Best Foot Forward

I remember hearing the phrase "put your best foot forward" when I was a child, and asking an older brother, "But which one is my best?"  Apparently, your right foot is your best foot.  At least if you're right-handed.  I don't know if this is because we live in a right-handed world, or if there is in fact some reason for our right foot to be our best foot.  Even though I'm right-handed, I feel left sided for everything else.  Especially in the feet.

For a long time, I have started off on my left foot.  This goes for stairs, kerbs, lunges... (which is fine for even-numbered workouts, not so great for odd numbers!).  Knowing this often looks really weird when you have to take a teensy step not to use the right, I bow to my desire to at least appear normal, and can use either foot.  The right often results in a mental face screw-up, though, but the more I do it the less it bothers me.  I'm still quite conscious of it though. 

Now for the Change bit for today.  Every time I start running, it's starting on the left.  Every time.  For the last few runs, I've been thinking I should try starting on my right foot.  I didn't think this would be so hard, but it is.  I couldn't do this spontaneously.  My brain kept thinking it over, how I would actually manage to get my right foot to be the take-off foot.  I started having flash-backs to age 4 and ballet (note: I didn't continue ballet). 

Tonight, I was having second thoughts about running (it was raining).  But I decided to just do it - I've discovered it's much nicer, in some ways, to run in the rain.  Once I was in my running gear my brain kept on thinking about this right-footed thing.  Not wanting to totally embarrass myself in my street, I had a couple of little practices in the hallway. 

Running is a mental thing for me.  Tonight, it was super-mental.  Every time I was about to run (I have 3 or 4 walking bits), I had to remember how to start on the right foot.  I'm sure I must have had a weird expression every time.  This was not a great run.  I'm not sure if it was actually from the right-footed running, or if I was just a bit tired or hungry or under-hydrated... I will be trying to do this more often, but more so that I know that I can do it.