Tired legs

I got up at six this morning, eschewing common luxuries like more than six hours sleep or eating breakfast. Struggling to push my brain awake, I put on some of my unattractive running clothes and went downstairs, out to the park.

It was cooler today than it has been, but even so the first kilometre I did around Victoria Park was more a shuffle than a run. When I got to the jogging track I picked up the pace, but it was still hard work.

To stop myself spending my time constantly checking my pace or my heart-rate or my distance, I switched the display to the clock on my GPS, and then ran in circles until seven in the morning, at which point it was high time to get home.

Sleepy as I'd been this morning, I'd failed to put my Gutr on, and so even though it wasn't hot out, my face had been oozing sweat. I could actually feel it, pumping out of the line between my cheek and my mouth. I needed to sweat a bit; the uptick in my weight this week from fine meals in Macau and sweet, sweet caramel slices in Central has not been a comfortable one. Sadly, 35 minutes of running only equates to a single pound, and I expect that was mostly just dehydration.

My wife thinks the weight gain might be all the extra muscle I'm getting from running. I didn't want to explain about aerobic and anaerobic exercise, but then I tried on some of my shoes today. Too, too small. I looked at the sizes: my feet are a whole size larger than three years ago.

Is it the heat? Is it the humidity? Am I fatter now and the weight is forcing my feet to spread out? Is is karmic revenge for owning 15 pairs of shoes? Or is that all just a load of cobblers?

It would be just my luck to take up running again to get fit, only to find I weighed more because of my newly-elephantine feet.

Even shoes from just before our wedding don't fit properly. Am I becoming some sort of beast?