It is important to take care of your feet. Everyday and when preparing to spend a lot of time on them. There are people with special foot care needs, like diabetics, who must take care of their feet. But, when preparing for about a 100 mile walk through the Spanish countryside you also have to take care of your feet.
So first you need a good pair of shoes, or in my case, a good pair of boots. I do have a tendency to go through boots, so I wanted a really top notch pair this time. All weather and light weight, so that I am not dragging the weight of heavy boots through the Spanish countryside. Then you have to break in your new boots. You can’t make the first time you wear your boots while you are a continent away about to walk a great distance. So the fun becomes making choices as to when and where you can wear a pair of hiking boots to determine where they might rub on the feet. Rainy days. Cold winter days. Practice hikes. And then you check for places where redness appears where the boots have rubbed your feet.
There are lots of similarities to injuries those who run marathons or other hikers. You have to watch even your toes rubbing against one another. Any areas of redness has the potential to become a blister or abrasion which will make further movement painful or even impossible. And while I realize that the important thing is to take care of your feet everyday, that depending on them for transport, makes it an even more critical issue.
Aren’t our feet like ourselves. When we rub up against others we can develop redness. We have to watch who and why we rub against people the wrong way. Just like our feet there are preventive measures we can take, but we have to be aware in the first place.
While it is important to search for thin places, we don’t need those thin places to be on our feet or become our contact with others.
searchingforthinplaces 