when I got back home, right before I collapsed into a puddle on the front steps, I pumped my fist in the air and shouted Chevy Chase's line in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: "HALLELUIAH!.....HOLY SHIT!"

Then I ran again yesterday. And then I'm meeting Lora for a run today and celebratory beers in the trail parking lot.

I am wife and mother, daughter and sister, friend and lover. And I am runner. Because I'm out of time, I wanted to share with you guys what my fellow Canadian runner brother Steve wrote today, because it hit home with me so much and I know that so many runners out there will also recognize their own hearts in his voice. Until next time, here's Steve:

Runnersworld dot com’s Daily Kick In the Butt:

“We run to undo the damage we’ve done to body and spirit. We run to find some part of ourselves yet undiscovered.” ~ John “The Penguin” Bingham~

A few years ago, I was dying. Not in the conventional sense of dying from some disease…just dying from the inside out. There was still life in the body but that isn’t the same thing as really living, is it? Listless, confused, and depressed…and getting fat. Shit had to change. I have talked about it before but I never wanted to lose my edge. Of course, somehow over the years, I got softer. The edge turned into rounded edges.

The edge has changed. It no longer involves reckless behavior and intoxicant fueled concepts. Now it consists of finding that undiscovered part of myself. In an age where there seems to be very few frontiers, perhaps the last frontier is within. Now the edge is just a hunger for breaking through barriers…testing my will and becoming stronger inside and out. Running gives me the ability to tap into what lies beneath.

The edge is undoing the damage to body and spirit…and mind. Funny how changing your physicality can change you spiritually and intellectually as well. Never before have I felt so alive (at least not in a really long time.) As I grow as a runner, I have also grown as a human…more compassionate, empathetic, and understanding. Understanding of my own strengths and limitations and understanding of others’. No longer stuck in the rut that seems to claim so many lost souls, I have learned to live.

A simple choice but one that a lot of people don’t seem to figure out.

“Get busy living or get busy dying.” ~ Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins in Shawshank Redemption)