As walking on heat gets easier, standing is still the next challenge

[Daniel W. Rouse Jr.]

As walking on heat gets easier, standing is still the next challenge.

The thing is, when walking heel to toe--first it's the heel the contacts,
then rolling to the outside (as much as possible, although some do
overpronate more to the inside), followed by rolling to the balls of the
feet, and then finally rolling to the toes to end each step. That means only
part of the foot is in momentary contact with each step. The less it burns,
the slower the step pace can be and also the longer the distance can be
walked before it burns too much, or if the heat finally equalizes even with
a persistent burning feeling. I've changed my heat tolerance threshold to
where the feet just start to tingle when standing, but only get to painfully
burning when walking. This means less of a chance of blistering on
particularly hot blacktop or, as I recently discovered, red and black
speckled pavement that looks like sidewalk but burns just as intensely as
brick (and brick tends to burn more than blacktop asphalt).

Standing, of course, much more difficult. It starts with both feet fully on
the ground. Then there are two obvious choices, besides going for a cooler
surface and shade. One is to alternate lifting feet in the air, but I found
two problems with that: one foot already burns more than the other to start
with while the first foot is lifted off the ground to start the alternating
lifting feet in the air, and it's much harder to do standing when not able
to hold onto something. So, I've recently favored rocking on both feet at
the same time: equal heat distribution and heat dissipation along the same
areas on both feet, easier to do when not holding onto something because
even balancing on the heels for just a short moment is possible if the toes
are not lifted extra high, and even though the edges of the feet get burned
twice during each rocking on the feet, it is beneficial for standing just on
the edges of the feet when it gets too hot for the balls of the feet and
toes when rocking on the feet, and since standing on the heels for more than
just a moment is also challenging without holding onto something.

"Getting used to it" still means training the feet by progressive burning to
increase heat acclimation. There is still a point where standing won't even
be possible for more than a couple of seconds, even if it's possible to walk
several tens of steps before going to a cooler surface or shade, but
increased heat tolerance also helps gradually increase that limit to a
hotter temperature than before, up to a practical limit. Blistering is an
obvious indicator that the practical limit has been exceeded with too
hot/too fast/too long of a distance, but this also sets back any progress at
least two to three days during the initial healing of any blisters. But,
sometimes blisters are "needed" to push past a practical limit if it is
necessary to get past that limit. (For example: crossing a long hot parking
lot still needs less tolerance than walking at a street festival that
usually has some shade; walking at a street festival with some shade needs
less tolerance than walking at a swap meet with virtually no shade, and so
on.)