After the Run

He watched her putting her sock on her soft foot with the shiny blue toenail polish on it. He had been waiting for a while but he was going to have to wait longer. She secured the sock on her foot and now both of her feet had socks on them. Her socks were very white except for around the toes because they were Gold Toe. Somehow she always managed to keep her socks extremely white to the point where they looked brand new out of the package. He didn’t know how she did it. He knew they weren’t brand new, though, because she had been kind enough to let him go pull them out of the dryer for her. The socks hugged her feet tight so he could see all of the fine details of her feet, her balls, arches, and everything else. 

He watched her put on her light blue running shoes. She pulled the long laces out of the top holes and evened them up. He thought about how nice it would be if he could be doing that for her but at least he got to watch so he wasn’t going to complain. He watched as she tied her laces nice and tight.

“Ready to go for our run?” she said.

He knew how tough this run was going to be. Under normal circumstances, running wouldn’t have been his thing. But everyone had something that motivated them and just thinking about what he was waiting for led him to get up with no problem.  

She ran ahead of him. He wasn’t overweight but he was out of shape and she was in great shape so keeping up with her was next to impossible for him. He had to run as hard as he could just to even keep close, breathing heavily and feeling cramps as he did, while she was just coasting along, never showing signs of fatigue and just looking like she was enjoying the whole thing.

Running wasn’t the only thing that she could beat him at. She had beaten him every time that they played tennis and she was a faster and stronger swimmer than he was. Even in more physical sports she always beat him as she always beat him in basketball and she always beat him in wrestling and arm-wrestling as well. Even in online computer games like Words with Friends and Yahtzee she always beat him. He had never beaten her at anything. He was OK with that, though. If he was going to be inferior to anyone he’d want it to be her. 

Most guys running behind her would have been checking out her butt in the tight pants she had on but his eyes were glued to the Saucony written right on the top of the back of her shoe. Looking there was what kept him running instead of keeling over. He watched with great interest as each one of her heels came off of the ground with each stride that she took.

When they got back, he was huffing and puffing, all of his muscles hurt, his face was beat red, and he had cramps. His body was covered in sweat and he was working hard to catch his breath. It was the hardest work he had done all week but he knew that it was all going to be worth it in the end so he had no problem feeling any of the pain.

Meanwhile, she was sitting on the couch like the whole thing was nothing for her. Her face wasn’t beat red like his was. Just because the light above her head was shining down on her he could see a little bit of sweat on the sides of her hair and a little bit on her face up close to her nose. But she wasn’t covered in sweat like he was. What was brutal on his body was all fun for her. He didn’t know how anyone could enjoy running the way she did. There was no way he would do it if he wasn’t going to get what he was waiting for.

She bent over and untied her left shoe. She loosened the laces on it then pulled on the tongue of it to loosen that as well. As she held the tongue of her shoe with her left hand she pulled on the heel with her right hand and pulled the shoe off, setting to the side and leaving it so it was sitting on its side. 

She loosened the laces and tongue on her right shoe the same way but used a different approach to try and get it off. She used her socked toes on her left foot to pull on the heel of the shoe. It wasn’t working very well and he thought about how she may have had more luck if she still had her shoe on her left foot when she tried that. She tried a couple of more times but then gave up and used both of her hands to pull her right shoe off. She sat that shoe up as opposed to letting it fall on its side.

She began pulling off her left sock and was able to get it off smoothly without any resistance. She pulled on her right sock trying to get that one off but it gave her a bit of a struggle. Perhaps that foot was a bit sweatier causing the delay or perhaps the dryer had shrunk that one just a bit which made it tighter. Either way, she was able to get it off with a bit more pulling.

Once both of her socks were off and crumpled up on the floor next to her shoes, she stretched out her legs and rested her bare feet on the coffee table. They still looked just as clean as they had before she put her socks and shoes on for the run. If there was sweat on her feet it wasn’t noticeable and he wondered how she was able to run so hard without her feet getting too sweaty.

“So are you ready to massage my feet?” she said to him.

“I’ve been waiting to all day,” he said.

The two of them shared a smile.