Ruthlyn Greenfield-Webster of Yonkers is stoked about competing in her first world masters championships. And if that isn’t enough motivation, her hometown paper has given her quest a great push. Check out this article. My favorite quote: “This is what she does,” said Christopher Webster, her husband of 11 years. “I’ve come to realize that when it comes to desire to compete, you can put it on the shelf, but you can never get rid of it.” Yeah, baby. You got it. Go, Ruthlyn!

Here’s the story in case the link goes dead:

Yonkers resident joyful to be jumping again
By CHRISTOPHER HUNT
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original Publication: September 6, 2007)
MOUNT VERNON -Ruthlyn Greenfield-Webster walked alone on the edge of the track at Mount Vernon High School. Only the sounds of a man fertilizing the grass and the musings of two young girls accompanied her workout.
It looked as if she hadn’t missed a day. Her abdominal muscles pushed through her spandex speed suit -the one she’ll wear when she represents the United States at the World Masters Track and Field Championships, which run through next week in Riccone, Italy.
Greenfield-Webster, a Yonkers resident and Mount Vernon graduate, will compete in the long jump and triple jump, starting with the long jump on Wednesday. At the track, she wore a red, white and blue uniform that had a shield on the chest. It read “USA,” but it might as well have been a giant “S.”
At 36 years old, Greenfield-Webster is a married mother of two daughters and a registered nurse. If that weren’t enough, she is the president of Greenfield-Webster Consulting, LLC, a medical-legal consulting company she began six years ago.
Oh, and before she wandered into an all-comers meet last summer, it had been 14 years since she competed in track and field.
“I like to stay active,” she said. “I like to stay involved” was her answer for why she does it all.
Last summer, Greenfield-Webster didn’t know anything about masters-division track, which is reserved for athletes 30 and older. She left her track career at the University of Pennsylvania when she graduated in 1992.
Greenfield-Webster had been one of the top jumpers in Mount Vernon history. She became a nurse after graduating from the Ivy League school where she became one of the best leapers in Quakers’ history, ranking second all-time in the indoor and outdoor triple jump.
Multiple hamstring injuries told the four-time Heptagonal triple-jump champion that she had endured enough training sessions, enough pounding on her knees, enough jarring of her back.
“I think with my injuries my senior year, I didn’t want to be competing with sleeves on my thighs and getting cortisone shots in my hamstrings,” she said. “I never really had Olympic aspirations. … It was time to move on to the second phase of my life. Little did I know that 15 years later I’d be competing.”
It started because a friend invited her to a Westchester Twilight Meet last summer at Hen Hud High School. Greenfield-Webster jumped 34 feet, 4 inches after a 14-year layoff. At the USA Masters championships last year, the winner in the age 35-39 division jumped 32- 1/4 .
“Once I saw that, I said, ‘Wait, I can do this,’ ” she said.
For five years before venturing back into track, she played volleyball at the National Urban League. Now that she’s jumping again, Greenfield-Webster spent most of the year training once a week and lifting at home. She’s aiming at the American masters triple-jump record, 38-6 1/4 by 38-year old Regina Richardson in 2003.
“This is what she does,” said Christopher Webster, her husband of 11 years. “I’ve come to realize that when it comes to desire to compete, you can put it on the shelf, but you can never get rid of it.”
Greenfield-Webster is ranked second in the country in her age group in the triple jump (36-10 1/4 ) and third in the long jump (16-5 1/4 ).
She won her age group in the triple jump at the USA Masters championships in Orono, Maine, in 34-1 1/2 , where she also finished second in the long jump and third in the 100.
Greenfield-Webster has stayed close with Walter Hall, the current Mount Vernon coach, who guided her scholastic career, and Tony Tenisci, the field coach at Penn. She won the masters long and triple jump at the Empire State Games at Byram Hills High this summer, then dashed with her two daughters to Mount Vernon, where the scholastic and open track meet was held, to show her medal to her former coach.
“I grabbed my girls and ran over to Mr. Hall like I was a teenager again,” she said. “I kind of just wanted to tell him I could still do it.”
Greenfield-Webster doesn’t anticipate her body getting in the way, or her job, or her consulting business, or her family. She only wants to get on the medal stand in Italy. And who knows when she’ll pack away her track spikes again.
“My greatest fear is being relegated to a chair where I have to sit and do nothing,” Greenfield-Webster said. “That would be the death of me. I want to be able to do this forever. I thought I answered that question 15 years ago when I stopped, but here I am again.”