one more

[benyoung]

or, in which cotton is the devil, next to my own stupidity

• tuesday, among other more exciting things, i bought the last pair of Ultra100 GTXs from the berkeley northface outlet (hrmm. maybe i should buy more). A size smaller than my last, otherwise identical pair. it seems that the shoes that fit me when i buy them are usually a bit too big after a month of wear, so since they only had 1 pair left, it seemed appropriate. wonderful shoes -- great arch support, great traction, light, water resistant. kept my feet dry (er?) hiking streams and waterfalls through thailand. last a long time, and they even match my usual blue/black/grey attire. ( i also ran a mile, had dinner with lynn, tiff, aiwa & cliff, went to a death cab concert with tiff at which alex later showed up, and went to the albatross with alex )


• yesterday, i ran up to grizzly peak with my new, only-a-mile broken in shoes (that's about 5 miles/1500 feet each way, although after running about 8 miles, my feet started killing me, so i switched socks and then walked the final 2 miles home. run up was good though).


• today, i have a gigantic puss-filled blister inside-arch of my right foot

the lesson, here, of course, is that i need to follow my own advice and not attempt to run 10 miles in brand new shoes of a different size than i'm used to with cotton socks, for when cotton gets wet, it feels like this. i don't lack fancy coolmax running socks that more or less prevent blister formation. and apparently the epidermis of my feet has a greater affinity for wet cotton than it does for the underlying dermis that created it. oh where's a digital camera when you need one.