the best way to fail: on a quest for legendary calves
I was twenty-seven, and I could hardly walk. As I limped around D.C., I thought, I’ve aged 50 years. How quickly ten minutes of running on your toes can wilt you.
Two months before, I’d bought a pair of black and pink “toe shoes” on my paltry budget. At $100, this was a big investment, a bucket-of-paint-against-the-wall sort of splurge into the unknown. “Reduce foot injuries!” they proclaimed. “Strengthen foot muscles!”
Well, I’d never had a foot injury, but–assessing my pale, shapeless feet with new eyes–I certainly wouldn’t object to stronger muscles. Before my shoes arrived, I consulted their website for proper preparation: fourteen days, they advised, of “foot exercises.”
I spent a night trying to curl my toes under, to bend them up, to pivot the ankle while balancing on the ball of my foot. I tried five or six times to pick up a small towel between my toes. My feet obeyed feebly, the toes moving by robotic degrees until I had finally gotten hold of a terrycloth corner. Then I dropped it and could not pick it back up again.