On our way back from a family funeral in Ripon we decide to sample some of the California central valley outdoors on our way home. I choose “training hill” outside Auburn, which looks like it gets some good elevation in quickly. The American river is an amazing deep azure here. There is green grass and big oak trees – feels like a foreign country to me now! I manage the whole loop barefoot, spring must be here!
Ann hikes in the oaks
2 responses to “Training Hill Loop”
i forget the exact details of why u do full hikes shoe-less. i recall u wer having some lower extremity issues. has the barefootedness solved this? any conclusive positive feedbacks associated with it?
There are a lot of details as well as some inexplicable points about why I like going barefoot, but yes I definitely think it helped me overcome some injuries and eventually enabled me to resume hiking and try running. It’s not magic. It has risks of its own and requires great patience, but it makes me pay attention in new and useful ways and still helps me catch problems with the footwear I do use.
If I have a conclusion at this point it’s that feet are amazing and poorly understood. I think often our notions of improving on them have a higher long term cost than we think.