We’re coming up on my three year blogoversary at the end of October. So I’m celebrating with a few fun things. I’ve decided to declare this week, guest post week at Running Stitch.

Today’s post is by Beth. She can usually be found posting at House Made (a site she shares with her partner, Merideth) when she is not watching TV, which is most of the time.

Enjoy (also Mom, I told them not to cuss…but what can you do?)

-brit

First of all, let me state that I am honored to be a guest poster at the lovely Ms. Brit’s site. While I have only met her once in real life, she’s one of my favorite people, and I find her stories of her boys and sewing and life to be a high point of my day. I also always completely agree with her assessments of Harry Potter. God bless J.K. Rowling for bringing him into our lives.

For my entry, I decided my topic should be within the bounds of sewing or running. I decided this because I am lazy, and also tend to work better creatively within boundaries, the boundary here being the title of Brit’s blog. (In elementary language arts, my class wrote in journals every day. I hated the days when I had to come up with my own topic, much more content to write for pages on My Favorite Color or My Ideal Pet.)

So. Sewing or running. My relationship with sewing is easy: I make Brit do it for me. I mean, I’m up for the occasional curtains and/or animal towel for a newborn, but quilting? Ha! That’s what redheads in the Northwest are made for. Also, the Amish. But I don’t know them, which makes it easier for them to refuse to do my sewing.

I have never understood long-distance running. It seems punishing to both body and mind. Joggers are constantly nursing a wonky knee or a splint shin. There is ice in the freezer that is meant solely for placing on a body part instead of where it should belong: In a cocktail. And jogging’s boring. Hours are spent on lonely stretches of road wondering if cars will see you with enough advance warning to swerve, and thinking that it would probably not be that bad if you just walked a little bit…like to that next mailbox…or the next one.

Regardless of my distaste for jogging, I ran cross country for all of high school. One might presume at this time that while I might not like jogging, I must have been halfway decent in order to subject myself to it for four solid years.. One would be wrong. I am not a good jogger. I am a good sprinter, and loved track season, but jogging? Not so much my forte, or even really my pianissimo. Track season was fun, but cross country was a living Hell. And my coach was the devil. (Note that “Hell” refers to a place like Fresno or Ottawa. In this case, it’s not a cuss word.)

I tried to like cross country. I really, really did. I thought that if I got better, I’d grow more fond of it, which is a pretty good theory that I never got to test as I never really got better. I wanted to get better. In response to helpful shouting on the sidelines, I left my comfort zone, pushed harder, breathed in through my nose, relaxed my face and hands, lifted my knees, and sprinted to finish lines. But somehow, it just never worked out for me. I was the worst runner as a freshman, and the worst as a senior. I was made a captain out of pity. Well, that and there were only two senior girls and they kind of had to give it to me because the other girl was pregnant. Upon graduation, I vowed that jogging had seen the last of me.

However. I find that recently, my memory has gone as soft as my thighs, and jogging suddenly seems like a great pastime and a healthy way to spend an evening. I cannot decide if it’s part of a third-life crisis, an attempt to bond with the dog, or an avoidance of housework that has me at a pace faster than an amble these days, but faster I am. My partner and I have recently started Cool Running’s Couch to 5K program, and so far, I have neither wanted to die or kill anyone. Good signs all-around. Also, I’m feeling something I’ve never felt after running. Refreshed? Accomplished? Not nauseous enough to actually throw up? I cannot put my finger on it, but it’s not all bad. It is also not all bad that ice can be applied to both ankles AND gin and tonics.

And so now, my thirty-one-year-old self is saying something that my eighteen-year-old self would never have believed: Maybe jogging does not totally suck.

I’m still not good at it. That may not matter.

Is “suck” a cuss word?