I often see the same people on my morning commute and they stand out to me for various reasons. There’s tall engineer man who reads journal articles, there’s Sudoku woman who taps away on her Blackberry for 20 minutes every morning and there’s sad Salomon woman. I don’t mean that she’s sad, she looks as happy as someone can look at 8.45 on a weekday. No, I think her Salomons are sad.

I first noticed her footwear about six months ago. As a seasoned commuter I know that when sat down while others are standing on front of you, sometimes the only place to stare is at the floor. This is why tall engineer man has a journal article and Sudoku woman stabs furiously at her Blackberry. They don’t enjoy these tasks, they know that staring at someone arse or crotch for any length of time is widely frowned on. And that’s when the train is busy – imagine how embarrassing it would be to stare straight ahead and catch the gaze of the person opposite you! Well, you’d have to move house just to change your commute.

I digress. While staring at the floor for lack of a book to pretend to stare at, I noticed a rather lovely looking pair of trail shoes. I’m running an off-road race in a couple of months so I’d been toying with diversifying my running shoe collection. I thought they must be quite new since the were spotless and had that fresh-out-the-box glow to them. Attached to the shoes was a smartly dressed woman with a very expensive handbag and a serious look.

Weeks go by and every so often I see the trail shoes getting off the train or sat a few seats away from me. We don’t acknowledge each other I just wonder what they’ve been up to since our last encounter. Gradually it dawns on me that they look no older or more rugged than when I first set eyes on them. Have they had work done? No, the sad truth is that they don’t go out. They aren’t allowed to run free through the fields like they were intended to. They’ve never experienced the exhilaration of a cold, muddy puddle. The only outside world they know is the one between home and train, train and office. They’ve been reduced to a commuter shoe.

Maybe their owner has a different understanding of the word Train-ing shoes.