Spring Weather Heat-Proofing Has Started For Summer Weather

Not just more heat tolerance, but tens of minutes extended on unshaded blacktop heat during the start of and close to an hour into the hottest afternoon hours... HEAT-PROOFING.

Weather is in the 80 degrees F range, including any heat index so I am continuing to do what I already set out to do: prolonged standing to get used to standing heat. Very straightforward, as I mentioned before: while walking during the hottest afternoon hours on asphalt with minimal to no shade, find the hot spot stretch. Make sure the shadow is not in front. Stand on the hot spot with the soles fully on the ground, of course. As I've mentioned before, once the hot feeling stays the same or gets less, take two steps and stand again, two steps only so that both feet are parallel to each other. As I've mentioned before, enough heat retention will remain on the soles so that standing gets even hotter. Repeat... but make sure to keep it even: if it was left, right, then stand... the left foot got more heat so then next time do right, left than stand. To keep it really even, do heat relief as needed before taking the next to steps... I wasn't training for heat relief though, I was training for maximum heat to the soles of the feet.

Remember, in order to walk on hot surfaces in hotter area heat, it's necessary to keep burning to get used to the soles of the feet. Otherwise, just wear flip flops at all times, even if it's only burning hot to need shade but not hot enough to have to urgently walk faster or run to shade.

Now in my case, I did this standing on hotter and hotter up until the soles started to tingle... interestingly enough only on the outside just behind the balls of the feet and also the heels, but heels are normally the most burn resistant. The rest of the sole didn't feel any detectable burning at all. Anyway... taking one step at a time very slowly, after the point of tingling, lost just enough heat retentionn for me to have to resume standing again... until I got to the tingling soles again. I wasn't training up until blisters yet... doing so is more beneficial in the mid to high 90's if I want to force heat-proofing that much sooner, but at this point I have ample time to do it more gradually.

I have to watch out though, because if I do end up getting blisters, while a blister healed and hardened to become a callus behind the little toe is very important for strengthening the arch with tilting the sole slightly underpronated, that callus has to be almost rock-hard so it can extended burn as a last resort hotspot before doing whole foot heat relief. I walk heel-to-toe, so anything other than the very outside of the heel (like I got a couple of summers ago and it did burst before I could drain it in time) will make me have to walk more on the front of the balls of the feet and the toe pads. Okay enough of that... essentially that is all I have to worry about burning more than the rest of the foot at this point in time.

Soles don't even feel stinging, no pulse felt in the soles, nothing indicating burned soles at all except for some temporary redness of the soles that went away, barely any residual hot feeling minutes afterward. The balls of the feet don't even feel that stiff. There is an asphalt scent because of all the walking and prolonged standing baked a lot of asphalt dirt into the soles, but the soles can't sweat even if they want to because of the dirt keeping the soles dry. As the soles keep trying to sweat, the asphalt scent gets stronger, but it's more of a dusty scent than an actual odor. When the soles do sweat, they will become lighter as the asphalt dirt gets into the sole. A shower later, not deep cleaned and only surface cleaned, some dirty footprints even on the shower floor. Not permanently stained because a walk along the beach on the sand by the shore gently cleans it all out. Obviously the dry sole effect is more desirable to keep the soles as dry as possible, just keeping an eye for heel cracking. The asphalt is sufficiently cured so it is not fresh oil.

Almost 45 minutes of that. If I can stand for that long until tingling and I have to walk only a couple of steps and stand again to build up more heat, it stands to reason if I stay in the same spot and do heat relief, the heat will at least decrease enough to keep doing heat relief. Of interest is if I walked very slowly with one step at a time, it never got close to as hot as standing with heat retention steps.

So once again, the soles are becoming HEAT-PROOF to late spring temperature unshaded asphalt already with prolonged standing and very slow almost one step every two seconds deliberate walking. By summer they should be fully walkable in the low 100 degrees F range up until they get burning hot tingling, and then only on asphalt during peak afternoon heat hours. I'll have to figure out the standing heat relief if walking even more quickly is too much too fast. For the most part, except for some limitation of the foot sole vs. a flip flop sole, I expect they will be extended hot walkable for minutes and standable with heat relief maybe for tens of seconds. The hotter it gets, the less time standing I will be able to do before needing heat relief, but as I was able to do years ago before I lost my calluses and have rebuilt them to this point, I used to be able to heat absorb when walking, stand until needing heat relief resume walking again and it was just that many more steps than before when heat absorbtion walking became too hot again. I WILL plan out my shade spots before walking, but by then I can walk each surface as it comes instead of deliberate training exclusively on hot undshaded blacktop asphalt.

I'm very proud of my soles progress so far. It's only March and getting late spring temperatures. If this heat keeps up, I'll be more than ready by mid-May for even high 100's but not quite in the 110+ degrees range during desert area hottest afternoon hours. But then there is still more time for getting used to it up until July when it peaks, ready or not... but whether or not I vacation in a desert area or I can stand long enough to heat absorb that much heat.

 

So around 90 degrees F range, I'm going to have to start standing using heat relief when it burns too much, instead of soles fully on the ground for an extended time until it starts to painfully tingle more slowly, for better heat distribution at a faster burning rate, but still not overly burned that I cannot resume walking. When standing using heat relief it too hot, then I will resume walking again until even walking gets too hot, then stand again to do heat relief, start walking again as the heat increases even more... I've mentioned this before, it's training for the 100 degrees F range hottest afternoon hours. Ideally, NO SHADE (walk around it, step or jump over it), NO SHORT CONCRETE SPOTS (jump over them).

The idea is to maintain a steady or increasing level of heat for tens of minutes... given that a full loop around the neighborhood is about 25 minutes on all unshaded blacktop with short stretches of brick walkways. Obviously if it gets way too hot that I am getting hotspots when checking the burning soles, I can always walk faster or walk through shade (no need to stand in it) but the idea is constant and continuous walking on the heat with faster burning tolerance when standing. Once the soles are burned to hotspots then I will need to avoid sidewalk... or it will finish off the hotspots into the start of blisters. I'm okay with more quickly and more strongly burned soles otherwise; since they will be ready for another day's extended heat-footing. That's how heat-footing works when it's not ow hot within seconds of just soles touching the asphalt and it burns quickly and sharply just a couple of seconds later (because that's ow ow ow hot hot hot on soles not yet trained for THAT).

As has been posted here as far back as 2007, there are others into hot surfaces and heat-footing... and in fact they are reportedly standing on metal plates for more than just a couple of seconds when using heat relief. They've even used an infrared thermometer with the form factor like a radar gun. Anyway, the more I train for it closer to home in case I do overdo too much heat too soon, the longer I will last when out running errands and walk-every-surface-as-it-occurs barefooting is longer asphalt than just a parking lot.

Getting past the middle 100 degrees F range and into the 110 degrees F range, closer to or during the hottest afternoon hours, is probably such a challenge even on my more callused and heat proofing soles that I might not be able to do it this summer. If that's the case, I should be able to do it by next summer, and again it can be sidewalk too and not just asphalt (so walking an entire flea market that is almost all asphalt is probably unrealistic without carrying flip flops one in each hand to throw down on the ground and stand on them until the much burning dissipates several seconds later, if not just deciding to keep wearing them).