Look!  I’m in a commercial of sorts!!

I am not sitting on the couch with the rest of the team discussing the importance of pockets and the like because it was filmed around 9pm and Ruby had turned into a wailing banshee halfway through the dinner preceding the video shoot.  She wailed through the team dinner, wailed on the 30-minute drive back to Leadville from restaurant in Buena Vista, wailed as I unloaded her from the car — and right through point when the New Balance folks told me it’d be “just fine” if I wasn’t in the video.  It was for the best; There’d have been no way to mask the piercing baby howls in the video.

Dom: “As a mountain runner, you’re trying to find a way to move in conjunction with the land.”

Ruby: “WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAARGHAHHHHHHHRHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGG!!!!!

I howled and wailed along with Ruby on the drive back to the cabin where we were staying afterwards.  Here was my one chance to be in a video taking about running gear, and I was stuck with a snot-covered, foul-tempered baby.  (PS. I had arranged for a sitter, but she canceled at the last minute.)  Honestly, though, I wouldn’t have had anything to add to the gear conversation if someone had taken the bullet and carried Ruby out of earshot (5 miles away).  Three hours of Banshee Baby had sucked the soul out of me– along with any coherent sentences about running gear.

OK, this post was billed as stories from RD-ing Rocky 50 and my current MdS Bikram Yoga torture, but I’m running out of babysitter time, and I’ve still got to try and get a brush through my hair.  I will leave you with the Squeaky Shoes — as you head into the weekend.  You’re welcome.  (Click the link below the picture.)

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