But this was ridiculous.

She had thought being a mother would be simple. She had always been drawn to children. She babysat frequently as a teen.

"I loved being around kids," Demus said. "I mean, what could be so hard about that? But when I had them I realized: It's hard."

An bigger hurdle was the fact that Demus had her twin boys at an awkward time in her career — the year before the Olympics. By 2007, the 25-year-old Columbia, S.C., resident had turned into a rising track star.

When she moved from California to Columbia to run track for the University of South Carolina in 2001, Demus was just a fine prospect. But that had changed. She had gotten so good in college that she turned pro early. In 2006, she was ranked the No. 1 women's 400-meter hurdler in the world.

And then she got pregnant and decided to take a year off to have the babies.

Now Demus is trying to regain that No. 1 ranking. And, if she's going to make a good living in her sport, she needs to get it back. Few outside the track and field world pay much attention to the sport except during the Olympics. To cement her status and dramatically increase her earning potential, Demus really needs to win a medal -- preferably a gold -- in August.

"She wants to be the best hurdler who has ever lived," said her coach, Sylvaneus Hepburn, a former Olympic sprinter for The Bahamas. "She wants to break the American and then the world record in her event. And she's got the talent to do all of that."

First, though, Demus must qualify for the U.S. Olympic team when the track and field trials begin Friday in Eugene, Ore. The women's 400-meter hurdles final is Sunday, with the top three finishers earning a trip to Beijing.

I caught up with Demus at 7:45 one morning in Columbia, where she trains with a small group of other hurdlers and sprinters at a modest public park near Columbia's downtown airport.

It was the start of a typical day. Demus' husband, Jamel Mayrant, was taking care of the twins. Then, after her practice, Demus would go home to take care of them in the afternoon and evening while Mayrant worked at his job as a recreational supervisor at a juvenile prison. They would eventually have a quick dinner together before putting the twins to bed and falling to sleep exhausted.

"We don't do much of anything other than care for them and love them," Demus said. "We're doing good if we get to a movie."

Since that conversation they have sent Duaine and Dontay to live with Lashinda's parents in California for the next few weeks.

Demus misses mothering the twins when they're gone, but she also had a big training breakthrough the last time they stayed with her parents.

Demus, who is 5 feet 7, gained 50 pounds during the pregnancy, going from 130 to 180. She gave birth in June of 2007. Three weeks later, her mom (a former U.S. national team member as a quarter-miler) convinced her to start walking. A week after that, her mom told her to start jogging again.

"I think she's all the way back," said Yolanda Demus, Lashinda's mother and her former coach when Lashinda was a youth track star. "I think she's going to be better."

In late 2007, several months after the twins were born, Demus and Mayrant married.

"We basically wanted to get right with God," Mayrant said. "It made us stronger as a family."

The twins are strong-willed, healthy and active. They began walking at 10 months and generally rule the house, except at nap time.

"They're pretty stubborn," Demus said. "Then again, my parents say I was stubborn when I was little."

If Demus makes the U.S. Olympic team, it won't be the first time. Her 2004 experience in Athens was mixed.

She was on world-record pace at the U.S. trials before hitting the ninth hurdle, stumbling and suddenly finding herself in fourth place. She sprinted back to third to barely make the squad. At the Olympics, she ran a bad race in her semifinal heat and missed qualifying for the final.

"I slowed down at the line because I thought I was eliminated anyway," Demus said. "It was a big mistake."

Demus promises she won't make it again. I asked her what she felt the best race of her career has been. She glanced at the twins, then looked up.

"The best race of my life," she said, "hasn't come yet."

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