2nd Obstacle

Yesterday was a big test day. In particular, going outside on a real hike with the new boots. I was also testing a new device called "SPOT" - which is sort of in-between a cell phone and a personal emergency signally device. More on that later...

The boots are really amazing. I was surprised at how sticky the rubber is. They were much like my 4-year old approach shoes - actually better I think. It goes to show you what you miss when you don't buy new for years.

The only problem is that no matter how tightly they are laced (even to the point of being uncomfortable), there is some slippage of my foot forward on descents. This may be because I am wearing liner socks in addition to hiking socks to reduce friction. Surprisingly this is mostly on my bigger foot. But after about 2 hours, there were no hot-spots.

On to the big problem...About a week and a half ago I was mowing the grass and got stung on the inside of my right ankle with what I think was a bee. It hurt for about a day and was swollen but quickly resolved. This past Wednesday morning (6 days after the sting), the area where I was bitten was itchy. I thought I must have been bitten by a mosquito in the same place as the bee sting. Yesterday, when I got back from the hike, the area was not only really itchy again, but about a 1 inch square area of skin was raised and red. I thought it far too late to be an infection from the original sting but was convinced to have it checked out.

My theory (which sounds perfectly logical to me) is that the stinger was still under my skin. On Tuesday night, when I wore the new boots on the treadmill for over a 1/2 hour, the pressure of lacing them tightly pushed the stinger around and irritated the area (thus making it itch). Then yesterday, after hiking for a long time with the boots tightly laced, the stinger exploded and released all the poison and bacteria - which is what caused this reaction.

Well, the doctor didn't favor that idea and thinks it's simply irritated skin from the boots. I didn't point out that usually irritated skin from boots results in blisters or raw skin, not skin that looks like cellulitis (this is a skin infection). Needless to say, this is going to make breaking in these boots difficult this week. Today I'll have to practice hike without them.

1st obstacle

The heal on one of my 14 year old Raichle boots ripped out during a training hike. Now you'd think that 14 years is too old for boots - but that really isn't so. I took great care of them, particularly because I vowed to never buy another pair of leather anything, and the uppers only have a few deep scratches. Well, glue or rubber does eventually come apart. They can be resoled - but I don't have enough time before the big weekend.

I bought a pair of Garmont Kiowa that were blowout at EMS. These are really nice, quite comfortable, and light-weight as well - unfortunately I have a very odd foot: between a 7 and 7.5 and narrow but shaped like a mini-ski (same width from toe to heel). These are good for short hikes for me - up to 3 hours, but I need less toe-box room. When I buy "narrow" sizing, the arch is much too tight - so on to my next boot to test and brake-in before the big weekend!