Erma Bombeck - Aunt Ermas Cope Book

the complete book of jogging

jim FIXIT'S legs were the first thing I saw every morning and the last thing I saw every night.

They were on the cover of his best seller. The Complete Book of Jogging. For the past two years my husband had followed the gospel according to St. James Fixit. He ate Jim's cereal, took Jim's warming-up exercises, adopted Jim's form, ran with Jim in races whenever he could, and occasionallywhen he thought no one was lookinglived out his fantasy by posing his legs in front of the mirror like the legs on the cover of the book.

When he wasn't poring over the pages of the book, it was on the nightstand by our bed next to the liniment.

My husband knew how I felt about physical fitness. I hated skiing or any other sport where there was an ambulance waiting at the bottom of the hill. As a golfer with a slice, I found the game lonely. And it became apparent to me long ago that if God had wanted me to play tennis, He would have given me less leg and more room to store the ball.

Despite this, I knew it was only a matter of time before he pointed out that my inner peace had brought me outer fat and tried to convert me to jogging.

Joggers were like that. In no other sport were the participants so evangelistic. They talked of nothing else.

The children of runners would huddle in groups and whisper: Who told you about jogging? Your mother or your father? Or did you learn about it in the gutter?

Whenever a group of four would gather, someone would open the conversation with Where were you and what were you doing when you heard that Bill Rogers won the Boston Marathon? I remember I was washing my hair when the bulletin came over the news.

One night I was dancing with one of my husband's friends when he whispered, Sure, I could go jogging with you this weekend, but would you respect me in the morning?

They bragged about their blisters, their Achilles tendonitis, their chondromalacia of the knee, their foot bursitis, shin splints, pulled leg muscles, back pains, and muscle cramps. Their stories made you sick you missed World War II.

I watched the joggers every morning from my kitchen window. They looked like an organized death march as they ran by gasping, perspiring, stumbling, their faces contorted with pain. I never had the urge to cut in.

One night as I crawled into bed, I inadvertently set my root beer float on top of Jim Fixit's book. Horrified, my husband grabbed the book and wiped the jacket off with the sleeve of his pajama. What kind of an animal are you?

I thought then he might launch into his sanctimonious how-good-you'd-feel-if-you-got-up-at-five-thirty -and-ran-ten-miles-speech, bur he didn't.

I continued to reward my frustrations with food and he continued to run every day and brag about his jogger's elbow (which he got when he sideswiped a stop sign at an intersection). One morning when he returned from his run he asked brightly, Guess who I saw running in the park?

Before I could answer he said, Louise Cremshaw. Remember her?

Louise Cremshaw! We used to follow her around for shade. Of course I remember Louise, I said. She was the only girl in our class who had to have the sleeves let out in her graduation gown.

Not any more, he said, grabbing for a box of Jim Fixit's cereal. She's been running and she's a real knockout.

That did it. Okay, I said, throwing down the dish towel. You've won. You've penetrated the barrier of good sense. I am yours. I will start to jog. Just tell me which chapters to start reading in The Complete Book of Jogging.

There are a lot of books you can read, he hedged.

There's Inner Walking by Tad Victor. He's the guy who wrote Inner Bowling, Inner Roller Skating, and Inner Gooney Golf.

What's wrong with my reading your Complete Book of Jogging?

Wait until you're serious about it. Besides, you have to learn to walk before you can jog.

Inner Walking said there were two people within my body (I certainly had the stomach for it). The outer part of me was instinctively competitive. But the inner part of me needed work. I had to teach myself to concentrate and to remove self-doubts about myself and my abilities.

It said a lot of sports people used the inner theory that said within you there is a better you than you think there is. I read about the skiers who subscribed to this theory and didn't regard bumps as adversaries, but as friends. They would ski over each one saying, Thank you, bump.

Or bowlers who threw a gutter ball would say, Thank you, gutter, for being there. Or the gooney golf players who didn't always make the cup but were grateful that the ball didn't land in the middle of the expressway. What they were really saying is that I had to be psyched up for walking and not be discouraged.

When a boulder lodged in my shoe, I said, Thank you, rock, for nearly severing my toe from my foot.

When a car with a bumper sticker that read I found it nearly ran me off the road, I said, Thank you, car, for not strapping me to your hood to show everyone what you found today.

As I ran into the driveway, my husband said, I thought you were supposed to be walking.

I was, I panted, until I ran out of Twinkles to hold off the dogs.

He said I was ready for Jim Fixit's book.

That night he brought it to the dining-room table and gently placed it before me like a chalice. In keeping with the moment, I genuflected and said a little prayer.

The big thing about jogging was that it was a pure sport. It was just you in a little pair of raggy gym shoes, a pair of shorts, and your own patch of lonely road. That was beautiful. Like a Rod McKuen poem.