Attack of the monster calves

I really do need to learn some restraint, as it sure would come in handy whenever I walked into a running store.

I had to go birthday shopping for my nephew today who’s having his birthday bash for the BIG 5 tomorrow. In total, I have eight nieces and nephews and I love them all equally but differently if that makes sense. When my oldest nieces were born, I was pretty young, just 12 and 13, and they became more like little sisters to me than nieces. And when my oldest nephew and middle niece were born, I was a teenager and young adult and more into partying than oohing and awing over the new babies. But Super C-Boy, he was the one who made me actually want to have a child of my own after years of saying nope, no kids for me.

The first time he melted my heart and he's repeatedly done it ever since 😀

I headed out to Newport Village because I knew they had a really cool, old-school toy shop there where I could surely find the perfect gift for my dear nephew, and they did. However, I can’t let you all in on the gift just yet as my sister-in-law sometimes reads my blog (not always, shocking, I know!) and I like the gifts to be a surprise for the parents as well. I’m kind of a dork like that.

Newport Village is like the anti-mall, which I love. It’s got unique clothing shops, and hat shops, and jewelry shops, and a fish market, and a fruit stand, and a gelateria, and yes, a running shop too. So after browsing through my once favourite clothing shop (which seems to no longer cater to my size :() I headed over to the running shop in search of a new hat. And as soon as I walked in, boxes of coloured running compression socks instantly caught my eye. There were hot pink ones and white and orange ones and lime green ones and slate ones and black ones too. And as I was reading the back of the box, a sales guy came over to me and started telling me all about the benefits of the socks. Normally I’d have politely told him  to buzz off, that I was just looking, but because it’s a running store, and because I have an addiction, I listened – intently.

Compression socks are supposed to increase blood circulation, increase oxygen to the muscles and speed up the removal of lactic acid. And it just so happens that I’ve been complaining of fatigue in my calf muscles lately, which could very well be the result of all this added mileage I’m tacking on to my body these days. Hmm… But not only are they good for running recovery, they’re also supposed to be great for flying, and it just so happens that I’m going on a super, long flight to Europe just three days after completing my marathon. Ding-ding-ding! SOLD!

It wasn’t an all-good-news purchase, though. I’ve known for some time now that I have abnormally large calves, but I secretly hoped it wasn’t true. Every time I tried on a pair of zip-up boots, but could never zip them up over my calves, I silently told myself it was just a faulty mix of boots. And the one time I actually tried on a pair of skinny jeans (what was I thinking?) only to fight to get them off my calves, I just cracked it up to not being my style; had nothing to do with the fact that I have super-sized calves. Nope, nothing at all. But today, all future hopelessness and denial was burned the second I had to measure my calves to see what size sock to get. Annnnnnd, I was the largest woman’s size they had! Good golly – monster calves indeed!

At least I didn't have to go up to the men's size though!

I walked into the store for a hat and walked out with $70 compression socks. Seems reasonable 😀

2 thoughts on “Attack of the monster calves”

  1. robert Freeman

    Them’s some kinda socks!!! But, damn, they look good on ya!! Even if ya got super-sized calves!!

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