Barefoot day 100

[pandora_parrot]

I've now been barefoot for 100 days. As time has gone on, this has become less and less of an big deal to me. I simply go barefoot a lot of the time. When I'm not going barefoot, I'm in flip flops or in my awesome moccasins.

Since my trip out to Arizona a few months ago, my feet have had annoyingly low stamina for dealing with any major kind of ground for more than a short period of time. Yet while my overall stamina may be low, my toughness is quite high. Without much pain or issue, I can now walk around on gravel, broken glass, and so much more, without blinking an eye. Mind, I do have a limit on how much of this I can take, but for a brief walk across a parking lot or something, my feet don't hurt at all. Even the parking lot at the climbing gym isn't bothering me anymore!

It's really quite incredible to have reached this point. I'm annoyed by my feet's limitations, but I'm happy with their capability. It's awesome to be able to walk around barefoot on so many things. This past weekend, I was doing class 3 scrambles in my bare feet over hot exposed rock. My feet were actually better at gripping the rock than my brand new hiking shoes!

I'm finding, now, that regular shoes actually cause me quite a bit of discomfort. My feet have gotten so happy being free and clear of being compressed into horrible tight shoes that whenever I do put on shoes for some reason, they are not happy. They can't handle being in them very long at all. I'm a bit worried about how this is going to play out in Zion National Park, but we'll see.

At this point, the constant sensory feedback I get through my feet barely registers to me as interesting anymore. It's just part of my normal sensing system. What's wild, though, is how disconnected and off-balance I feel when I put some sort of shoe on. It's like I completely lose one of my senses. Take biking, for example. I've been doing as much as 60 miles of biking in a given week, and I'm doing all of it barefoot or wearing my moccasins. I didn't really notice anything special about doing this barefoot, so I decided, one day, to go biking in my new hiking shoes. (I'm trying to break them in a bit before going hiking in them.)

Oh boy did that make a huge difference. I suddenly found it difficult to control my bike! I was having trouble getting my feet in a good position to pedal, and my gear shifting was quite rough. I discovered that I had developed a biofeedback system with my feet and the pedals. When I shift, I slow my pedaling for a moment until my feet feel the click of the chain locking into place. I then start pedaling hard again. With my shoes on, I couldn't sense this, so I kept starting my hard pedaling too soon or too late or whatever. I had no idea that I had developed a system like this. I was just using it without thinking about it.

In some ways, this is actually a little disappointing. Gone are the exciting little moments where I touch some surface and shout with joy about how amazing it feels. Or, well, they're not completely gone, but they're definitely reduced. I don't notice being barefoot. I notice being shod. Now, *wearing shoes* is the weird thing where I experience lots of weird sensations and surprising experiences. How interesting, don't you think?

I did get a chance to try on some of the Vibram's Five Fingers shoes recently. They're really nice and comfy, and very barefoot-y, but there's one thing I find I don't like about them: They're still shoes. My moccasins are incredibly minimalistic. The leather of the moc just wraps around my feet gently and loosely, like a big jacket or something. The material of the VFFs is tight on my foot and somewhat constricting. Where the moccasin allows for lots of airflow to keep my foot cool, the VFFs seem to make me feel like my feet are cooking inside them, like they would with a normal shoe.

I figure I'll pick up a pair to do hiking in, but I'll stick with my mocs when I'm just wandering around town and need some foot protection.

I don't know the next time I'll write about being barefoot, as it is fading more and more into the background of my life. Perhaps you'll hear from me again on day 200. :)

Until then!

Comments

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Minor safety warning: if you bicycle barefoot, please make sure that the tip of your kickstand (if you have one) and other sharp surfaces are protected by hard plastic or hard rubber. There is a four-inch-long scar on my left foot from when I was about nine years old, rode my bike barefoot into the garage, slipped on an oily patch, and sliced my foot open a quarter inch deep. Had I actually severed the tendon that I instead narrowly missed, I would never have been able to walk normally again.

The mocs are a good idea.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Clarification: sliced my foot open on the tip of the kickstand, which was bare metal; the edge between the flat face of the tip and the rest of the rod was sharp enough to cut. A hard rubber cap over the end of the kickstand would have prevented this.

[paradox-puree.livejournal.com]

I've cut my foot on the tip of the kickstand before. Since then, I've been careful about avoiding it. The rubber cap might not be a bad idea.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

Please do put one on there. If you slip at any kind of speed -- I was going maybe 3kph into the garage -- your ability to avoid the sharp bits is extremely reduced. If nothing else, paint it in about five layers of tool dip.

[chirik.livejournal.com]

Wow, have you really been doing this for 100 days? I'm impressed.

[david-feuer.livejournal.com]

Have you stepped on nice fluffy fresh moss yet? If not, you really have to try it.