Running and Then Quilting About It

Sometimes, no matter how important a goal is, no matter how badly I want to improve my times, I just can’t get myself to run.  This was one of those weeks.  And I’m not talking about a week where I didn’t really feel like running and so I made up a bunch of excuses or was too lazy to even put on my running shoes.  I mean one of those weeks where I felt like the world was out to get me and nobody wanted to be around me because I couldn’t stop complaining about everything that was happening (or not happening).  By the end of the week, having only done 4 miles, I knew I either had to get a couple of really long runs in, if I wanted to reach my goal of 30 miles per week, or scrap the entire week and start again next week.  I kept telling myself that I would get the long runs, but when I realized that I was starting to struggle to even get out of bed, I re-evaluated the decision and chose the week-scrapping option.

I know that when you’re starting to feel depressed, exercise is supposed to help.  Something about endorphins?  I haven’t gotten to that part of medical school yet (I’m not really in med school).  But what if you’re feeling too sloth-like to exercise?  The answer is, you should sew a quilt out of your old running shirts.  Like this:

I count sewing a quilt of running shirts (and other random shirts) as a running-related activity.  So basically it was like exercise.  It turns out I don’t actually know how to make an entire quilt, so I just made the front piece, minus the outer-border, because to do that you really only need to know how to cut things and how to sew in a straight line.  And how to spend three hours seam-ripping the t-shirts out of a quilt I started four years ago that I thought was ugly.  This one I like, as long as I don’t stare at it too long because then I get dizzy.  Now all I have to do is wait six months for my aunt to come visit and teach me how to make the quilty-part of the quilt!

What I’m really getting at here, is the reason why I hate that most races hand out tech-shirts now.  How am I supposed to save those for ten years and then sew them into a quilt?  I don’t know how to sew with that material, and I think if I used iron-on backing (like I did for my cotton t-shirts in this quilt), everything would melt.  Am I just supposed to wear these shirts and then never have them be a part of a quilt?  That doesn’t even make a little bit of sense.

Has anyone else had success making a t-shirt quilt (or part of one) with your old running shirts?  Or found something more interesting/crafty to do with them?  I especially need help here with the tech t-shirts, it’s rare that I get a tech t-shirt from a race that actually fits well enough to wear, so I need an alternate use for them… fancy scrunchies?  Compression sleeves?  Let me know if you’ve come up with anything!

Miles run in 2012: 103
Average miles/week in 2012: 20.6