Over the past few years, I’ve been relatively fortunate with my health as I’ve gradually ramped up my walking mileage. I’ve gone from an average of 8.3 miles a day to 8.5 to a tick over 8.6 so far this year. It’s not that walking doesn’t have wear and tear on your body, far from it.
As Dean, the person responsible for getting me into this habit, and I were laughing the other day, something always hurts. Particularly as you get older.
In that, it’s a lot like the organized sports I played growing up, in which I was taught that there was a difference between playing hurt and playing injured. Injuries were things like broken legs that couldn’t be played through, that you just had to let heal. The hurts were smaller injuries: bone bruises, broken fingers (or ribs), lacerations and so on. And while you couldn’t play injured, you had to play hurt because something was always going to be hurt.
Walking not being a contact sport, the hurts these days are usually – if not always – less dramatic. But a couple of them have been new to me, and for my future self if not some of you who’ve also started walking, this is how I’ve tackled them so far. I’ve haven’t figured them all out – I’m currently dealing with a tight psoas muscle that I haven’t found a good approach for other than stretching – but below is what I’ve tried and what’s worked thus far. Maybe something in there will help you.
Blisters
While Hoka has updated the Bondi shoes I walk in and I thought I might have been developing a hot spot on one heel this morning, I’ve generally been lucky and have historically had no blister issues with them with one exception which I’ll come back to in a bit. It probably helps that my socks are all wool and wick moisture, but mostly it’s because the shoes I wear are comfortable and fit well.
On the couple of occasions I have had blisters, I’ve used duct tape on my foot before a walk if the issues were minor, or two pairs of socks if it was a little more serious.
I’ve had to use moleskin and so on years ago with hiking boots, but so far with walking I’ve been lucky. Here’s hoping my new Bondis don’t change that.
Feet Splitting
This may or may not be a problem that any of you have had, but I used to have major issues with my feet drying out, cracking and splitting. My solution to this has been simple, if regrettable. I no longer wear flip-flops. If I’m outside, I’m wearing shoes of some sort, and if I’m inside around the house – particularly in the winter when our wood stove sucks all moisture out of the air – I wear slippers.
This was a major change for me, as I used to wear flip-flops year round, but it just wasn’t worth the hassle. If you’ve got cracked feet, then, I’d think about what you’re wearing.
Calf Strain
The Monday before I walked fifty miles, I pulled a calf. As I noted in Strava at the time, it came out of nowhere. I’d never done that before, and I was actually taking it easy on my walk in preparation for the longer distance.
I was lucky in that it abated and I was able to get in my long walk, but I’ve had this problem a couple of times since with both calves. I don’t know what causes it or how to avoid it – I haven’t noticed any particular patterns that lead to it.
But I have had success mitigating the impact by using compression sleeves for the calf and/or compression socks. I don’t like them because they’re a pain in the ass to take on and off, but I always keep two spare sleeves in my pack now in case one of my calves gets cranky out of nowhere. I feel kind of like a jackass in the summer with a weird sleeve around one calf as if it was a fashion statement, but it beats the hell out of not being able to walk.
Knee Pain
So far I’ve only dealt with this a couple of times, and it’s frankly terrifying because I don’t want to deal with complicated issues and that’s knee issues. The last time I dealt with this, it was mostly lateral motion that was the problem, but I stopped rucking – which is to say walking while carrying around a weighted backpack – to avoid putting additional pressure on my knees.
My best advice here is to listen to your body, and take it easy. I’ll probably end up adding knee braces to my pack alongside the calf sleeves just in case.
Plantar Fasciitis
The first time I got this was many years ago at a conference in Portland, OR, in which I walked something like seven and a half miles in flip-flops. For weeks thereafter, I had periodic spikes of pain shooting through my foot. That was the other reason I gave up wearing flip flops; no footwear is worth jeopardizing my ability to get out and walk.
The best mitigation for this that I’ve found came by way of recommendation from my distance mentor Andrew. He’s an ultramarathoner and pointed me towards insoles. Specifically, I get these from our local Fleet Feet because I have a high arch in one foot and a borderline high arch in the other.
Over longer distances, that can contribute to the kind of pain I was feeling. The insoles haven’t completely solved that problem, but it is a night and day improvement. For what it’s worth, I replace these after about a thousand miles, or after the second set of shoes.
One very important note: they need to fit your shoes precisely. The blisters that I mentioned above, as it turned out, were caused by insoles I got from Amazon that were the right size for my shoes, but didn’t fit perfectly. This led to sliding and movement in my shoes, and thus blisters on my feels. Now, I get the people at Fleet Feet to cut the insoles to fit when I buy the shoes. The result? No blisters.
Broken Ribs
The best way to deal with broken ribs is not to break them. If you’re unlucky enough to do so, however, there’s not much you can do except grit it out. The typical recovery time is six weeks, and that’s what it was for me though I could feel the broken rib(s) when I slept on them for a couple of weeks after that. Unless you have problems breathing, which is indicative of a punctured lung and something you need to get treatment for immediately, there’s not much anyone can do about broken ribs. I found walking was fine as long as I didn’t move the arm on the side where I broke them.
But honestly, just try and keep your feet if you can. These are no fun.
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