the blood blisters on the bottoms of my feet look like my shoe wear patterns

Written on Sunday, June 7, 2020 (Day 2,241)

 

     I was trying to show my wife the blood blisters I had discovered on the bottoms of my feet. I thought about taking a picture, but I will just describe it instead. The biggest blisters are in the balls of my feet in the center. I also have a blister on the outside of my heels and on my big toes. This is where my shoe tread patterns have been for a long time, so I recognized the outline when I looked at it, “isn’t this crazy?” I asked her.

         She wasn’t crazy about looking at my feet, but obliged, “I don’t know if it is that crazy. Should it be on the outside of your heel?” she asked innocently enough, but I didn’t feel somewhat attacked when she said that. Not really for my defense, but for the defense of my body. I wanted to say something like, “look my feet are down there resolute, unrelenting, never have failed and they have gotten me through thousands of miles—and you! are going to question how they do their job!”

         I didn’t say that, but just kind of explained how I don’t think it is super helpful to get obsessed about your patter and you should trust your feet to figure it out as long as you are wearing minimalist shoes, which I have for almost a decade now. Before I wrote this I did research a little to feel validate that I do have the appropriate pattern. I am a neutral pronator! good for me! But it really wasn’t my doing to change my stride for the better. All I did was switch to a more minimalist shoe style (starting with Vibrams), and I went slow and adapted to the most proficient stride I can manage.

         I have been dealing with both hip / lower back pain recently, which always makes me evaluate what I have been doing, but realistically the pain is expected given the miles I have done recently. Also, I have started to run with a vest, so I am sure it will take my body time to adapt to it, but I did think about it, and more importantly I thought about the type of pain I was dealing with, and it wasn’t acute, but more like I was just sore, which I am. I have been running a lot of miles recently.