Bare feet again

I had a cracking day today. The best thing about it was not having a hangover. I wouldn't say I necessarily achieved much. Well, anything. But I had some rest, and got the blog up to date. Oh, and Sal posted a really moving video clip about the Royal Marsden; it made me cry. I guess its because it underlines that this is really all about people, and people who care a lot for their friends and family. And a couple of people have also told me that they know people who've been treated at the Royal Marsden, and they all confirm that it is a really good hospital. Good to know, for if you are thinking about sponsoring me, right?

It also made me think that Sal should get some publicity up for our challenge - there's quite a few people doing it, and also her dog, Scout, who has his own fund-raising page (Scout's page). The Peterborough ET would love it. I've offered to write some copy for her, and she was so moved, she sponsored me. You'd never know she was running a business.

Anyway, what with one thing and another, I forgot to go out until about half five. Well, it did rain earlier in the day. I'd more or less given up waiting for the sun to come out. I planned to give the bare foot trainers another outing today, and with this in mind, I had decided to pick a route with some grass. I figured along the embankment would be best. So, my grand plan was to cycle to somewhere nearby, and run from there. Here's my shoes, still looking clean and neat.

Running along the side of the path at the Embankment was really good. The shoes were comfy, and I could feel there was much less impact than on the road. However, my smugness was shortlived, as was the cleanliness of my shoes.

 This leads me neatly onto a conversation we had in the pub on Friday. It emerges that Stewart, who is generally very mild-mannered, becomes enraged when he come across the phrase "a river burst its banks". I was amazed, as I viewed the term as purely descriptive. I offer this explanation, with visual cues, as a public service. Rivers may "overtop" their banks, but bursting their banks makes it sound as if they somehow broke, in a destructive sort of a way, rather than being a perfectly natural process. I think that's the gist of it. To give you some idea, he looked almost as cross as I get when trying to explain to people that deer damage woods, and no longer have any natural predators (in this country) and therefore have to be managed - and yes, this does involved shooting them. Conservationists, eh? What a crazy lot. Back to the rivers, I guess we have spent a lot of time trying to make them stay in their banks, and then we do a lot of stuff by their edges, so generally it may seem destructive to us. But really, flooding is just a seasonal event that happens in periods of high rainfall. There you go. You heard it here first.

Anyway, as you may have guessed, I opted to cross the perfectly natural flooded footpath, because I'll do anything for some subject matter for this blog, and also because I was keen to carry on along the grass verge. (You can also see that the weeping willows have been given their rather severe pruning. It's OK, it'll all grow back.). The water did get quite deep, but bare foot trainers are supposed to be like bare feet, right? Waterproof?

 Anyway, I thought I was keeping quite good pace, although runkeeper reports otherwise - I was round about a 12 m/m. Having said that, it was faster than day one, when I was doing 13:30 m/m. And don't forget, there was the swimming as well...

Once I'd cleared the embankment area, my plan was to keep along the tow path, where the river is almost canalised (and had also overtopped its banks across the fields), and I was relieved to find that the edges had been mown. However, this was premature, because the verges were very weedy, and the ground was much more lumpy and bumpy than the lawn-like improved grass earlier. When I ran into one of these, I gave up, and ran on the path.

I saw lots of birds, including some I couldn't identify. Any bird experts, I'll give you a description (this failed the RSPB bird identifier test though). OK, they were small, and browny. They were on the ground on the path in front of me, in a group of a half dozen or so. Their chests were paler, and they seemed to have darker feathers along the edge of the wing. When they flew, they had a curious dip to the flight path, and a clear white rump. If birds' arses are called rumps. They tended to only move on in front of me a short way then settled again (and again) Right, over to you. Anyway, I also saw some swans, which put me in mind of another pub conversation, about whether swans are owned by the queen or not. There was much "opinion" going on about this, so I whipped out my iPhone and checked (the answer is that they technically all are in the UK, but she only maintains any sort of authority over the Thames ones). This generated a debate on whether iPhones were killing pub banter, needless to say.

I also aired my views on sponsorship, which, as you may remember, I feel very strongly about. Especially regarding people doing sponsored events which I consider to be luxury holidays. I recently had a thought which I judge to be so good, that I might even undertake it one of these days, where I will do a Sponsored "I'm not going to climb Kilimanjaro/Inca Trail/Insert other destination here". The idea is that I will put on the table, out of my own pocket, the price of an airfare to one of these places. I'll ask people to match it. Because that is one of the things that most bothers me about these so called challenges - if they really wanted to raise money for charity, they don't HAVE to buy that airfare, and pay loads of other expenses. I reckon that my friends would do that. I'm sure enough people must see my point of view on this. (I'll need to save up first.). Tim pointed out that Frank would definitely sponsor me a considerable sum of money NOT to go anywhere at all, as long as I guaranteed to stay put, on the sofa. I wholeheartedly agreed with this statement, although I felt bound to point out that Frank does not actually have a considerable amount of money. "No, but he's got a house..." Tim said, philosophically.

Gavin expressed his preference that I should do a sponsored silence, and said he would pay quite a lot for that. (He will, but not how he means).

Anyway, good news was that I really quite enjoyed today's run. I don't know whether it was because I spent a lot of it focusing on bare foot trainers, or the wildlife, or a different route, or that I'm finally on the mend, but I heartily welcomed the change. When I got back to my bike, I went to Asda's for some groceries. It's surprising how few people notice what you are wearing on your feet. (I guess if anyone had, they might have wondered how those shoes even fit, with the webbing). If anyone is thinking of bare foot shoes, I might suggest that there are styles that don't have individual toes, which I believe would be more practical. I say this only because my little toes feel quite vulnerable, and I think that they are in danger of being broken. I doubt I will develop any particular strength in the little toes, although this remains to be seen, but I think that a sharp turn could see the rubber maybe pulling the little toe further out than it wanted to be. But with any luck, I'm being overly pessimistic about this. I'm still overall, quite happy about the effect of the trainers. Depending on how I feel tomorrow, I might try another bare-foot run on grass on Monday.