Shifting Funks with Running Trainers

The doom and gloom of the 'I never buy anything new anymore!' sentiment in my last post has been somewhat dispelled after I bought myself a new pair of running shoes. I had a couple of days of feeling really down this week, a combination of being overwhelmed by my workload and missing the security of my friends at home, people I can crawl to and make bad jokes or simply just sit in silence with if I'm not feeling up to conversation. It takes a while to get to that stage with new people and although I've met some really lovely people here there are of course times when you just want to crawl into friend and pull ugly faces with a girlfriend, safe in the knowledge that she'll 'get' you.

So in order to try to shift the funk, I took the money I'd put aside to buy some new trainers with which to 'run' and 'gym' and 'feel better.' I took a bus to 'Hampshire Mall', a shopping centre which amazes and depresses me in equal parts because it has a roller disco but also the strangest array of sports memorabilia shops and silent nail salons and lots and lots of mock marble!

I perused the selection in Dick's Sporting Goods (yes) and reached that stage I've often talked about with Theo from Hot and Cool, when you're faced with a display shelf of handsome Nikes and you start by picking out the ones immediately attractive until after a while they all start to look the same and you start to wonder if it even matters whether they're black and yellow or black and purple because they'd probably look equally as great. We've not-so-paraphrased it as 'The more I look at trainers, the less I understand myself as a person' syndrome. Is it the overall look of the trainer with a clean black trouser or a denim dress rather than the unique style of trainer itself? Does the variation between two similar Nike styles make enough of a difference? I know these questions will induce cries of 'sacrilege!' from hardcore trainer fans but they're questions that come to me as I ponder over the waffle soles and tongues in varying shades.

In the end I plumped for a pair of Nike Dual Fusion st2 which weren't too aggressive towards my wallet and a nice combination of shoes that will adequately protect my feet at the gym whilst doubling as some nice trainers to kick about in during the day (after an airing out, of course.)

When I returned home, I popped on my new kicks, trotted to the cinema for a solo viewing of The Artist and then went on a midnight run afterwards, listening to LCD Soundsystem and having a rather wonderful moment which involved running through the streets trying to work out where the train would be passing after hearing it's continued approaching horn. I ended up standing right at the side of the track after running up a grassy verge beside a bridge and watching the headlights grow bigger as the train approached and eventually passed, with the drivers head visible through the open window and the freight carriages clacking along afterwards. I stood there thinking 'well, this wouldn't happen at home' and feeling much better for it, the funk somewhat shifted.

So I suppose the moral of the story, depending on your stance, is when personal funks occur a) throw money at the problem and buy some new trainers. it feels good. b) go for a midnight run and experience a hair-blowing, train-passing, semi-erotic moment of Hollywood-esque nighttime reflection (the erotic part is an exaggeration, I just though the notion of Equus but with a train was funny) or you know, you could go for c) all of the above. Since yesterday afternoon my mood has improved and I've been walking around campus with a literal spring in my step, like Marcus from About A Boy after Hugh Grant has bought him some new trainers and a Mystikal album to listen to on his walkman. Just like that.