Today is my daughter Rachael’s 8th birthday. She was born with a severe case of bilateral clubfoot, which is now fully corrected thanks to a miracle procedure called the Ponseti non-surgical method. Instead of bringing cupcakes into her class to celebrate her birthday, we decided last year to take her out of school one day each year for something I think is pretty cool and much more rewarding. She went to her mom’s school this morning for jeans day, where many of the teachers and staff have graciously donated to the Ponseti Association in Rachael’s honor. She is currently talking to classes about her experience with clubfoot and playing show-and-tell with her casts, shoes and bar-brace. Go Rachael! :-)The jeans day event was a big success last year and Rachael has been counting down the days until she could go again and share her story with the school. We thought we’d try and do a little more this year by sharing her story and putting up an online site to see if any of our friends and family would like to also take part, which is the link you see attached to this post. We simply can’t explain how incredibly fortunate we were to find this procedure through a chance internet search eight years ago. The same story was repeated by almost all clubfoot parents at the time and this miracle only spread through luck by the emerging power of the internet, online communities and social media … so why not use that same spirit to continue the cause? We were lucky, but there are still 1 in 750 babies born each year with clubfoot and there is a very inexpensive procedure available that is severely under-funded. Help Rachael celebrate her birthday by donating to her fundraising campaign and spreading the word about the Ponseti method of clubfoot correction. Here is the link to her fundraising page: http://www.razoo.com/story/Clubfoot
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Today is my daughter Rachael’s 8th birthday. She was born with a severe case of bilateral clubfoot, which is now fully corrected thanks to a miracle procedure called the Ponseti non-surgical method. Instead of bringing cupcakes into her class to celebrate her birthday, we decided last year to take her out of school one day each year for something I think is pretty cool and much more rewarding. She went to her mom’s school this morning for jeans day, where many of the teachers and staff have graciously donated to the Ponseti Association in Rachael’s honor. She is currently talking to classes about her experience with clubfoot and playing show-and-tell with her casts, shoes and bar-brace. Go Rachael! :-)

The jeans day event was a big success last year and Rachael has been counting down the days until she could go again and share her story with the school. We thought we’d try and do a little more this year by sharing her story and putting up an online site to see if any of our friends and family would like to also take part, which is the link you see attached to this post. 

We simply can’t explain how incredibly fortunate we were to find this procedure through a chance internet search eight years ago. The same story was repeated by almost all clubfoot parents at the time and this miracle only spread through luck by the emerging power of the internet, online communities and social media … so why not use that same spirit to continue the cause? We were lucky, but there are still 1 in 750 babies born each year with clubfoot and there is a very inexpensive procedure available that is severely under-funded. Help Rachael celebrate her birthday by donating to her fundraising campaign and spreading the word about the Ponseti method of clubfoot correction. Here is the link to her fundraising page: http://www.razoo.com/story/Clubfoot

My first post-Sandy visit to Seaside Heights, NJ … busy planning a hurricane relief campaign…details soon! 
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My first post-Sandy visit to Seaside Heights, NJ … busy planning a hurricane relief campaign…details soon! 

Rutgers Big Chill 5K 3.13 mi 00:34 10:43 pace The 10th annual Rutgers Big Chill 5K “race” with 116 members of my running club team and ran with my 13 year old daughter  She wore light up antlers and I wore a Santa hat (and shorts!) This is a charity race where the “entry fee” is an unwrapped toy to be donated. This year saw 8,000+ runners and over 9,000 toys and just huge event. NOT one to PR or even attempt to race, with lots of walkers and just WAY too much weaving. I think we went the first mile in almost 12 minutes, but lots of fun. Most of our team was just putting in a light jog for this one anyway since we have the USATF-NJ 10-mile grand finale team championships in the morning…so back to actual racing very soon, but this one was fun.
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Rutgers Big Chill 5K 3.13 mi 00:34 10:43 pace

The 10th annual Rutgers Big Chill 5K “race” with 116 members of my running club team and ran with my 13 year old daughter  She wore light up antlers and I wore a Santa hat (and shorts!) This is a charity race where the “entry fee” is an unwrapped toy to be donated. This year saw 8,000+ runners and over 9,000 toys and just huge event. NOT one to PR or even attempt to race, with lots of walkers and just WAY too much weaving. I think we went the first mile in almost 12 minutes, but lots of fun. Most of our team was just putting in a light jog for this one anyway since we have the USATF-NJ 10-mile grand finale team championships in the morning…so back to actual racing very soon, but this one was fun.