100

Here they are and here we are at the 100-post mark. I was going to leave off the shoes pictures, but this couldn’t be missed.

15 years in the making, these guys have finally started to give in and are doing so just in time for the centenary post. I bought them back in the university karate days when I had nothing but time and energy.

I was going jogging late at night, pounding around the streets of Lincoln. Being a student and lacking any athletic sensibility, I bought a cheap pair of shoes with Velcro straps, no laces. I was so far removed from athletes and athletic equipment. But they served me well enough at the time, then languished in storage for several years.

I can still remember some of those late night runs. Houses with dogs that barked as I passed, tree roots to be nimbly jumped over in the park. Snow starting to fall under a shining moon. I might have had an afternoon practice followed by a night practice, but I don’t recall feeling especially winded during those runs. No, these shoes carried me along and moved me forward.

But the late night runs ended and I focused more on my regular training and review. This fine pair of shoes languished in the less accessible corners of closets, no longer tasting the fresh air or moving under the stars.

Somewhere along the line I brought them over to Japan as a spare pair. I wore them only occasionally (and always at night, when no one could see or smell them) until last year. Another old pair of running shoes (hightops with laces even) had fallen apart, yielding to the scraping and turning of ba gua footwork.

So this pair returned to glory for a short time. They tasted the caress of the concrete once again. I grew bold, not caring who might see or smell them. I sometimes wore them in daylight. But the years of alternate abuse and neglect had taken their toll and the grinding away accelerated. And the stink festering within their depths accumulated.

The Velcro straps don’t cling as tenaciously as they used to, but I still have a few sessions left with these old friends before holes are completely worn through the soles. Until then, let’s extend them the dignity – and distance – which they deserve.