Thursday, July 31, 2008

My aching feet

I can't believe how much my feet still hurt. They are sore at the bottom of my heels and they have some kind of structural pain under the joints at the place where my 3rd and 4th toes end under the ball of my foot. It's like those joints grind against the ground as I walk. My feet are also just generally numb and meaty-feeling.

I have a closet full of shoes that no longer fit. I can still wear my Birkenstocks but my toes go all the way to the end now. They need repair, too, so I didn't want to wear them. I can wear my Chacos, but they are a little on the small side now and not very cushioned. I wonder if the manufacturer would re-strap them with extra long webbing. The volume and chunkiness of my feet have also increased.

Lacking anything else, this morning I put on my evil hiking shoes and walked to the Daily Grind. I can't believe the incredible pain they caused me just doing this 3 mile walk. I think my shoes did me in and not the daily marathons on the trail. I probably could have been hiking along the trail not wondering if I should quit but with a conviction I should continue to Washington had I had shoes that fit better. But what's done is done.

I have such bad luck with shoes. I have feet that just don't fit anybody's shoe patterns. I think Keen are the shoes with the widest toe-box I've ever seen, so I went downtown and tried on shoes. I found some interesting Keen shoes that seemed really cushioned, but they had none in a size to fit me. I ended up buying some of those sandal/shoes that everybody has. I guess nobody likes the red ones because they had a big stack of them in red at a deeper discount than all the other colors. The sandal/shoes seem more supportive than the Teva versions I have that give me inexplicable spasms and are way too thin to allow me to set the kickstand on my Vespa without agonizing pain. I hope they work out while my feet recover.

I left for the hike with ladies size 8s in my closet. The Keens are size 10.5.

I've been off the trail almost a week now and my feet are still the center of my universe.

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