All set for the summer!

[Daniel W. Rouse Jr.]

I just did my last crosshatching callous development and I'm all set for the
summer. Single pass only, but I pushed as hard as possible without causing
full cuts. Every area got diagonals only in the direction away from the
heel, except for the heels also got horizontal in the direction away from
the arch, and vertical in the direction towards the toes.

Toe pads are plenty rough, but a few of them did get nicked even if not
fully cut. The nicks will heal quickly enough. The overall result has been
that the toes do not get all that dirty, they show as white rough spots on
the toe pads.

The balls of the feet have some specific areas that are more white/calloused
than others, but they are only finely rough and mostly leathery. The areas
that are more white/calloused than the others do not show any dirt on them.

The edges of the feet are quite rough, running the fingers of the hand along
the edges feels like coarse sandpaper. This is actually a good thing since
the edges of the feet get twice as much exposure to the heat when rolling on
the feet (edges of the feet, to the balls of the feet, to the edges of the
feet, briefly to the heels, and then repeat). The edges of the feet still
get plenty dirty.

With the extra horizontal and vertical crosshatching, the heel is only
slightly less rougher than the edges of the feet. The heel gets very dirty
even with callouses showing on the very outside edge of the heel and a white
ridge showing just behind the heel.

Since the arches are very low, dirt extends all over the feet until about
the last 1/2 inch away from the middle of the arches.

Permadirt remains on the balls of the feet, the edges of the feet, and the
heels. This gives the feet a gray look with white particle looking roughness
even when the feet are scrubbed as clean as possible. All other dirt washes
fully away despite being all over the feet--because the arch only fully
flattens during each step, not when standing still.

Going forward, there will be no more deliberate callous development or
callous maintenance--since maintenance scrapes away some of the already
existing callouses as part of making newer ones.

The focus will be on walking on rougher surfaces, and re-heating those
callouses to hotter heat as the "July Fry" months have started. I have a lot
of concrete sidewalk but only shorter stretches of gravel asphalt to train
on for rougher surfaces. Dirt trails with very fine rocks do no good when
training for rougher city paved surfaces. Heat--I have plenty of that, it's
just how long I want to keep the feet burning until walking becomes too sore
and delicate. Just in my neighborhood I have several minutes worth of
blacktop asphalt with occasional raised brick tiles in the road--I can stand
on the blacktop and brick full foot for as long as I can stand it before
walking again. Walking around the neighborhood gets some odd looks from
maintenance staff riding in their golf carts, but I'm going to fix that by
carrying flip flops with me. I can put them on as I see them in their golf
cart (so it looks like I just took them off) and then take them off again
when they have passed by. Now, I do also have several miles of slightly
rough asphalt bike trail, but heat training for that long a walk is going to
call for bringing along flip flops--not wearing them until the burning is
too unbearable, wearing them until the burning stops but the feet still
sting, taking them off again--always getting enough continuous burning to
train for hotter heat, but not blistering the feet. (For those long bike
trails, failure to bring along flip flops could result in a point of no
return--either way keeps burning the feet without relief, blisters occur,
and then any heat training gets set back two to three days due to having to
treat and heal blisters.)

So far, I can re-heat the feet more gradually and closer to peak heat hours
since temperatures are in the low to mid 80's. I've gradually tried to stand
longer and longer full foot, and without rolling on the feet, to build up
heat tolerance while the air temperatures are not yet in the 90's during
afternoon peak heat. What happens is that the feet start burning when
walking, so I stand still and it burns painfully hot. Without rolling on the
feet, I resume walking so the heat does not decrease that much, and then
stand still again when the heat is only slightly less. That gets really
painfully hot almost to the point where I close my eyes from that much heat
on the feet. Without rolling on the feet, I resume walking again so the heat
does not decrease much from that level. Once that amount of heat has
decreased slightly, then I stand full foot once more even past eyes closing
until the feet start start to feel slightly tingling. Without rolling on the
feet I'll start walking again and that's where that short twinge of
increased burning occurs. When that amount of heat has decreased, then I'll
stand until the feet start to tingle once again but this time I will roll on
the feet. Once I'm used to the heat after rolling on the feet--I'll resume
the standing full foot and walking pattern. If it gets way too hot even when
rolling on the feet, I'll prefer going to sidewalk and standing full foot to
maintain enough heat to keep it still burning hot until I go back on the
asphalt again. If no sidewalk is available, then I'll try just walking
through shade rather than standing in shade. Higher temperatures are going
to call for less full foot standing and more rolling on the feet while
standing, but I might as well build up as much as possible before the
temperatures get too hot for full foot standing for longer.

And so it continues for the summer: Barefoot whenever possible, flip flops
in the car when driving, flip flops in a waistpack when walking since most
public transit at least wants shoes on when boarding. Burning soles are an
expected result of city paved surface barefooting closer to or during
afternoon peak heat hours (but heat equalizing would be even better!) and
stinging soles are a balance between being burned too much and being burned
enough to gain a bit more heat tolerance to that same amount of heat. Too
hot--high 90's to low 100's and during afternoon peak heat hours--I'll
always have flip flops with me as a backup even if I take them off to see
how much heat close to the blister point I can handle before putting them
on.