Not A Mile In Her Shoes

Saturday 17th January
Run #17
6.5k Countryside Road Run 

Down in the West Country for the weekend the Saturday plan was always going to be parkrun at Longrun Meadow.

Longrun is a great parkrun with a spirit-lifting community atmosphere and flat, if usually muddy, course. But the plan was swiftly scuppered on realising that, like an idiot, I'd left ALL my running shoes in London. And this despite packing nearly every item of running kit I own to cover any weather eventuality.

Wasn't too worried as the immediate thought was to borrow some runners off my mother, who I was staying with for the weekend, and who shares my foot size. Only it turns out the mother only had brand new runners. Bought in New York and box fresh. And I just couldn't be the one to sully them on their maiden voyage with the potential ankle-deep mud at Longrun. A mile (or 3) in her shoes was out.

Given that I'd mentally prepped for parkrun I doubled up on my layers and headed over to see if I could lend a hand to the volunteer team. Last trip to Longrun Meadow has been a wet affair with some monster puddles. In contract today was a ghostly frosty white on arrival and what puddles there'd been were crisply sheeted with ice.

After a chat with the race director I donned a hi-vis and positioned myself at the apex where the pathway became a mirror of treacherous ice, to funnel runners onto the grass and avoid any injurious slips or trips.

             

 

Seeing a parkrun as a volunteer rather than a runner is always an eye-opener and I love cheering people on and seeing everyone running their own race, especially how many more smiles there are towards the tail end.

But once the cones were stacked and the flags rolled up until next week the ice was pretty much melted and I still had a shoe dilemma to resolve and a run to do.

Unwilling to quit the Streak purely because of my inability to achieve simple packing, I went to town on the hunt for new trainers. This escapade was a mission of highs and lows as, over and again, I found a perfect potential pair that turned out to not have my size. I ended up with a pair of men's New Balance in a size up from my usual! But my usual Brooks run a size up too, and they felt good as I attempted mini shuttle runs in the shop, around baffled Saturday browsers. I didn't feel elated with my buy, being as I am someone that will usually over analyse and research any potential purchase, but tried to keep the Streak in mind and think about the run.

After my standard paranoid fiddling with laces, socks, laces again etc I elected to head out from the front door and towards the Quantock hills. Living ordinarily in London's zone 4 in it always takes me a while to get used to running directly on roads instead of pavements, paths or underpasses. And initially much of my attention was focused on the curves of the country roads and making sure I was always running on the side with the clearest visibility to traffic. But once the air became strong with the rural smell of cattle farming and the roads had grass growing down the middle I relaxed a bit!

Little of this route choice was flat but no hills could be considered substantial and, as I adapted to the undulations through the countryside I tried to keep reminding myself to focus on the experience: the clarity of the air, the views across the Deane vale, the rushing of a stream alongside the hedgerow.

Getting back to the front door it occurred to me that I hadn't given my  feet or shoes a moment's thought during the run. Maybe the new runners will turn out to be a fortuitous purchase after all.