But what about the ouchies?

Nothing like an old thread to stir my keyboard skills.......

And dam 'hotasswhateveryournameis' If I needed all that kit for blisters, glass, splinters etc I'd wear shoes! Barefootin' in my opinion should be pleasurable ...

Shayla xx

 

same material

 

hmmm......... :rockon:


Sx

 

Obviously, I don't want to wear shoes unless I must.

Trying to eventually get the bare soles close to as tough as the soles of very thin leather sole flip flops—knowing the limits of sharpness that can't pierce through that thin of a flip flop sole but can pierce through a bare sole, and knowing the limits of heat that can't pass through a flip flop sole that can seriously burn a large part of the bare sole—requires a considerable amount of walking on very hot to extremely hot surfaces, sharper rougher surfaces, and uneven surfaces.

Of course, blacktop asphalt burns the quickest and the most intense. Rougher surfaces can also be plenty hot when it is sharper gravel asphalt, and I can still feel every poke of the sharper gravel asphalt but I can walk at a normal pace even if I wince every few steps. Wooden piers are just unfinished boardwalks and some of those have wood that is hot enough to start burning, but an accidental slide of the foot instead of a step can result in one or more splinters in the foot that are felt with each step. Sometimes finer slivers of glass can be missed, and are sharp enough to go into the soles and not just stick on the surface of the sole. In all those cases, some temporary damage to the soles is inevitable for getting the soles more used to it, as long as it is not a serious enough injury to require medical treatment, even if the damage is not intentional.

The barefooter's first aid kit is just enough to immediately fix damage to the soles. Only blisters will need to end the barefooting soon enough, but they can still be drained on the spot in the event some distance still needs to be walked to end the barefooting. Small cuts can be covered with a band-aid or two in order to continue a longer distance. Removal of glass or wood slivers can be also covered with a band-aid or two in order to continue but sometimes the hole is so small that no band-aid is needed at all.

The entire first aid kit fits in a digital camera memory card holder and can even be carried in a pocket.

 

I wouldn't be to worried as what can happen to your feet. Most of the time you can really do without shoes.
Hot pavement can be avoided to walk in the shade, gravel to walk in the sideway of the path etc etc.
I underestemated myself at almost every walk and decided to not bring any shoeware the last walk i did. And needless to say, it went perfectly fine.

Still, when going into unknown ereas and especially long trips or hikes, tweezers and a needle can come in handy and can fix most of your urgent ouchies.
Ofcourse 'the kit' described by hotasphalt.. can be very handy especially for the longer trips.

One tip for safe walking, try to practice a good step. That means make use of the natural 'spring' of your body. Bent your knees slightly and place your feet under your body.
Don't 'slide' your feet over the ground when walking, because thats a great way to pick up splinters and glass.
Almost every splinter i had, was very very small, so the larger chunks of glass (>4mm) aren't your concern really. When walking correct, they don't do any damage.
It's the splinters you don't even see... But don't worry, they can be removed, just when you where a child

 

Weather isn't close to Arizona-like too hot. I won't be avoiding hot and sharp unless so hot would 3rd degree burn the soles and so sharp would make a puncture wound. I want to challenge the soles more than enough to get them as leathery as possible with very rough surface calluses, almost as close to the toughness of a very thin leather flip flop sole as possible—or maybe as tough as one of those minimal Xero shoe soles with almost no sole—without causing permanent damage to the soles.

So, if I would walk through shade with shoes on, of course I'll walk through shade barefoot. If I would walk through completely unshaded pavement with shoes on, I'll not going to try to hop from smaller shade spots and white lines and I am going to walk on it barefoot. Same distance too: if it's 1/4 mile of unshaded blacktop asphalt, I'll walk that barefoot as I would with shoes. Loose gravel can be just as unstable to walk on even with shoes on; however, I'll walk on the same packed gravel asphalt barefoot as I would with shoes on. If I want to walk along a beach pier, I'm not going to go and get shoes, so I'll walk on the wood pier barefoot. Glass is an obvious exception since a bare foot can be pierced by glass that would just stick into a shoe sole, but if automotive style safety glass is unavoidable and cannot be walked around or jumped over, than those shattered cubes do hurt and can even stick on the soles until pulled off but those do not cut the soles as long as directly stepped on.

Not walking heel-to-toe feels unnatural to me, with or without shoes.

 

I went for a 2.5 mile barefoot/naked walk in the woods today & my left foot was a little sore when i got back. I just figured that I had probably bruised it & it would be better later. As time went on, My foot hurt worse & worse. I started trying to check on it, but it was hard to see. I took some pic's to see if that would help, but it didn't. I decided to go outside in the sunlight with a magnifying glass, a sharp knife & some tweezers. It took a while, but I finally found the problem. There was a piece of a thorn about 1/4" long sticking straight into my foot. I was able to get hold of it with the tweezers & pull it out. within minutes after it was out my foot didn't hurt so bad to walk on it again.
I knew that i had walked thru some areas that had thorns, but i didn't think that I had stepped on any bad enough to have one stick in & break off. I guess I'll have to be more careful about that.

 

I only do barefoot walks and have no interest in doing them unclothed.

 

So here is a normal and acceptable heat ouchie!

Five minutes all asphalt and brick tile walk, avoiding any shade or concrete, only one minute walk on sidewalk to go get the mail, then another five minutes on all asphalt and brick again. Hottest afternoon hours, around 3pm. No prior getting the soles used to heat before starting out on the hot walk. Local weather showed a forecast of 94 degrees F with a humidity heat index of 99 degrees F. So this did happen:

(Click it to view it larger and I red circled the small blisters...)


Still acceptable "damage" getting used to much hotter heat, definitely not over a very larger area of the soles and only those parts that are not yet as heat tolerant as the rest of the soles. Small enough to see, but not enough to prevent any additional barefoot walking even the same day. I even went out to take the trash an hour later, but I can only feel those if I scrunch the feet when sitting down. Those will heal quickly enough.

 

Not so much of an "ouchie", but this is an example where the soles can be cleaned but still not appear as fully cleaned.



This is the combined result of:

• Yesterday's barefooting during the hottest afternoon hours in weather that turned out to be 97 degrees F during peak heat, with only the time it took to drive from one location to the next location in between barefoot events, and I only put on flip flops just when entering a location known to enforce shoes required. Soles were tanned, but not stained blackened just yet.
• Today after three hours of inland hot asphalt and hot sidewalk barefooting during the hottest afternoon hours 1:30pm to 3:00pm, with about 15 minutes in between each barefooting event no matter how short or how long the actual barefooting event was, during weather that was supposed to be between 99 and 103 degrees F during peak heat.
• Today, to further exercise the soles with a much longer duration walk without subjecting the soles to constantly burning heat, I also did a non-stop hour walk on sidewalk, asphalt, bricks, and even sealed wood just after 5:00pm. Great exercise both for increasing heat tolerance and strengthening feet and ankles overall, but the soles were quite coated with gray dusty dirt over blackened dirt.

Each sole was wiped with two handwipes each before going home, then wiped using a wet washcloth and soap at home, and then wiped using two more handwipes each after washing the soles with the washcloth. Some of the dirt was either burned or scuffed into the soles, and it will take a couple of days with no additional barefooting, even with daily washing of the soles when showering, just to get the soles clean (without going to a swimming pool that soaks the soles or taking a longer walk along the beach that also gently scrubs away the dirt). I don't otherwise scrub the soles since the one occurrence I even tried a scrub brush and some bleach cleaner a few years ago, all it did was scrub away some of the very surface calluses and didn't substantially remove more dirt.

If I go barefoot tomorrow, especially any significant amount of time and distance on hot asphalt, then more surface dirt will bake into the sole over the existing ingrained dirt. This is how the "permanent black sole" look starts to occur, but I still find a longer time in a swimming pool or a longer walk on the beach makes the soles at most still appear tanned.

 

One other side effect of walking on paved surfaces, combined with heel-to-toe walking, is the development of some cracking in the back part of the heel. I consider some amount of cracking as normal, also depending on the cracking.

This type of cracking is more noticeable when it's hot enough to burn the soles, because that general area on the very back of the heel that still contacts the pavement also gets burned white like other calluses. I don't do anything about this horizontal cracking, even with hairline vertical cracking in between the horizontal cracks, until I get an actual vertical crack I can run my finger along and catch it. I still wanted to point this out to other frequent paved surface barefooters, who also walk heel to toe, and who also do it when it's burning hot. It's much easier to see the finer details of the cracking with a macro focus photo of the cracks.



For an actual vertical crack, I try to catch it early enough and file over it with an emery board, straight back and forth motions, several times a day.