My Feet

I lay in bed this morning as I was waking examining my feet. Noticing the increased toughness. Not like in the calluses sort of tough, yet an internal toughness where my feet can take walking outside on uneven ground and not be cut or hurt--maybe eventually. I can feel the effects of our walking now with weight on our backs. It's different from just walking or walking with the small weight of a day pack, as the added weight of a full backpack with 30 extra pounds in it pushes the foot out into the boot with forces that they are not accustomed to yet. The muscles must work harder to retain balance and propel you forward. These are not things they do without complaint.

The other day, as we were on the last mile of an eight plus mile hike around Huntsville, I was starting to feel the warmth of the skin around my right little toe. That familiar feeling of a blister forming. This is when I should have stopped and cared for it, but instead I just slowed my pace a bit to make it home without hopefully too much damage. This morning, I was feeling the itchiness of that skin healing and the skin forming a callus in that vulnerable spot where my little toe curves under the next toe due to the design of my foot.

"The human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art." ~Leonardo da Vinci 

I was told by a podiatrist once that I should give up on the idea of hiking or backpacking, as my feet were not shaped for it. My little toes would always be susceptible to blisters, as with each step they would slip under the next toe and be squirted out as I stepped down on it. And, that there was no way to change it. I can say from past backpacking trips, his assessment was correct. By the end of the first day of these backpacking trips, which was always ended up being a hard day, the little toes on each foot had developed a blister that had engulfed the entire toe. By the end of the second day, the skin on those toes had been completely worn off and I was left with bloody little stumps. Bloody painful little stumps.

Instead of just taking off hard and creating a problem that will not end well, this time we are working our body up to the desired level of toughness where we might be able to avoid some of the injuries and pain that would surely come if we didn't. This is not happening without pain, more than just spreading the pain out over a longer period of time to give the body time to adjust and toughen.

This explanation of toughness from the Wikipedia entry is appropriate: "In materials science and metallurgy, toughness is the ability of a material to absorb energy and plastically deform without fracturing.^[1] One definition of material toughness is the amount of energy per unit volume that a material can absorb before rupturing. It is also defined as a material's resistance to fracture when stressed.
Toughness requires a balance of strength and ductility.<sup>[1]"
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toughness</sup> 

I have read in several of the forums, writings and books about the need to toughen the feet. Even Ray Jardine says that he and his wife Jenny will walk the trail barefoot a little bit each day to give their feet time to dry out and also to feel the trail toughen their feet. Given this advice, I have begun to go around with bare feet whenever possible. I don't think I'll get to the point of my old neighbor, whom I called with respect "The Barefoot Hippie", where I almost never where shoes, but I can feel the difference already in these short few weeks.

I want our walk to be a successful one and I don't want my feet being so torn up damaged that it threatens to take me off the trail. I am feeling the pain of my efforts now in hopes that it pays off in my feet being tough enough to make the journey.