An ode to shoes

And now it is time to say goodbye to yet another generation of shoes. These runners have carried me up and down trails, streets, and open fields across the soil of five different nations. They’ve topped mountains and splashed through muddy streams. They’ve stomped through soggy cornfields and summited stunning peaks. They’ve carried me through sunny primeval forests and snowy side streets. They’ve stumbled through the Wild West and glided along the Baltic coast. They’ve padded through the darkness of silent Medieval towns and weaved through the throngs of bustling metropolises. They’ve witnessed some of my greatest highs and most embarrassing lows. They’ve been with me for every one of the most painful and most euphoric steps of my training for nearly a year, and now it’s time to send them off with an inglorious demise. The difficulty of saying goodbye to a couple bundles of cloth, rubber, and foam remind me of what keeps me attached to my possessions. It is not the objects themselves. Indeed, these shoes have already been replaced. It is the utility they serve, the activity they enable, and the feelings they catalyze that bring a second thought to my mind as I lift the lid of the waste bin and hesitate for just a moment before tossing them onto the pile marked for incineration.