Julie Jag, Out and About: Back in the saddle after the baby

Santacruzsentinel.com - Full Article

By Julie Jag, Santa Cruz Sentinel
POSTED: 07/15/15

SANTA CRUZ >> It’s probably a good thing it all happened so suddenly. I didn’t have time to second-guess my decision or make excuses for why I couldn’t do it.

My friend Steve Shaw contacted me a week before the Fireworks Endurance Ride, a horse “race” through a series of Santa Cruz County parks, and asked if I was interested in riding his horse in it. I gave him a tentative yes on Monday. On Wednesday, another friend, Don Roth, met me at Henry Cowell State Park to make sure I could still ride.

By Saturday, I was literally back in the saddle.

It had been more than a year and a half since I’d climbed onto a horse’s back. My last ride had been a 50 miler in December 2013, when I was three months pregnant with my now 13-month-old daughter. It feels like a gross understatement to say a lot has happened since then. My priorities, my body, my perspective — my entire life has been turned upside down.

So, I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that when I showed up for that practice run, I couldn’t remember how to put on the horse’s tack. I fumbled around with the girth and the chest plate, cursing myself and my sudden-onset dementia until Don kindly showed me the ropes, again...

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http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/sports/20150715/julie-jag-out-and-about-back-in-the-saddle-after-the-baby