I am not a good runner. As long as I can remember, my body has felt mostly foreign, a collection of limbs only barely under my control, certainly not a cohesive unit and certainly not capable of anything approaching athleticism. Maybe I grew too fast; maybe it’s just how I’m built. Either way, when in March I willingly laced up running shoes for the first time, I also silently prepared for the apocalypse (or an asthma attack.)

Now that it’s July and the world hasn’t ended, I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that perhaps I’m just a runner now. Still slow, still lacking in some basic sense of coordination, but a runner nonetheless. I write poems about running. I spend time while commuting picking the best routes to try next. I obsess over Fitbit data like it’s a religious text, a prophecy: here in my daily step count I will find the patterns that predict the future, revealing the secrets of stamina, of strength.

I tried a different route on this run. Up the hill towards Twin Peaks, a few brutal blocks not recommended to trucks (let alone beginning runners) and then a sprint, loose-limbed, down through the Castro towards the bay. By the time I shuddered to a stop in Civic Center, I’d run farther than ever before.

Then I went home and made this pie for my housemate’s birthday. I’m not much of a baker either; I only know three recipes. The homemade crust was a disaster from the start- too sticky, too slow, a horrible floury mess.

It didn’t matter. She came home three hours late. The pie was delicious.