Hello everyone, I have been sitting in the wings watching and picking up on all sorts of useful tips. But I thought it was time to become a proper member and get involved, so here I am
I have never done a proper walk before so this might seem like a silly question. I walked the Ridgeway about 2 months ago taking 5 days and wild camping along the way (thanks to Paddy Dillon for a great guide book I must add). Can I say before I continue that it was an amazing experience not just for the beautiful scenery and wildlife. But also for the strange feeling I got from being away from all the modern trappings. It was great. Anyway, I only just managed to keep my pack down to 1 stone 9 pounds which is about 11.5 Kg I think, covering 18 miles a day with it. Right, now It's been 2 months but every morning when I stand, my feet hurt like hell and take a good 30 mins to stop hurting. Is this normal? Will they ever stop hurting? I want to walk the Cotswold way before the summer is out, so I need to know if i'm doing permanent damage before I go any further.
Yeah they did give me alot of pain by the end of the first day. They felt like they were spreading out flat like pancakes. But they didn't get that painful again, however they still hurt for the first 10 minutes or so of walking after each rest or sleep.
it sounds like a long time for them to still feel like that.
until you are used to it just standing up for a couple of hours will make you feet ache like crazy. add all that extra exericise they get by walking and it's just possible that you've strained them or possibly bruised them if you wore hard soled boots.
Yep. thats not good. Were you active before, you did the walk 2 months ago. Pancaking of the front foot is nornal to a degree, and is minimised by a good fitting boot. And all good fitting boots can be tweaked further.
An example is that my new cosmic 4d boots are 9.5's, the left is like a glove all over,but the right the toe box is a little lose. This allows my bones in the front of my foot to splay out as they take weight, and make it a tiny bit uncomfy. My simple solution, volume reducer in that boot, which is basically a very high density foam that does exactly what it says, reduces the volume, then the boot fits tighter and holds my foot together.
Expensive solution which i am having done at 1 today, foot beds.
Both of the above are useless with a bad boot/shoe, What do you use??????
Apart from all this though, pain in your feet is not normal 2 months after and 10 minutes of pain is alot. If you don't mind saying, how old are you? Either way i would go and see your GP ASAP, better safe than sorry, could be a small broken bone..
Sounds weird, have your feet hurt as described since you finshed walk, or just recently? It could be you had a problem with your feet, (like flat feet, etc.), that you didn't know about 'till you did walk in 'stiffer' soled footwear. As said before, see you GP and ask to see a podiatrist, even if you can see one privatley! A second opion is always useful. h
Your symptoms sound very like what my feet felt like after hitch-hiking around France one summer, carrying over 20lbs, wearing only flip-flops (over 25 years ago and didn't know any better).
