kerry-litka.com|small things considered

I knew this was coming. After spending all spring and summer collecting patterns and fabric and picking out stylish outfits and then sewing some of them, I discover that I will have precious little opportunities to wear said outfits.

Why?

I’ll tell you why.

Because I am a Gym Major.

Actually, that is not entirely true. I am a graduate student in Exercise Science. When I was an undergrad, my program fell under the umbrella major of Physical Education. We spent most of our time wearing sweats and warmups and our justification for this was that we were, in fact, gym majors. (Technically, only the PE-Teacher Certification students were actual gym majors…the rest of us were either Health/Fitness option or Sports Medicine…but I digress)

At UNH we are no longer under the PE umbrella – apparently at one point in time this program was, but things expanded and they now have the fancy name of Kinesiology for a department, and Exercise Science as our option. And, because we are studying the science of exercise, you can guarantee that a lot of our learning is hands on.

Last year I did not have any real ‘hands on’ classes. The lone exception was Electrocardiography, but we only hooked each other up to the ECG once. I did have one physiological demonstration project for my Topics in Applied Physiology course, but again, that was one day which involved 15minutes of walking on a treadmill.

This semester, I get to take Fitness/Graded Exercise Testing, which is a very hands on class. We will practice administering the battery of fitness tests on each other. I’ve done this before, years ago in my undergraduate days, but this time around we do ECG Treadmill tests, and I need to learn this. And so, I embark on a twice a week course that requires me to dress in gym clothes.

Most people would probably jump at the chance to be in gym clothes all the time.  I am not one of those people.

My cycling friends are surprised by my recent obsession with sewing and fashion (“You read Vogue? For real?”). They know me as someone who spends at least 2 hours a day in lycra and owns a wardrobe that was furnished entirely by the Terry Catalog. Non athletic clothing is not in my repertoire. The thing is, when I was in high school, I read fashion magazines with the fervor that I now read research journal articles. I was acutely aware of fashion, designers, styles. But, I was poor and lived in NH and lacked the body of a supermodel, so I was limited in what I could wear. I forgot about fashion, went off to college, became an ‘athlete’ and proceeded to spend the next 15 years of my life spending money only on clothing that could be worn for training/working out/racing. This explains why at age 32 I owned only 2 pairs of jeans,  but 9 pairs of running shorts, 4 pairs of yoga pants, and enough cycling stuff to outfit an entire ProTour team.

I’ve got more fleece, lycra, DryFit, ClimaCool, CoolMax and various other synthetic technical fabric in my wardrobe than any one person needs.

What I lack is clothing that is appropriate for work, dinner, dates, shopping…anything unrelated to working out.

Hence my foray into sewing – which is about to either end or take a turn in another direction.  I cannot see the point in spending my limited time this fall sewing up a wardrobe of gold brocade jacquard capris, ruffle front blouses and exotic trench coats if I can only wear them one day per week – I do not have classes on Mondays and Fridays and Tuesdays and Thursdays are Gym Clothes Days. Weekends are designated “athletic apparel only” since I am going to be racing cyclocross from now until the end of December.

I suppose I could just stop sewing for a while, but sewing offers me a chance to get away from the closely interconnected worlds of cycling and exercise science research…so I guess if I want to actually wear anything that I sew in the next few months, I better start working on some more athletic-y designs.

Maybe after I graduate I’ll become an athletic apparel designer…only I will make athletic apparel that is fashionable.