Thorns

nofootprints

Barefooters
Aug 10, 2010
21
1
0
guys i run BF and am comfortable with over 10 miles.

but summer has arrived and whilst i run over shells, sticks, rocks, gravel and am happy the thorns are giving me grief.



any suggestions besides stay off grass ? or do my soles need to toughen up more?
 
Where are you that summer has

Where are you that summer has arrived?
 
Ah, I see from your other

Ah, I see from your other post that you are in Sidney, Australia. Your soles could use some more conditioning, but even I am afraid I would never get so conditioned to take on thorns. Thorns are a tricky little pest to deal with. Carry some VFFs or other minimalist footwear with you when you run in case you are met with a patch of thorns.

I have seen a video where some guy's plantar skin was so thickened/conditioned that he was able to insert needles deeply through his skin though, so it can be done.
 
I guess it depends on what

I guess it depends on what your thorny plant species are (I'm not familiar with Australian plants) but I've learned to recognize the ones I have in my area and can somewhat avoid them even while running.
 
Well, yes and no. It depends

Well, yes and no. It depends on the thorns, and if the thorn breaks off in your foot it will hurt. I've got goatheads to deal with up here, http://eatourbrains.com/EoB/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/goathead3.jpg , and with a decent amount of sole conditioning they don't really hurt, unless they stick in a non-conditioned foot part. Its still best to stop and pull them out as soon as you feel them, so they don't cause excessive damage, and like I said before, if part of the thorn breaks off in your foot, it will kinda hurt, and it will continue to kinda hurt until it falls out of your foot, which can take a while. The surface you're running on also make a difference, because dirt is soft enough that they don't push in way far, but concrete and asphalt almost always make them hurt.

Its probably best and easiest if you just avoid thorns as much as possible. And you can work on your sole conditioning, but if you're already running ten miles I wouldn't think that would be the problem. Depends on the thorns I guess.
 
I was thinking of a similar

I was thinking of a similar thread last week when I had a Multiflora Rose thorn punch through the instep of my VFF Bikilas. It didn't draw much more than a spot of blood, but had I been really BFing, TJ probably would have heard me from Georgia.

I think one just picks ones path, says a little prayer and accepts that every once in a while it's going to hurt.

(...and to whom do Unitarians address their prayers? To ANYBODY that might have a little pull!)
 
Thorns really do suck... In

Thorns really do suck... In Hawaii the thorns from the kiavi tree would stab me right through any flip-flop and deep into my foot. So sharp and long that even if the thorns are in the soft sand they will still puncture you. Leaves a terrible aching pain for ages. :(
 
When I was little, I was

When I was little, I was playing in my mom's cactus garden (southern California) when I tripped and fell backwards into one of those big round cacti. It must have been about 1-1/2 to 2 feet high. I ended up with thorns (and they were thick and long, like little bitty swords) stuck in my ass and in my feet. I was in so much pain. I will never forget it. But for some reason, I have this huge smile on my face as I type this.
 
I picked up a thorn this

I picked up a thorn this summer while out on the meadow barefoot. I felt the prick when I stepped on it but it wasn't soooo painful, so I kept running. After about another Km, it really did start hurting, so I hobbled home and began trying to remove it. Couldn't see it in there anywhere. After the weekend, I went to the doc to get it removed, but she couldn't see anything in there either. She told me that if there really is something embedded, and she wasn't convinced, then it's so deep that I'd have to go to a surgeon to get it removed. I didn't want to do that, so I just waited.

And waited.

There was no swelling, no real visible clue that anything was wrong but after two weeks, it still hurt like hell to step on that spot (between 2nd and 3rd toe, deep down in the ball of my foot). I convinced myself that it was some kind of bruise...

After three weeks, though, I was poking around the wound area and saw a little white thing. I picked at it a bit and asked my wife to get some tweezers. She pulled on it and a bleached out, softened, 1cm thorn came out. I suspect it was from a raspberry vine, the only thorny thing on the fields here. As soon as it came out - relief! All was 100% better and I could run barefoot again the next day.

Moral of the story: If you DO step on something like that, stop and remove it immediately. That's all I had to do. But, by running on it, I forced it right down deep into my foot. I think it was down there between the first joints of the toes, maybe stuck in some muscle or something...
 
Yikes!

Yikes!
 
Wow...reminds me of when I

Wow...reminds me of when I was a little kid I got a wood sliver stuck in the palm of my hand (from an awful playground, no doubt.) My parents debated wheather to have it surgically removed or not, and they decided not to.

You can still see it under the surface of my skin, a little brown spot of wood that will be there forever.
 
Does it hurt?

Does it hurt?
 
good comments. i have sent a

good comments.

i have sent a query to a friend of mine who spends a lot of time with the aboriginals in teh northern territory.

will see what he has to say.



the reason i started this post was i have foudn i can walk on broker oyster shells on the balls of my feet (the toughest part) but not on the thorns we have here.



thanks guys.