This weekend I attended our district's men's convention and I spent the entire time barefoot. I checked in barefoot Thursday night and am still barefoot at home as I write this on Saturday evening. Over 48 hours without putting shoes on once. It was great.
The event was at Sunday River in Maine. During the whole weekend I got about a handful of comments: you look comfortable (I replied yes I am); nice mohair socks ( I replied, yes, very comfortable and they never wear out) and a few others. Nothing negative.
After the first session we broke up into groups and I went to find the hiking group. I grabbed my small pack with my VFF inside (just as a precaution) and headed back to the lobby. I was wandering around when Bill found me and asked if I was going on the hike. He had also been looking and hadn't found anyone yet. I said yes. It looked like it would be only the two of us. He noticed my bare feet and simply asked if I planned to hike barefoot, like it was something he saw all the time. Though I didn't know Bill to well he was aware of my hiking expertise, so that may have helped break the ice.
We headed up the ski sloop. It was rougher then most hiking trails, with the gravel and small rocks. I'm not sure if I would have made it up and back, it it wasn't for the patches of cool refreshing snow that I was able to walk across. Bill walked around the patches of snow, not wanting it to fall inside his sneakers. Point to barefoot.
On the way back down Bill felt something stabbing his foot so he stopped and took off his sneaker. Then he felt around the bottom of his foot and pulled out a small thorn out of his sock. Point to barefoot. A little further down the trail we encountered some mud in the middle of the trail. Bill walked around the mud and I walked right through it and was surprised how quickly it came off with just a little rinse in a shallow puddle further down the trail. Yet another point to barefoot.
The total distance hiked was 2.6 miles. That is now the furthest distance I have gone barefoot and my first hike. I'm very pleased. My Garmin Vivoactive had me at 6.4 miles at the end of the day, but most of that was on carpet and a nice dirt/sand trail.
I think this trip proved the barefoot may be superior to shoes, but do have to admit that we took it easy, if we had gone at a fast clip, I would have been eating the dust and if the distance was longer I probably would have gotten into trouble. As it was, the snow seemed to work to my benefit this time around, so shoes still have some merit.
Upon returning we stopped at the grill and I got a tuna melt and sweet potato fries, still barefoot and no comments. I was sitting at the end of the table closest to the cash register and I'm sure she noticed my feet when she brought my meal. Well actually I did received some feedback, the other people we sat with were a bit surprised that I hiked up the trail barefoot. They thought that made me a real hard core hiker.
That night they had a BBQ in the parking lot which was real easy to attend barefoot. The only think I noticed throughout the day was that I was much more aware of my feet and concerned about my toes getting stepped on. Not sure why I would think like that since my feet normally don't get stepped on in a crowd. Funny how your mind thinks sometimes.
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