running uphill

I went jogging with my husband yesterday.  As I sit here, my feet hurt and my back is sore. The run was not fun at the time and my attitude was not up to par.  I really wanted to be with Kirby and we have enjoyed exercising together as of late.  Normally I exercise alone.  My head clears and I do almost the same thing every day.  Knowing that your routine should be shook up time to time , I began asking my husband to jog with me on some days knowing nothing would be normal about my routine when I was with him.  Several times he has surprised me and wanted to jog my normal route. However, he likes to talk while we jog and give helpful advice about the science of say running uphill verses downhill.  I won't give much verbage  to that except to say, that I do not prefer to have to think about science while I'm running up a steep hill and I certainly don't want to talk back.

Back to yesterday.  Kirby decided we should run to the green belt, then through it and back to our house.  I was excited about running on a trail rather than cement and the first half hour was great.  After around 30min I realized he didn't really know where we were. . Mind you, we are new to our neighborhood.  At one point after already jogging for 30 or so minutes ( usually my limit) there was a HUGE hill we had to go up.  I  knew he would want to jog up it.  I dislike being weak more than I dislike running up monster hills.  I lumbered behind him praying we were close to our house.  We popped out on a main road with no sidewalk. Now we had to jog on a median with thick grass on a slight hill.  I was done.  I hated how the grass felt under my shoes, I hated the cars passing by and the lack of shade on this particular road. Finally, I said " I don't feel like even picking up my feet!"  My husband continued to wait patiently for me, encouraging me , talking about how fun it was to both explore a new place and exercise at the the same time. " That's the problem."  I said.  " I don't like to do two things at once!"  Mostly I could tell I was having such a bad attitude because I didn't have a clear picture of what was next.  Would there be another hill or two?  Is the sidewalk going to appear or am I going to be jogging on this lumpy median for ever?

As we crested the second big hill I told my husband.  " You are enjoying this because by nature you  love adventure and enjoy a challenge.  By nature I am fearful and enjoy doing things I am already good at. " After I said it, the weight and reality of what I had said hit me.  It's true.  I feel I am hardwired this way and sometimes I don't like myself for this reason.  But, instead of wallowing in the fact that for some reason God made me reluctant to try new things, I focused on how lucky I am to have a partner who isn't !  Later in the day I thought back to Kirby coaching me up the hill.  I shouted things like " this is the reason you don't see me doing exercise videos, I HATE to be told what to do!"  I admit I would not have jogged the hills, I would have walked them instead and given myself an excuse for it.  Now looking back , I'm glad I did it and did not wimp out.
I am happy to have him in my life to push me,I hope in some other way I push him.