Surviving Sunday


My alarm blared at 6:20 this morning, and I pulled myself away from the sofa, silenced it, then dressed and went out. I’d slept badly last night, and also eaten far too much (the consequence of that midday hangover) so I needed a long run this morning. I didn’t particularly want a long run this morning, but that’s something quite different.

I hadn’t cleaned my shoes since I went running last Sunday, so they were still filthy. That didn’t matter, because even clean shoes would have been revolting after running down the Green Corridor, ten kilometres of boggy mud. I did my best to avoid sticking my shoes into any of the deep holes, until about twenty yards from where we climbed out of the Green Corridor, at which point I put my foot right in it. We ran up through the Horticulture Park of Singapore, down to the bottom of Kent Ridge, up to the top of Kent Ridge, down the mountain bike track (it’s at once hilarious and terrifying to run down a mountain bike trail) then up Kent Ridge again, back to the Horticultural Park and up to Mount Faber. We had a few animal encounters: stopping to wipe spiders webs out of our faces we found a frog the size of a plum crouched by the side of the trail, and later I ran through some more webs. What bliss.

There are a set of bridges and elevated walkways to take you up to Mount Faber, but these are dull to run on, so we run beneath them, through the valleys and up through wooded trails. Up near Gillman Barracks there’s a road to cross and then another rolling trail. But this week there was also a fence and a locked gate between the trail and the road. This was quite odd, as right next to the fence was a big sign telling walkers about the trail which the fence was now blocking off. Were different departments in the environment agency fighting one another over who got access? It didn’t matter too much – the gate was clamberable, although it was also covered in ants, which meant for lots of extra bites we didn’t really need.

On we ran, ever upwards. Up muddy slopes, up gravel paths, up a mean set of steps, up a paved path and then down the Henderson Waves, a wooden foot bridge half way up in the sky, which then took us back up towards the top of Mount Faber, and then an interminable descent via steps. I hate running down steps. They’re always either slightly shorter than my stride length, which means I can’t get a foot down per step and end up landing on only two out of three, or they’re slightly too long, and then I have to take more steps than I mean to in order to avoid spraining an ankle or tripping and falling down twenty steps head first. But on the positive side we saw a couple of monkeys as we ran down.

Still, I survived. From the bottom of Mount Faber it’s a few short kilometres back to Chinatown, and I staggered in through the door about two and a half hours after I’d left. Just in time to go back out again. And I wonder why my legs are always sore.

My legs are also always sore because I bought a pair of minimalist running shoes while that fad was at its peak, and as they’re the best shoes I have for off-road, I always wear them, and as I only run off-road once a week at best, I don’t have a body or gait that’s perfectly adjusted for them. So my calves get completely hammered, and probably my thighs as well because for the rest of the week I’m not running up stairs. I should have stayed at home and slept all morning to recover, but instead we went to the zoo, where I spent most of the time carrying my daughter around on my shoulders, looking at new monkeys. She was very happy with that.

We got home about one-thirty, before the threatened rain, and she was asleep before we got her out of the taxi, so I rolled her stroller into the bedroom and then passed out on the bed, waking up an hour later feeling broken (numb hands, dead legs), to eat lunch, then rush out again to go swimming.

At which point it rained. At least it was just a small shower, rather than a cataclysmic thunderstorm. I spent a lot of time outside the pool, chasing after a fast moving Serpiente Aquatica Negra, and in the pool I discovered that this morning’s run had left me with a sore nipple after all, because my lovely daughter kept kicking it.

Fortunately, nobody crashed their bicycle after the class today. We took another taxi home, then changed our minds and went over to Novena for pizza instead, followed by ice cream at the worryingly named Udders, then back to bath the child, and thence to fall asleep on the sofa at nine in the evening. Which, ironically, was what I should have done twelve hours beforehand.


2 responses to “Surviving Sunday”

    • That’s a hard one to answer. About three years ago, it seemed that everyone believed that anyone who used ‘normal’ running shoes was going to get lots of injuries, and minimalist shoes were the one true path to running properly. The truth is more complicated than that: we might have run barefoot ‘in the wild’ but the human foot evolved before it had to contend with innovations like concrete.

      Minimalist shoes are good because they’re lightweight and low to the ground (that latter feature means there may be less risk of a sprained ankle because you won’t turn your foot in, but then you could argue similarly in favour of a hiking boot with a built-up ankle).

      They’re bad because if you don’t have ‘perfect’ running form and the physique of a gazelle, you will take a pounding every time you go run. Proponents would suggest that’s good, because it will force you to adopt a perfect running form. Detractors would say that’s bad, because you’ll probably end up injured long before you attain perfect form.

      I run in my minimalist shoes only once a week, because I can’t take the abuse they mete out if I run more frequently. But perhaps if I did run in them more frequently, I could. So I wouldn’t recommend them as your only pair of shoes – simply because even if you do end up using them all the time, you probably need a long time to adapt.

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