Heat: Standing full foot "pre-tingling"

[Daniel W. Rouse Jr.]

Throughout the summer, getting used to the heat is an on-going process.
After a while, rougher surfaces only slow down walking a bit but walking
also doesn't have to be done more delicately. Hotter surfaces still burn as
the air temperature increases and if the humidity also increases, but in
both cases also as the time of day is near or during afternoon peak heat
hours.

Even in the case of coastal areas when contrasted with inland--some blacktop
does hot enough to burn painfully hot when standing full foot for longer
during afternoon peak heat, even though standing is doable "forever" just
standing for a moment on the edges of the feet, rolling on the feet or
lifting feet is never needed because standing on just the edges of the feet
dissipates enough heat to stand full foot again, and walking is never needed
to dissipate the heat from standing both full foot and just on the edges of
the feet. Coastal sand is hotter and also burns less toughened parts of the
foot such as in between the toes and the arch--and even white sand has small
black particles in it making it just as hot as brown sand.

Going back to inland: Standing full foot for longer can burn much more
quickly than rolling on the feet or lifting feet in the air, of course.
However, more than a small amount of standing full foot for as long as
tolerable is necessary to get used to the heat when standing full foot on
hotter surfaces during hotter weather. Realistic situations include having
to wait at a pedestrian crossing (still plenty hot at temperatures in the
high 90's to low 100's during afternoon peak heat), or having to stop when
walking across a hot parking lot to wait for cross traffic to clear before
walking again. For the pedestrian crossing, it is possible to also roll on
the feet (lifting feet in the air would require very good balance or else
having to brace against a pole), or when stopping at a vendor table without
shade at a street festival or during a much longer walk at a swap meet.

One way to do this, obviously, is to start out earlier in the day before
afternoon peak heat. No more than burning hot when walking, and the heat
equalizes rather than continues to build to painfully burning hot, if it
equalizes to still burning hot. Given temperatures just around 90 degrees,
close to 12:30pm would be good enough since afternoon peak heat surface is
around 2:00pm to around 4:00pm on blacktop (and around 1:00pm to 5:00pm for
extra hot/extra dark blacktop). The idea is still to keep the heat going as
much as possible but without rolling on the feet or lifting feet in the air.
All standing gets done full foot every time, resuming walking when it burns
too much standing full foot.

Since it's a slower burn, standing full foot can be done for several
seconds. What I have found, when the burning starts to get to the point
where I would close my eyes and clench my teeth and the heat hasn't yet
equalized, is that there is a pre-tingling I can feel. This pre-tingling can
best be described as a prickly sensation over the areas of the sole that are
burning the most, just as it starts to get painfully hot when standing full
foot. Since I know that going to actual feet tingling is close to blisters,
the idea becomes that standing full foot for as long as it gets to
pre-tingling before resuming walking, and to stop and stand again as soon as
the walking feels only burning hot at most.

Even for a walk of a shorter distance--since plenty of heat was absorbed for
each moment of standing full foot for longer, there is still a stinging
feeling on the soles for several minutes afterward. On blacktop this will
make the feet dirty black much quicker, and the more calloused areas will
appear as white as if longer walking was done and shorter moments of
standing were done (including rolling on the feet of lifting feet in the air
when it got too hot).

An even more challenging situation would be metal plates--for deliberately
getting used to hotter heat beyond the realistic scenarios--but these get
painfully burning hot much earlier in the day even with temperatures in the
low 80's. Standing full foot for several seconds would be more difficult
since heat building to pre-tingling would occur very quickly. Metal plates
for electrical components are best completely avoided in case of a faulty
ground even when walking.

Obviously, this still has limitations. It's probably not very realistic to
stand full foot on extra hot blacktop in the high 90's to low 100's for very
long during afternoon peak heat hours--without rolling on the feet or
lifting feet after just a few seconds--since even rolling on the feet or
lifting feet might not dissipate enough heat without having to walk to
relieve some heat, or else eventually needing a cooler surface or shade. Mid
100's would probably be too much too soon for me, since I don't have to get
used to that much heat anytime sooner or later, and also don't have that
much heat to get used to even for shorter and much earlier in the day.

[Those in hotter states such as Arizona, Nevada, or Texas that are used to
the heat probably have several years of summer heat training to get used to
it--and good for them if they are able to do that, even moreso if they
didn't have to deal with blisters more than a couple of times as part of
getting past a heat tolerance limit. No, I don't think they are "crazy",
since the idea of going barefoot as much as possible does ideally include
all surfaces and all temperatures, and very intense heat is much more common
than cold at or below freezing temperatures in those states. Even better for
them if they don't need shoes as a backup for however short or long they can
stand and how short or long of a distance they can walk, for air temperature
and time of day. There is a barefooter in California that has written they
can cross a hot parking lot at 110 degrees (time of day not specified). A
barefooter in Texas has written they could cross a hot parking lot at 107
degrees and during afternoon peak heat hours. Someone's friend apparently
knows someone who can go barefoot in Arizona (air temperature and time of
day not specified, but AZ gets around 90 degrees low and up to 115 degrees
high in summer). In all three cases it's probably not likely they are
standing full foot for longer, even if they can walk in that much heat for
however short or long of a distance.]

[Daniel W. Rouse Jr.]

"Daniel W. Rouse Jr." <dwro...@nethere.comNOSPAM> wrote in message
news:CJednZ0HIOq_rlXO...@o1.com...

> Throughout the summer, getting used to the heat is an on-going process.
> After a while, rougher surfaces only slow down walking a bit but walking
> also doesn't have to be done more delicately. Hotter surfaces still burn
> as the air temperature increases and if the humidity also increases, but
> in both cases also as the time of day is near or during afternoon peak
> heat hours.
>

However, getting used to hotter inland surfaces makes coastal hotter
surfaces significantly more tolerable for standing for much longer.

At one point I found myself standing on unshaded asphalt and so I took off
my flip flops to stand full foot while timing it to see how long I could
last before needing some heat dissipation. (Why not see how well getting
used to inland worked for the coast?) Well, it took about 2 and a half
minutes standing full foot to get noticably burning hot while the burning
was still slowly increasing, it took about another 2 minutes still standing
full foot to just get to painfully burning hot---but not yet to the point of
closing my eyes and clenching my teeth while the burning was still very
slowly increasing--and after about another minute of standing full foot,
then it finally was just starting to get painfully hot to the point of
having to close my eyes and clench my teeth while some pre-tingling was also
starting to occur. At that point of pre-tingling, I either moved a couple of
steps or stood on the edges of the feet for only about a second--but in
either case almost all of the slowly building heat dissipated from
pre-tingling to not even burning hot, once again allowing me to stand full
foot for several minutes at a time (but the heat still hadn't equalized to
the point it was not increasing burning anymore during afternoon peak heat).
A couple of times, I even stood on a hotter spot than the previous one and
still could stand full foot for about 3 minutes.

So, a few degrees difference in air temperature makes for a significant
difference in being able to stand, especially during afternoon peak heat
hours. For inland temperatures just in the low 80's--I can barely stand full
foot for over 7 seconds before it's starting to get painfully hot enough to
start closing my eyes and clenching my teeth and then pre-tingling occurs
about a second or so after that, but rolling on the feet extends that
standing time, and I'm able to walk for longer without the heat building to
close to painfully burning hot until over 100 steps or so at a slower
walking pace. Coastal temperatures in high 70's allowed me to stand full
foot during afternoon peak heat hours for a maximum of 5 and half minutes
for one occurrence, and then still for up to 3 to 4 minutes each additional
full foot standing occurrence (keeping in mind that the feet were still in
contact with the unshaded asphalt except for the short interval of moving
two steps or momentarily standing on just the edges of the feet.

I still wouldn't go completely without shoes to a crowded standing-room-only
event on the coast. It wouldn't be because of too hot asphalt (unless it's a
90+ degrees heat wave on the coast) but because of the dirty public
restrooms issue (others may vary but I always use flip flops for the
restrooms), and I'd like even a small front buffer from a flip flop to
prevent me from getting my toes jammed against something when moving through
crowds (but the toes can still get stepped on bare foot or with flip flops).
Nothing stops me from bringing along a waistpack--then taking the flip flops
off and putting them on again as I can chose to do--but it's easier to put
the flip flops in a waistpack when I am not wearing them, rather than trying
to keep carrying them in my hands... except for if I'm getting used to heat
so hot that the time to take the flip flops out of the pack and put them on
would get the feet to pre-tingling in just a couple of seconds (then I will
carry them in my hands).

[snip...]