This morning I decided to go for a benchmark run for a new Garmin training plan. After I ran the required 5 minutes and four minutes of walking I continued with my walk. I had a route that I wanted to walk but because I saw people, and dogs on the paths that I was thinking of walking down I took a bigger loop once, then again, and then a third time. In the end I walked 12,000 steps this morning. I walked from Nyon to Cheserex to Borex to Arnex and back towards Nyon.
Last night I was reading from a book, rather than from a kindle or audible book. As a result I had to keep the bedside light on. I also had to ensure that the light light the pages of the book. I was reading from the book “Beneath My Feet, Writers on Walking” introduced and edited by Duncan Minshull and I came across an exert written by Karl Philips Moritz. He wrote Journeys of a German in England in 1782.
Yesterday I decided that I would start my walk by going along a dangerous bit of road, at the start of the road. The idea behind this is to avoid being endangered by selfish car drivers when I’m fatigued. It’s better to put up with their dangerous behaviour ahead of a walk, rather than after it.
I spent time thinking about walking, and avoiding cars, and I came to the conclusion that I no longer want to walk across a bridge. Every time I walk across that bridge I see cars driving too fast and to close to other people, as well as myself. One day someone will be injured on that bridge. The bridge is barely wide enough for one car to drive by, and cars often play chicken with each other, and play Russian roulette to see if they can get away with running the gauntlet without hitting each other.
We are in a heatwave and despite this I have cycled for four and a half hours and walked for three hours and fourty minutes. For the bike rides I woke at 6am to avoid rush hour traffic, and to do things before the temperatures rose. Yesterday the temperature in Geneva reached 39°c. Just a few decimal places away from 40°c heat.
Despite the weak I still went for my afternoon walks, but it’s also because of the heat that I walked with 1.6 litres or more. During hot days I find that I can act normally, but I still try to keep myself hydrated. If I feel that I am overheating I pour water on my hat/helmet to cool down.
Yesterday I went for a walk with a Garmin Etrex 32 that was sometimes in my hands and at other times in my pocket. I could have been hands three with a GPS watch but it’s good to play with a variety of devices. I chose the Etrex because it was paired with the Tempe thermometer. The Thermometer was in my backpack, in the top pocket. I knew that the air temperature would be around 30°c but I wanted to see what the “felt” temperature would be. As I left home the thermometer indicated 28°c before climbing to a maximum of 45°c and an average of 38°c. [caption id=“attachment_10601” align=“alignnone” width=“169”] Average temp 38°cHottest: 45°cMin: 29°c[/caption] I felt fine during this walk. I set off with a 600ml water bottle and for the first half of the walk I didn’t drink because I wasn’t thirsty. By the time I did start drinking my water it was warm.
Since the Seventh of May 2023 I have walked more than 360 kilometres in the Merrel Trail Glove 7 and the experience has been good. For a long time I enjoyed wearing normal shoes but recently they started either to rub the front of my feet, or the heel would get worn away to bare plastic and I’d consider protecting the heel from friction damage when walking.
The first Merrel Barefoot shoes I tried were the Merrel vapor glove 6 but they felt too thin. I could feel too much of the road’s surface, especially on weather worn former tarmacked roads that were breaking apart to become mud paths once again. Stepping on stones would be painful so I chose to experiment with the Trail Gloves. The soles are just a little thicker but I found them very comfortable to walk in. So comfortable that they became my every day shoes. I thought that the soles would wear out because of the thin indentations that had little material, and they have.
Yesterday I walked into the wind for two to three kilometres. The wind was so strong that the Apple watch gave me “high noise level” warnings more than once. The wind was around 30-40km/h. It was so strong that I stopped listening to an Audiobook because I couldn’t hear it. I then heard the summary for the last kilometre and was told that I was walking at 11 minutes per kilometre, compared to my 10 minutes 40 per kilometre.
A few days ago I took twenty seven thousand steps in barefoot shoes. My feet did not suffer at all from walking that far in such shoes. I did some of that walking in the vapor gloves and the rest in the Trail Gloves. The beauty of barefoot walking is that you acclimate to such shoes quite fast. Within a matter of a week or two they become comfortable and feel normal.
Most shoes are designed to protect the heel with a cushion of air or material that absorbs heel strikes, before they are transmitted to the rest of the skeletal system. With barefoot shoes, especially the Vapor Glove 6 those heel strikes are not absorbed. You feel the force with which your heel is hitting the ground.
Winding Up
I tried three walks with the Vapor Gloves. I decided to try purchase and try the Trail Glove 7 as a result of my Vapor Glove experience. I like the Vapor Glove shoes but I was worried that if I used them too often, too quickly, I would end up with a fracture or pain. The Trail Gloves are great because I get the “barefoot shoe” experience, without the unforgiving heel strikes.
Some of us remember a time when you could get roller skates that fit shoes. Moonwalkers have the same idea, except that the goal with their project is for the wheels to be powered, to drive you forward at a maximum speed of 11 km/h.
They claim that this would increase walking speed by 250 percent, but I already walk at 5 to 7km/h, so it would double walking speed. Theoretically, this is a fantastic idea because it allows people who walk more slowly to get around more quickly, whilst walking. The drawback is that, as with all these developments, they are designed for urban, rather than rural use. They are designed to speed up getting around for people who already have access to buses, trains, foot scooters and more.