Lee -- I think you''ll find that these get torn to shreds. Bob's idea of a mukluk is good because they slip on quick and have some durability. Even then mukluks will not survive asphalt and concrete without synthetic sole. Lee you mentioned in other post that you're an asphalt technician. Do you prefer to run on HL8 or HL3?
YOW, the idea wasn't to run in them, but just to warm up the feet in between intervals, instead of messing with socks and shoes. Once we're into winter for real, it will be very hard to find decent routes. There are always patches of salt and unshoveled sidewalks, and so on. My solution in the second half of last winter was to run back and forth on a street in the nearby Minnesota State Fairgrounds. This street has little shade and sits up high, so the snow melts and runs off there before it does anywhere else. Plus, it doesn't get salted, but does get plowed, and there's little traffic on it in the winter. The only drawback is that it's a little extra windy up there. So I would just run back and forth on it until I'd run my run. But this year I'm thinking of trying to get in more interval work, because I'd like to knock about a minute a mile off my aerobic pace by spring. So, on colder days, the idea would be to run tempo for the length of the street, put on the booties for a few minutes of rest, and then take them off and run another length of the street. I might be able to do the rests without putting anything on, but my experience has been that the feet cool down pretty fast the minute you stop running. Since I'll be run at close to my limits a lot of the time, one bare break might push me beyond that.
As for moccasins, I have some I bought 30 years ago, and although the use over the years has been sporadic, they've held up really well. I think it's just cow hide. An alternative to the booties would be some sheepskin slippers (e.g.
http://www.llbean.com/llb/shop/18999?feat=511914-GN2&page=bean-s-wicked-good-slipper-men-s), and then maybe use some contact cement to attach a thin, vibram-like rubber sole. Then I could run home in them after I got tired of freezing my toes off.
You said you run in salt? I personally can't take that stuff. Sand's fine though, but most people around here salt, especially on the recreational bike/pedestrian paths along the lakes and rivers. It's a pity, because most of my out-n-back routes are based on getting to those lake paths or to the paths down by the Mississippi River.
Windchill this morning: -2F/-18.9C, dry surfaces, but it still just about did me in, especially since I have a heel fissure that's been bothering me for the last few days. I think I have to establish an absolute cut-off pretty soon before I get myself in trouble. 0F/-18C seems like a good one.
I got the name
asphalt technician last summer when a guy in an old junker pick-up pulled up to me and said "you are an asphalt technician." It was like a scene out of a Jim Jarmusch movie. I took it as a sign to embrace my urban barefoot running, rather than feeling resigned to it and pine for the trails.
But for the record, I prefer HL-3; with my perfect form
, I don't really need the superior stabilization that the HL-8 affords, and the HL-3 is perfectly adequate for my loading, even at 100kilos. The rough stuff is good for conditioning, but it definitely slows me down.