Monday, June 1, 2015

Shoes

June 1, 2015
Shoes are one of those things most people take for granted. Most of the time I do too. Most of my pain, about 90% this trip was and is caused by my shoes.  I decided to get the new model of Mizzuno trail runners because I though it would be best to stick to a similar shoe. They discontinued the model I've been using for the last few years so I wasn't really left with too many options. The later model quality was declining anyway.
On the hike up Mt. Taylor I realized that my pronation caused the outside edge of my shoes to bend inward and cause my ankle joint, that ball on your ankle, to become extremely agitated and bruised. I put it off until today, not thinking much of it. After an extremely painful hour or two I had to take a knife to the shoe. I also noticed the foam on the inside heel of the shoe is collapsing a little too quickly. So much for new shoes. I think I'll contact Amazon to get my money back and replace them. I'm very interested to see how that goes as I don't want to be out $100.
A group of 4 of us started the day together. Squral, Holly, Viper and myself. Sometime mid morning I stopped for a restroom break and lost contact with everyone. Right after that break there were multiple trail options. I ended up taking one that they obviously didn't, it was the path less traveled. Sometime around 1:00 I met back up with the trail and took lunch. Viper eventually showed up and was surprised I managed to get ahead of him. He said that Squral and Holly stopped a while back. I left them a note to let them know I wasn't behind them and took off with Viper. Viper is from Norway so over the next several hours we spoke about cultural differences and everything else you could imagine. It was a great experience and I learned a ton about Norway and Norwegian culture.
We ended up doing about 30.7 miles, my first 30!!!, to get water. It was enjoyable until my blisters reminded me they weren't quite healed yet. At least the spring, a half mile off trail in the bottom of a Canyon, was pristine. So I guess that would technically be 32? Woot Woot!
Going to take it easy tomorrow, on 27 miles... The lack of water, especially drinkable water, makes you decide between weight and miles. As of now I'm choosing the miles.

No comments:

Post a Comment