Father Sprains His Ankle on His First Run

Hermann’s first attempt to run turns a carefully prepared health plan into an injury within a single outing. He sets off from home in newly bought running shoes, eager to test a capacity he had not used for years, and returns from the forest unable to walk unaided. The episode is both comic and sharply physical: the training manuals promise measured progress, while a rain-cut rut, a small burst of speed, and an awkward landing decide what his body can actually do.

Preparation and Expectations

Hermann’s attempt to get thinner begins with a strict steak diet. At lunchtime, the family continues eating its favorite organ meats while a large steak is cooked separately for him; at night, he eats cucumbers, and he has also stopped smoking. After buying books about exercise, he and Joachim visit the town’s only sports shop. Hermann chooses running shorts, a tracksuit jacket, and running shoes, but the fitting unsettles his assumptions about his own body: he had long believed that he wore size forty-three, whereas even size forty-four proves too small. He buys size forty-five only after the salesperson assures him that running shoes are made unusually small.

Hermann keeps the shoes on to break them in, as his books advise. At the family’s favorite grill, he reflects that these may be the first shoes he has ever bought that truly fit. He had assumed that a shoe should press slightly against the foot. Joachim offers an explanation that Hermann likes and repeats: a comfortable shoe is soon forgotten, while discomfort keeps the wearer aware of it. Their exchange gives the shoes a small significance beyond their practical use. Before the run, Hermann is already considering how comfort, habit, and bodily awareness relate; the outing will test those ideas less gently than either expects.

The First Run and the Fall

The following Sunday, Hermann begins training. Across the road from the psychiatric grounds lies a forest, and he prepares on the terrace with little jumps in place and stretching exercises. Joachim and his brothers watch through a large window, but Hermann insists that none of them accompany him. He does not want to make a fool of himself in front of his fit, well-built sons. His confidence is guarded by embarrassment: he wants to run, but wants his first effort to remain private.

Joachim follows him only as far as the road. The crossing itself is familiar. Hermann is poor at judging the speed of approaching cars and waits until they seem very far away before setting off; even on a quiet road, he repeatedly looks both ways, takes Joachim’s hand, and then hurries across while holding it tightly. This time, after a long wait at the nearly empty main road, he crosses in his new sports clothes and disappears into the forest. The contrast between his deliberate caution at the roadside and his later attempt to accelerate on the path quietly anticipates the misjudgment that ends the run.

Hermann has been gone for an hour when the family decides to look for him. The narrator’s eldest brother tries to set the Family dog on Hermann’s scent with one of his socks, but The narrator’s mother snatches it away, irritated. After following winding woodland paths, the searchers reach a straight track leading toward the castle. They find Hermann on a bench about three hundred metres ahead, slumped forward with his head hanging. His hands are dirty, one knee is soiled, and the dog licks blood from his shin. The family helps him up.

How the Injury Happens

Hermann explains that the run had gone unexpectedly well. He had been surprised that he could run at all, since for years he had only walked. He intended to cover the long path once, then decided to add a gentle acceleration over its final ten metres, following the training guidance he had read. At a section gouged by rainwater, he tried to jump across the rut. For a moment he was airborne; he landed directly in the channel, twisted his ankle, heard something crack in his foot, and could not get back to his feet.

An older woman with a walking stick helped him stand. On the journey home, the family has to stop repeatedly. Hermann asks Joachim to remove his shoe and sock, revealing an ankle that is blue and swollen. The narrator’s second-oldest brother describes its appearance as aubergine-like. Hermann asks them not to tell anyone and proposes keeping the injury a small family secret. The request adds a note of embarrassment to the physical pain: the man who had wanted to spare his sons the sight of an awkward first run must now rely on them to get home.

Aftermath and Significance

The injury ends the run after no more than a short distance, but it does not immediately end Hermann’s interest in running. In the following weeks, he continues reading his running books with his leg elevated and explains plans for returning to exercise after a sports injury. He proudly calls the torn ligament his sports injury, turning a failed beginning into an identity he can claim. He also buys books about marathon history and tells Joachim stories about Paavo Nurmi and Emil Zatopek, the locomotive from Prague.

Other parts of the health effort fare better. Hermann’s steak diet helps him maintain a weight of about ninety-five kilograms for several years, and he remains a nonsmoker until a later, memorable event. The running shoes, however, have a brief career: they are never worn again, despite having fitted him so well, and their total distance is no more than three hundred metres. That precise, almost anticlimactic limit holds together the episode’s humor and disappointment. The equipment and preparation suggest a new routine; the body’s sudden injury cuts it short, while the books and stories allow Hermann to keep the aspiration alive in another form.