Just once I would really love it if I didn’t get some type of blister,rubbing,irritation,bruising or other foot trauma when dealing with a pair of new sneakers.  It appears that there is no escaping this inevitable dance of the new shoe blister hell. If the foot gods could just be kind to me once. I already have feet issues – they are beyond flat, ligaments have been torn since my early gymnastic and netball days, no shoes, not even orthopedic ‘special’ ones (which are really appallingly designed and age me by about 40 years) seem to work. Orthotics cause further blisters underneath. I thoroughly enjoyed paying $450 for excruciating blisters to now appear on the underbelly of my feet – a rare and sacred area of the feet where blisters should not appear. It really is a bio mechanical nightmare.

I pretty much hate shoes.  Being Australian I wear my thongs (flip flops) everywhere and my Mum yells at me still (yes in my 30’s) about how bad they are for your feet. She is right but at least my feet aren’t trapped.

I just came back from a trip to the USA and it was a nature trip that involved a lot of walking. A lot of walking in national parks made me think seriously about proper footwear.  In between the stints of nature we managed to pop into some outlet shops and touch base with civilization. I thought yes I am definitely long overdue for a decent pair of sneakers and they are so much cheaper here. I like to buy practical things and thought yes I am going to invest in my feet and look after them. I systematically went through the big sports labels and being the thrify shopper I am managed to get myself entire outfits for some reasonable prices. I was pretty excited that I could strut around my neighbourhood decked out in all the Nike/Adidas/(insert other brand name here) gear.

I even really lashed out and bought super doper amazing socks of awesomeness. They promised to not move around on my feet and be sweat resistant and odour controlled. Never underestimate a good sock I say. Anyway I headed off on my walk around the nneighbourhood block feeling pretty sporty and not too distressed by the holiday bulges that seem to appear when leggings go on. As soon as I got just far away enough from home to be in the zone where it was too far to walk back so you may as well keep walking distance, I felt this horribly uncomfortable pain on my left heel.

Great. Just great.

There is no real joy in new shoes and if there is, it is very short lived. The ‘wearing in’ phase is challenging and causes great discomfort and I really wish this didn’t have to happen at all. The ideals of getting fit and healthy quickly vanish when you are in pain and you cannot even put your shoes on! Then of course you have to try to apply a bandaid correctly to ensure that the sock and the bandaid don’t cause more inadvertent friction. There must be a life skill here that I am missing. I have never successfully worn a bandaid correctly or perhaps bandaids just let me down. It certainly isn’t through a lack of trying. Similar to my stationery excitement, I also enjoy experimenting with bandaids, strapping tape and compression socks.

I will try to adjust my attitude and add to my affirmation list the following ; I free myself of all sneaker related trauma now.

I would readily welcome any tips or sneaker sock combinations to prevent this!