Everybody has a pair. They\’ve been everywhere — roads, trails, gym bags, restaurants, work, school — because they were the best. Why have two pairs when you can get by with one pair of perfect shoes?
But at some point, they became vile, like rotting animal carcasses encasing your own carrion-scented feet.
Yet we keep them, because…well, just because. We can\’t explain it. But Ricky Gates from Trail Runner magazine can:
\”Your shoes,” he said, with a roll of the r and a sing-song Italian accent, “they cannot come in the car with us.” It was a reasonable request. In the three months prior, my faded shoes had trodden in or on a flooded cow pasture in Switzerland, low-tide mudfields along the Alaskan coast and what may or may not have been a melting Baby Ruth candy bar. A bouquet of scents emanated from the shoes, and whether on my feet or off, they were no longer welcome in civil company.
Continue reading this entry from Trail Runner magazine.