My Gait
May 31, 2020
When I started running at age forty, Peter had been running with his buddies at Boston College for quite some time. I can’t remember why I started to run, but I do remember my regular outfit--a yellow DisneyWorld T-shirt and a pair of blue Bill Rogers running shorts. My green shoes were from the men’s shoe department because they weren’t making women’s running shoes yet.
I wasn’t a very good runner, but Peter would go with me for a couple of miles around our neighborhood. A neighbor once told us that he could always tell that it was me running because I had an odd gait. He declined my invitation to demonstrate what he meant.
This week, more than forty years later, a friend told me she had seen me walking the previous day. Although she was some distance away, she knew it was me because she recognized my “walk”. “I would know it anywhere,” she said.
Yesterday I watched my reflection as I walked by a store window, but it wasn’t enlightening. Anyhow, it’s too late to change.