I won't be defeeted

When it comes to endurance pursuits and most adventures, it comes down to the condition of your feet. Wear a pair of ill fitting or inappropriate footwear and simple walking becomes a chore. Shod your feet correctly but wear the wrong socks, hot spots and blisters are assured. Yet even when you do it correctly, and have the right sock and shoe combination for the job, all you have left to think about is, "How tough are my feet?"

Wearing the perfect footwear, socks, even after market or corrective insoles still can't help our feet if they are not toughened up by repeated abuses. Wearing your perfect foot gear still doesn't address the actual foot in terms of abuse some events put on it with constant movement compounded with hours of being stuffed in wet, muddy, silty, hot constrictive devices.  

(scene from movie Die Hard)

So I am working on toughing my feet. The actual soles of my feet. Regardless of the fact that I am a lifelong hiker and spent a decade of my life in Combat Arms carrying heavy packs in standard issue boots, I am somewhat of a tenderfoot to be honest. I don't usually get blisters or hot spots from my longer runs or events and I am good at changing my socks and treating my feet but my bare feet are still in my opinion soft. I do not ever enjoy walking around outside in my bare feet. Every little pebble is a sharp rock, every twig a thorn. Sand is always too hot. Grass is always to prickly. I will continue to wear some sort of footwear where ever I go, thank you very much. Yes even in the hallways of a carpeted hotel on a lazy vacation. I feel that I have watched Die Hard far too many times. Okay, okay, I don't always were slippers or house shoes in my own home. 

(oh God, no. Creep me out)

This week instead of a WOD of run drills and conditioning, I decided to run a mile barefoot. Nothing fancy, nothing fast, nothing on my feet. I found the absolute greenest, most lush park area of grass in my neighborhood and took off all my clothes below the ankles. I felt naked and exposed. I would have rather ran nude in just my shoes rather than the reverse, which was what I was going to do. 

I can't say I was looking forward to this, by comparison, very short training session. Just run a mile. Slowly even. A 'sing a song ten minute pace'. As I left my shoes and socks in a pile, all alone in the grass, I felt as if I was leaving kids for a one year deployment overseas.

When I finished my mile, my feet were feeling surprisingly fine. I had not stumbled or been jabbed, stabbed, poked, itched, bite by ants or run into any snakes. (Its an irrational thought I know. Honestly and rationally there were no snakes I could have ever run into at the park but it was the same feeling and instinctive thoughts I get whenever I swim at the lake and think to myself, "There are no sharks in here."). I put my footwear back on and headed home. 

A little later, showered and walking around my own house the aching started. The hot spots I picked up but hadn't presented now started to affect me. Crap they started to hurt. It was a good lesson. It was a good workout in that my feet will learn to adapt. Distance be damned I am toughening my feet up.