From this morning’s walk
The history of Paul and shoes.
From the time that I was a baby, according to my mother, in a conversation that we had many, many years ago, I never liked shoes. She said that, as a baby, I would always ‘fuss’ when she put on my shoes. As a toddler, I untied my shoes and took them off. From my memories, whenever I got home, the first thing that I would do is take off my shoes, kick them into a corner, and ‘be free’. When school let out for the summer, I don’t think that I ever put on a pair of shoes unless I absolutely had too. Then, of course, they’d come off as soon as possible. My feet were responsible for many bathtub rings.
Today, not much has changed. As soon as I get off of work and walk to the car, the shoes come off! When I am at work sitting at my desk … you got it, the shoes come off. I guess that I was born without them, so what’s the point of wearing them?
I have seen these shoes around The Peaceful Dragon and other places. Everyone that has them swears by them. I decided to get a pair of them. I went to the store, tried on a pair, and decided to take them home with me. When I got home, I put them on, wore them around for a while, then decided that they were too small. The webbing between my smallest toe and the next, on the right foot, hurt a lot. I took them back and get the next larger size, a 46. Today, I looked up the conversion chart and saw that a 45 is equivalent to a US 12. I wear a 12.5, so the 46 is a 13. It fit well.
The sales clerk asked me how I intended to use them. I told him to walk about 30 miles/week on pavement. He suggested that I get the Sprint model, pictured here at the right. The difference, primarily, between this one and say, the Trekker, is that the mesh doesn’t come all the way up over the feet. Other models are made for trails and the mesh keeps the twigs and rocks out of your feet.
So, how did they feel?
The clerk at the store suggested that I do not walk 4.5 – 5 miles the first time, or perhaps I should carry a small backpack with my regular shoes in them so that I could change, just in case. Well, I ascribe to the Hobbs methodology model: How are you going to know how it tastes if you don’t lick it?! No! I did not lick the shoe because I am not the least bit interested in how it tastes, but I did walk 4.5 miles with this morning and did Tai Chi with it last night. While doing the Tai Chi, I felt that my balance was much better. I didn’t have to contend with the slightly canted running shoe. Also, my toes could ‘grip’ the floor. As a side note: Hobbs did lick the shoe, but I have no idea if he liked it or not.
This morning, I got up, put the shoes on … now this takes some doing to get the toes in the right place and Hobbs was getting a little bit impatient. 
Finally, after about a minute, I was able to get each toe were it belonged and we were off on our morning adventure. The first thing that I noticed is that you can feel most everything on the road, pebbles, unevenness, divots, whatever. I purposely walked over sidewalk cracks, divots, and pebbles, just to get the sensation. After that, I just continued on the smooth pavement.
Looking down at the shoe, it’s interesting to be able to see your tendons flex with each step, but the workout felt good. For some reason, I was expecting that my calves would start hurting, or that perhaps the bottoms of my feet would hurt since these shoes offer little in the way of support, save for a small cushion of rubber on the bottoms, slightly more on the heel. I am happy to say that my feet, even at the conclusion of the walk felt fabulous. I felt as if I walked the entire route without shoes EXCEPT that I had no abrasions or cuts on my feet and my feet remained clean.
From what I understand, they last a long time, though I’m not sure how long that is. According to some guides that I have seen, running shoes should be replaced each 300-500 miles. Based on what I walk, that would give me about 4 months of use. Not to bad. I probably won’t use them in the winter, so they should last a bit longer. We’ll see.
Overall, a great purchase and a joy to wear. $80 well spent! Probably the most expensive pair of shoes that I’ve ever bought! Nowhere close to the $150 basketball shoes that Tony likes to wear, but pretty ‘high cotton’ for me.
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