I haven't been running since Wednesday, because I had to go to school Thursday and Friday, and Saturday was too busy. But the few days' rest, and running in socks, probably fixed me, as I am utterly pain-free now. I still walk every day with Molly, in the forest and on the dirt road to the edge of the meadow, guarding against the dreaded ticks.
Tim decided that I couldn't run in socks, that I needed proper running shoes, so yesterday afternoon we went to the New England Running Company, where I had taken Nick when he had problems with his hips while running cross-country. They are so thorough, and the man who served us was very sweet. He asked me to walk away from him and back to him with bare feet, and then he raved about how perfect my feet were, what wonderful arches I had! (It was very flattering, as I don't think anyone has ever told me that something about me was perfect before! Except maybe my mother.)
He then proceeded to bring out about 6 different pairs of running shoes which I had to try on, then run up and down the sidewalk for him to watch. Tim stood with him and he told him that my running gait had "almost flawless style"! He also confessed, once I was paying for the shoes that I had chosen, that he really loved my red hair. Then he looked a bit abashed, and told Tim he liked his hair too, and we laughed and told him we were quite partial to his hair (he was balding).
So today I ran exactly 2.00 miles (3.21km) in my sky-blue pair of the lightest cushioniest running shoes you have ever seen! My first pair of running shoes! There was a gentle drizzle to cool me, and also beautiful sky, with bits of blue to match my shoes, so it felt odd that I was still being rained on, but perhaps I was a little rain-goddess for a day, like Rob McKeena in Douglas Adams' So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish,
"And as he drove on, the rainclouds dragged down the sky after him, for, though he did not know it, Rob McKeena was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him, and to water him."
(I have just tried (unsuccessfully) to put my glasses on over my second pair which are already on my face!)
Life is laughter and sorrow, so here is the sad part of today's blog:
I have always loved nature programmes, and nature articles found in magazines like National Geographic, and now, whenever I see or read one, it brings me to tears with its dire prophecies about species being in peril and even about imminent extinction. I put the tv on to a programme about frogs while I was making dinner tonight, and became more and more depressed. Frogs have been around for more than 250 million years, they endured when the dinosaurs died out, they have survived so many changes, and suddenly now they are rapidly decreasing, due mainly to the chytrid fungus which is thought to be spread by people's movements around the globe, also by climate change and by habitat destruction.
I am (again) rather disappointed in the human race. But also hopeful at some scientists' perseverance in trying to raise various endangered frogs in captivity and thereby develop fungus-resistant frogs and re-populate their familiar areas. Frogs are thought to be an indicator species, a bellweather of environmental change,so their disappearance is very worrying. I have an old photograph of an x-ray of a frog, the delicate bones of which were so beautiful as to stop me in my tracks at an exhibition in Cape Town when I was still at school.
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