Today in Dismal Weather News

Well at least it's not raining. It's just cloudy and chilly. Cool enough that I've had to forsake wearing sandals to work and retreat to my winter footwear, amongst which is a pair of tan Mary Jane-ish shoes that I bought 4 years ago on clearance for $9. They're a size and a half too big (the sizes were limited, with the clearance and all) and they look like something I slapped together in my living room using a glue gun and some left-over armchair upholstery.

And MY GOD the compliments I get on those shoes. "Those shoes are so CUTE!" and "Oh, Becky, I LOVE those shoes!" and "WHERE did you get those?" I am not making this up. They are complete shit and they don't even fit my feet and yet the rest of the world fawns over them with genuine adoration. Much like Harry Connick, Jr. and the flavor of licorice, my shoes hold an appeal to others that I just do not understand.

But with reactions like that, I have, year after year, opted out of spending any money to replace them. So today, after hibernating through the summer, they were back on my feet.

The one problem with my shoes is that they don't work with bare feet and, likewise, socks won't cut it. I have to wear (oh God why am I admitting this in public?) knee-high hose. And sure, a casual observer may look at my outfit and pass right over my under-shoe apparel (blinded, no doubt, by the beauty of the shoes themselves), but I know what's there and by the end of the day there is nothing I want to do more than get home and take those damned hose off.

Why am I telling you this? Because we must take into consideration the fact that wearing hose for a 9-hour (soon to be 7.5-hour) work day leaves really unattractive elastic marks around the knee area. As someone who leaves the work place to run in shorts in a busy public park, these marks are something I aim to avoid at all costs. And why would I care about elastic marks when I don't care about wearing the exact same pair of nine-fucking-dollar crap shoes to work four years in a row?

I have no idea.

But I do. So what I did last year, and what I did again today, was to take my hose and fold them down around my ankle an hour or so before I was due to leave work, giving my upper-calf/knee area time to breathe.

THESE are the sorts of important daily tasks that I am faced with as a runner! And you thought it was just muscle injuries and fatigue and sore feet and dehydration and aching limbs and fighting nausea after running for hours on end... Oh no, no, no. It's also elastic marks.

Today, I ran elastic mark-free. And (for the first time in what seems like forever) it was a good run! I even cracked the 35:00 barrier at 34:49 for 3 miles. And boy I tore that last mile UP. I was flying down the homestretch. I was feeling pretty damned good when I touched the mile marker the final time.

And then I came home and proceeded to drop my BRAND NEW PHONE on the driveway creating a nice large gash across the screen.

Oh, well, I guess. You can't win them all.