This morning I ran a long run in the rain on the beach. It was one of those runs which was slow and steady and easy to lose yourself in your own thoughts, particularly as there was no one else around. My intention was to run 30mins along the beach then turn around.

As it turned out I got lost in my thoughts about how I was going to engage my senior students with the poems we would be studying this year. A quick glance at my watch showed me that I had run over time and was quite comfortably plodding along. I had to say plod as while I was not walking I was not going very fast.

This took my mind to a blog I read yesterday where the blogger said she hated being called a jogger and initially I thought I agreed. However on further thought, and further minutes on the outward route, I decided running comes in many forms. Today I was a plodder, in the last 10 miles of my first marathon I was a shuffler (my achilles would not let me walk), and both are forms of running in my experience. This lead me to think about jogging and why it seems slightly insulting to be called a jogger. Maybe because it too is a form of running so as a runner you run, jog, plod, or shuffle. We say so and so jogged down the street and that sounds ok; think of the elite runner who jogs a warm up prior to beginning his or her event at race place. It indicates a freshness and lightness of the legs; a feeling I have not felt for a long time so I would love to be able to jog. However at the end of the day I DO want to be called a runner rather than a jogger as that seems more legitimate even if that running resembles a shuffle at times and I dearly wish I could jog.

All that thinking took me 54mins over my one hour run – slow but comfortable and more miles in the legs so one day they will be strong enough for me to feel the ‘lightness of jogging’.