Just in time for spring and peek-a-boo sandals, my toenails are about to fall off.

Not all of them. Just two. And those would be the ones on my “pointer toes” – the abnormally tall next-to-big-toes. You know, the weird looking toes. Come to think of it, toes in general are weird looking. They’re all different from each other, thoughtfully fashioned to each have their own piggy personality.

So back to my imminent toenail departure. At the very beginning of COVID-19, just before that last memorable snowstorm swooped in, we went for our obligatory daily walk. (And by daily, I mean, four times a week if we’re not too lazy or…ahem, busy.) It was a beautiful March Sunday afternoon and we took the long way around town. We were probably a couple of miles in before I started to question the error of my footwear choice. The garage was still in a state of disarray from moving and rather than upend that Jenga tower, I had opted for a crappy pair of convenient old loafers with which to plow through the puddles.

Cue the blisters and the repeated battering of my extra-long toes. The result a couple of days later, besides the impressive sore-toe-ness, was that my two toenails had turned a royal shade of purple. And now a month later, they are loosening and threatening their exodus. Jeez.

I have heard about marathon runners losing toenails after their big race and for some reason I thought that they just peeled off along with their socks immediately after they had crossed the finish line. Duh. This makes more sense: they hurt like the dickens and they color up pretty and a month later, they take their leave.

So basically, I’m in the same boat as a marathon runner. Except I’m about 22 miles short. And I didn’t run.

I am the best of walkers, sometimes I’m even a tremendous hiker. I love pumping up and down the hills in the Provincial Park out my back door – at a reasonable pace. But running – I suck at running. I have no gumption for it at all.

Nowadays, I blame my knees, having inherited my mother’s arthritic joints. However, my mom never let a creaky knee or elbow keep her from jogging to the chicken coop or running up from the basement with a quart jar of pickles tucked under her arm, like a Heisman winner. And so, I take a page from her book and insist I will not give in either. I will jog a little on the treadmill now and then. I will do squats and lunges and take this kind of medicine to keep me strong and limber (because I don’t have chickens and I don’t make pickles.)

We’ve all heard of people who lace up and discover a whole new kind of freedom when they start to run. (Watch Brittany Runs a Marathon for a great example of this.) I listen to (and watch) these stories with envy. Because that has never been me.

Way back when I was in grade nine, I had some fancy ideas about becoming a runner. Running would keep me fit and maybe slim me down, but best of all, I could call myself: A Runner. It went totally against my nerdy, bookish persona and just like every junior-high-schooler, I desperately wanted to be something different from Who I Was. And so, when the Annual-All-Schools-in-the-County-Track-and-Field Day came along, I signed up. For the Long-Distance Event. (Oy-yoy-yoy. I’m pretty sure that’s what was in the thought bubble above my Mom’s head when I confessed this to her.)

Let me be clear: I went to a very small school. There were about fifteen of us in grade nine. And only one other girl from my school had signed up for my Event. Additionally, there was no training – not in gym class, not after school, not even a hint of a suggestion that: perhaps to avoid humiliation, one should practice a little for this Event.

Well, not that I remember.

I took it upon myself one lovely day in May to lace up my knock-off Converse runners (ahem: NOT a RUNNING shoe) and try running around my town. And if you know how big Derwent is, that’s not really saying that much. But I got about a block away from home and I was winded. Whew! I decided that that was probably good enough for one day and I walked back home. With good intentions, I thought I would go out the next day and “train” some more.

Well. Time flies when you’re in high school and I woke up one day and Surprise! It was Track and Field Day. Thankfully, my mom had sewed me a cute outfit, so I wasn’t going to look like a complete idiot. And I was sure that on that day, I would somehow be able to complete the race by sheer fortitude, a quality that I had never displayed in gym class before.

When the time came for my Event, I lined up with all the other two entrants in my race. The fake gun went off and I ran. The other girl from my school was pretty much in the same boat as me and when we saw our competition pull ahead, we unanimously decided not to deprive her of victory. So, about a block in, we both dropped out.

This is not the end of the story. Apparently, I did moderately better than my home-town compadre and for this mere effort – like the milliseconds between Olympian medalists – I was awarded a Second-Place Blue Ribbon.

Pretty great, huh? (And this was before participation medals.)

There is no moral in this story – well, not one that I want to explore, anyways. There are a couple of points however: I never was a runner and unless I get me some new knees – AND SOME FORTITUDE – I never will be one.

And: I may not be a runner, but I AM a (second-place) winner. I have the blue ribbon to prove it.