How to get a quilter to run a 12K

As a quilter, I’m supposed to blog about quilting stuff, right? and I will.  I promise. But first, I want to talk a little bit about my mother. My mom just turned 69.  She’s 5’2″ and 110 pounds soaking wet.  Doesn’t sound like she would be a runner, but she is.  She ran her first marathon at 55, in 4 hours and 13 minutes. That’s just over 9 minute miles! When she first started running in her 50’s, she tried to give me all of her clothes that she “in grew”.  I was 31.  I DID NOT want anything that was given to me by my mother because she was skinnier than me!  Fast forward 14 years. She is still kicking my butt when it comes to running and exercise.  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not in bad shape. I’m just not in really good shape.  As a quilter, the only thing that runs at my house is my Longarm. I’m OK with that.  So what could she possible say to me that could ever make me consider running a mile. Let alone a 12K?  “It’s in San Fransisco. I’ll take you if you run with me.” Now sure, there are lots of easier ways to get to San Francisco. I just turned 45 and I’m tired of my mother being in better shape than I am.  So I’m ready for a change and the added incentive of getting to go to San Fransisco tipped the scales.  Of course, you probably don’t get to go to Ghiradelli’s to celebrate after the race, but life is full of trade offs. By now you are probably asking yourself what this has to do with quilting, if anything.  Well I’ll tell you.  I run a full-time long arming business averaging around 150 customer quilts a year; I’m married to a railroader, so in a lot of ways I’m a single parent to 13 and 16-year-old boys.  Not that he doesn’t help out, but he’s not home very much.  If that wasn’t enough, I also teaching quilting all over the place.  Don’t get me wrong,  I love my life, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but it doesn’t leave me a lot of time to get in shape. So for the next 6 months, I need to find ways to workout while I’m quilting. Diet of course plays a very important role in losing weight, and I will definitely have to change the way I eat. (I freely admit I’m addicted to carbs) It won’t, however, help you run up and down the hills in San Francisco.  To that end, I am going to be revamping my studio, making it less efficient, but hopefully helping me workout more and get in that all important step count.  I’m also going to be improving how I work, trying to include various exercises between quilting passes, and piecing tops.  Of course, I will have to eventually find some time to actually start running on the treadmill, but for that I will have to improve my time management skills. Along the way, I’ll share tips and tricks for working out, setting up your studio to help you move more, and of course some cool quilts and quilting tricks.  Because of course, it’s all about quilter and quilts. So come join me as I start this adventure, and see if I can actually lose weight while quilting.  If nothing else, it should be a wild ride!