Goals for the summer

Danjo

Barefooters
Sep 6, 2010
342
1
18
So I'm planning on hiking Mt. Elbert (highest peak in Colorado) barefoot this summer. Only problem is its in two weeks. And I haven't really been running barefoot. I still have a reasonable amount of skin down there, and I did a six mile hike like a month ago with my family, but this is a mountain, with rocks, and its a 14 mile hike. I guess I'm planning on trying to get some gravel bucket marching in, but anyone else have ideas for how to build up foot strength really quickly? I've been barefoot/minimal for a year now so my form isn't going to dramatically improve any time soon. I'm not anticipating any major problems, but on the six mile hike my skin did start to feel rather roughed up, and I'm going to be hiking over gravel and stuff this time.

Just kinda felt like letting you guys know whats up, and wondering if anyone has some magical suggestions for me.
 
bring your huaraches and use

bring your huaraches and use them as needed. no need to hurt yourself. i hear the granite out there is really tough stuff.
 
Yep, I agree with

Yep, I agree with Migangelo

Take some huaraches or backups. Rescue crews aren't too keen on rescuing people that cause self strandings.

Didn't you think a few months ago you might have started to prepare yourself? :stare:

I am training for a 50 miler in November, how do you think that would turn out if I start training in october?
 
my goal this summer is to

my goal this summer is to just add miles - thats all i want!!! haha

good luck on your climb. a pair of Luna Leadvilles could save your life!
 
I would probably bring vff's

I would probably bring vff's instead of huaraches personally. I've never hiked Elbert, but have done Bierstadt, Grey's and Torrey's barefoot. Just go your own pace and don't try to keep up with other shod hikers, that is were I have run into trouble and had to resort back to shoes.
 
Well seeing as I have a pair

Well seeing as I have a pair of huaraches and not vibrams, those are what I'm going to bring. I'm probably also going to bring an old pair of TRS incase things get bad, or really just incase the knot on my huaraches wears through, as it tends to do at inconvenient times.

Yeah, Lava, I know I'm a stupid teenager, haha. I've actually been planning this for a long time, but I had been fairly certain before that I would be kicking my mileage back up again this summer. Instead I find that I've kinda lost all motivation to run. Lost motivation for a lot of things really. But yeah, I kinda caught myself being way behind. I went on a 2 mile walk through some brutal gravel this morning though, hoping to do it every morning this week if possible to get some last minute toughness in. I won't need a rescue crew though, I'll just have some very angry pastors if I get hurt. (Its with a church camp group.)

I'm not anticipating any kind of major injury. Worst case scenario is that the soles of my feet will be very, very mad at me, haha. But my muscles, bones, and most importantly form, are all still good. I've actually climbed the mounatin before with shoes on, so I kinda sorta know what I'm in for. But of course you never realize what you're stepping on when you have shoes on. I realized this morning that its only 7 miles to the top, which is only one more mile than the hike I easily managed a month or so ago. I will most definitely be throwing on my huaraches for the way down, and hoping I don't have to re-tie them.

Abide, cool to know I'm not the only barefoot mountain climber here, haha. I've been one of the first people to the top for the past 3 years (we alternate every year between Elbert and Massive.) So I figure that going more in the middle should be a good pace for me. I will definitely be taking it as slow as I need to though.
 
Looking forward to seeing how

Looking forward to seeing how you do on this trip.

In August I plan to tackle Mount Whitney which is about the same elevation as your mountain. I hope to recreate BF Ted's trip which is go up barefoot and run down in Lunas (Link here). Haven't fully decided on the route yet but it'll either be a 22 miler or a 28 miler, round trip.
 
Yeah, thats pretty much what

Yeah, thats pretty much what I've been thinking Abide. Though really, my feet have always been riduculously sore in normal shoes, so it might be possible to break even. I'll probably do most if not all of the way down in huaraches, but I figure the lack of pounding should keep my feet from being as sore. Just a lot more roughed up than they would be in shoes.

What would be really great is if my feet were less sore than everyone elses. That would definitely be a score for Barefoot/Minimalists. I'll let you guys know how it goes for me when I get back. (Camp is all of next week, the hike is on Wednesday.) Now I just have to hope I can avoid all the adults who would tell me to put shoes on...
 
tell them your wearing the

tell them your wearing the shoes god gave you and don't need man's shoes to ruin them. :)



Mike
 
I was actually thinking about

I was actually thinking about pulling an excuse like that if I needded to Mike.

Turns out I really had no reason to be worried at all. I managed to walk around at camp barefoot whenever I wanted to, did the morning runs barefoot (they make you run to prove you're in good enough shape for the hike) with no comments besides surprise. As for the actual mountain, I succesfully climbed it, mostly.

In a dissapointing turn of events, the weather was looking rather grim, and our leaders made the decision to stop about 45 minutes from the summit. We all had to trun back in case of lightning, but about two hours later the weather cleared up. So we could have actually summited if we had started from the trail head at 8 rather than 6. We didn't turn around and go back up because most of the group was already at the bottom by the time it cleared up. I was in the very back coming down, not because of my feet, but because my genius friend decided that she would climb the mountain despite already having serious shin splints from running in skater shoes. She did alright on the way up, but the way down was not so nice.

I made it all the way from the trail head to our turnaround point (like I said, about 45 minutes from the summit) and back down with no shoes, and my feet hadn't even started to get sore. I did later find a random injury on the bottom of my foot, a circle of skin 1 or 2mm thick that got scraped out somehow. It was still hanging on a bit, but I pulled it off. The hole was unfortunately right where some of my huarache strings were, so I had to go barefoot the rest of the week. Which isn't really a bad thing. My feet just got a little cold. I didn't have any other problems though.