So far I haven’t had actual blisters, but some very painful areas on my left foot: the pad just below my big toe and the lower part of my heel. I hate these more than blisters because they are spread out and harder to define. The problem with my toe is not so much a blister but to do with lack of cushioning, ie I could do with more fatty tissue on the bottom of my feet, however my metabolism works in the usual way for gentlemen of a certain age, any extra fatty tissue goes towards enhancing the beer gut. As you can see from the boot discussion earlier, I’ve started to address the problem with new boots, but of course even though they can now be padded out with the incredibly expensive odoureaters, they still need breaking in while the affected areas are not yet healed, so I’m trying the conventional blister solutions: moleskin or Compeed. Laurie tells me people tend to either swear by one or the other. I’m currently swearing at both while I try them out: I have moleskin on the toe and Compeed on the heal. I’m resigned to the probability that due to the ever increasing training schedule I may just have to learn to control the pain, as the only way to completely heal them may be to go to bed for 3 months.
I was initially disappointed to discover moleskin is not real moleskin but an artificial molskin with a sticky side and a moley side. Being an animal wildlife lover I’m very glad there aren’t loads of mole farms. I suppose roadkill moles would be ethically sound, but most roadkill round here are hedghehogs. Not so good for blisters.
Compeed seems to be a very hi-tech sort of second skin, with very complicated instructions about peeling back various layers of protective packaging flaps and things (more than an inkjet cartdridge). You also heat it up for a minute before and after applying. You’d think that after all that palaver it would stay on if you have a bath, but no. Still, I suppose real trekkers don’t have baths so that’s alright then. The good thing about moleskin is that you can take it off before a bath or shower, and it still has plenty of sticky to reuse it.