Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Swedish Athleticism Takes Many Forms

I made a scientific discovery today. One of the utmost importance to anyone using public transportation. You are in shape. A special shape.

Back when I was an active athletic person I was able to identify being in different kinds of shape. There was a difference between football shape and basketball shape. No matter how many cross fields we ran I was always sucking air when we ran suicides that first week of basketball. Since my athletic career ended long ago I forgot how there could be different shapes of fitness. Until today.

So a couple of months ago I bought myself some nice looking dress shoes. Kind of elf pointy at the front as is the style of the day. And clearly I am stylish. Shiny black even. Which is mostly why I bought them. But they were too big. Damn European shoe sizes. Anyone, they turned my heels into chewed pork. It was nasty. So I shined them up and took them back as if I had never worn them. I even picked the rocks out of the bottoms, which was lucky because the girl even flipped them over and checked. Ha. My sneakiness is too much for the common Swede. Anyway, I got a new pair one size smaller. But due to my chewed pork heels I didn’t wear them. Until yesterday.

They were better. But I still have heel blisters, not chewed pork heels but blisters none the less. And I spent the majority of the evening walking on my toes so as to minimize the damage on my heels. And today my calves are sore. And this is when it struck me. Public transportation did this to me.

The Stockholm public transit system has seared an imprint of itself onto me. I am capable of walking long distances without any trouble to catch a bus, a train, or even the subway. I can sprint through throngs of people to catch my train. I can bound up escalators (always keeping to the left as I bound, mind you, it is Sweden after all) to make it to the bus on time. I can even suck myself in and hug the wall so that people can slide past me as they try to get off the train. This is public transportation shape. You can do everything that involves you catching your preferred mode of transportation but running just a little extra will leave you winded.

I am a public transportation all-star. Some might even call me the Tom Brady of SL what with my rugged good looks, super model girlfriend, and chiseled public transportation physique. It’s a gift. And a curse.

Because injuries befall even the greats. And my chewed pork heels really sidelined me for a while. I limped along looking like Muhammad Ali lighting the torch at the Olympics. Shaking and downtrodden, but still proud, the shadow of my former athletic self. And the reoccurrence of this heel injury yesterday reaffirmed the importance of keeping my body in peak form. Which is probably why I should heed the heel advice of my super model girlfriend and use band-aids as a preventative measure.

We’ll see. As of now though, my heels are on injured reserve, and I will soldier on as best I can. Showing up on the injury report every day but still gutting out the public transportation, that is what separates the common public transportationers from the all-stars.

12 comments:

  1. Cool blog...I look forward to your posts...

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  2. That's right! You go, girl!

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  3. Pointy black shoes?!? Apparently you are Swedish, because Americans do not wear those (I may be the only exception, and those were purchased in Sweden). You're one step closer to metrosexuality. It's a fine line, but I'm proud. Very proud indeed.

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  4. come on Viktor. You're killing me. I am definitely not a girl.

    Let me explain good Doctor. These shoes are pointy by my standards. They are not as pointy as the shoes you bought however. You may be right those. This could be the first step...

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  5. Figure of speech, you know...

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  6. Still got the pointy shoe thing in my mind. Hard to imagine!

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  7. Yea, Im assimilating. Or something like that...

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  8. Welcome to the metrosexual world HS.

    And with public transportation as an athletic sport, you don't to go to the gym to main your rugged good looks ;-)

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  9. You know me, always trying to fit in.

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