Cinderella

I love shoes. Stilettos, brogues, sparkly flip flops, suede ankle-boots … I could go on. I love that no matter how many pounds you gain, your shoes will always fit (pregnancy excepted). That being said, I am pretty rubbish at buying shoes. For a start, having large feet (UK 8/US 10), shoe sales are not my friend, unless I am in the market for some platform lace-up knee-high boots or some vaguely orthopedic looking mules. But I persevere, because amongst all the  tranny-esque shoes there can be the most perfect ‘shoes-that-miraculously-make-your-feet-look-the-size-of-a-fairy’ shoes. You know, the shoes that as soon as you put them on make you look and feel like Cinderella wearing her glass slippers and dancing with her prince.

And then there are running shoes. Shoes that will never make you look dainty. Shoes that have reflective strips so that people can at least see your feet (and then hopefully the rest of you) in the dark. Shoes that have (shudder) special arch support insoles. As I’ve previously mentioned, my first foray into the proper world of running shoes involved a treadmill, an ipad and a very enthusiastic shop assistant. But the shoes I got, apart from making my feet look like a hobbit’s throwback from the 1980’s (huge and clad in neon) were perfect. They hugged my feet in the right places and the insoles I ‘HAD’ to purchase even though they cost almost the same as the shoes themselves, actually worked. When I ran my feet didn’t turn in, they didn’t hurt. They actually helped me run faster! Well, perhaps only in my head…

But good things don’t last forever and soon I had worn a hole in the top of the shoe (damn my hammer toe). I tried to salvage them with tape and thread, but finally had to say goodbye and get a new pair. But from where? Not on this island. A trip to NYC to visit the smiley salesman with the ipad was perhaps a little extreme and I wasn’t sure that the local shoe shop had a pair of trainers lurking amidst the rhinestone encrusted flipflops. So, I did what I always do in this situation – I turned to amazon.com, which failed me, because of course my beloved trainers which helped me run like Hermes (at least in my head) had been discontinued. So, I crossed my fingers and bought the upgrade, in hot pink, obviously.

They arrived via my husband’s suitcase (he picked them up together with the myriad of children’s birthday presents, shampoo, and other essentials only available off-paradise which had been shipped to the hotel he was stayed at during a work trip) and then sat taunting me on the kitchen counter for weeks. They just weren’t the same as my old faithfuls. They were hard, shiny and I was convinced they were too small. Finally I was forced to give them a go, afterall they couldn’t be returned. I came back from my first mini run (36 mins) unconvinced. They still felt too small. I ran slower – it was obviously the shoes.

Of course there was nothing wrong with the shoes. It was all in my head. They saw me through a 9 miler run on the ‘sunset loop’ of Peter Island last week (week 14) and they will see me through the half marathon in a few weeks (eek). I may never run like Hermes but I will get through the race – something I never thought possible at the beginning of the year, and I will do it in a flash of pink and neon.