Agony of Da Feet

Wow. When they said to make sure you broke in your new shoes they weren't kidding! I ran for about 15 minutes last night in my new shoes and instantly had a huge blister on my left ankle. I haven't decided if I'm going to find a better fitting shoe or try some different sock/liner sock combinations. Whatever happens I need to make sure my ankles aren't sliding in the back of my shoe. Ouch!

A coworker Arnold Andrews offered to perform surgery on it this morning at work. I didn't have any band-aids so I had to go the front desk and ask the receptionist. She had to call emergency personal to give them to me. Big coorporations, go figure. The receptionist's name is Yolanda and she said "if they send down all the emergency staff I'm going to be upset" or something like that. I guess she's had the whole emergency team scramble down for a band-aid before. Just one member showed up and gave me 3 band-aids and some antibiotic gel. I walked back to my desk and Arnold performed surgery on it. He sterilized a sharp set of tweezers (lighter) and poked a couple holes in the base of it. I squeezed all the juice out, put on the antibiotic and the bandaid. Much better.

At lunch I ran to Cub in Shakopee and picked up some New Skin, Mole Skin, Blister Band-Aids, and some sports tape...and some grapes and cottage cheese : ) Once I got back to work I took off my original dressing, applied the new skin then the 1"x1" square of mole skin and the sports tape to hold it all down. Much, much better.

After work I plan on running to REI and Dick's sports again to check out some other shoes and if I don't find anything better fitting buy some medium weight wool/faux wool socks to go over my thin synthetic "wicking" socks. Very interesting stuff. I'm sure you're all at the edge of your seat. I'll take picture of my blister later, makes for good blogging.

Hunting and gathering

We're given a list of things we need to pick up for the trip and I made my first stop tonight at REI in Bloomington, MN. Shoes were my first priority. I've watched a couple adventure races (one that Bill Watkins our CEO was in, ECO Challenge) and the feet were the part of the body that took the most abuse. I had a really helpful guy in the shoe department and after talking of how I was going to use the shoes we decided a light, non gortex trail shoe with good grip, ventilation, and support would be the best choice. We are going to get wet and I didn't' want the gortex holding water IN. I picked up a pair of Solomon GCS Pro Trail running shoes along with some Superfeet Syngergizer hiking insoles. I've got to now wear them a lot and break them in. I'll be working out in them from now on.





Here's a shot of all the gear I bought tonight. I also picked up some Wigwam Ultramax Silver socks (again the feet). I think all the images of destroyed feet in the Eco challenge has left an impression on me. Ya think? Granted Eco Seagate is no comparison to the real Eco challenge but 5 long days of running, hiking, biking, rappelling, kayaking etc. is bound to put some stress on your feet, so what the heck. Time for bed. I have to get up at 5:30 am for Seagate hockey league. Night!

I should be blogging but...

This is the reason I haven't been too successful blogging tonight. The Rose bowl. USC is winning over Texas 38 vs 33. Yes that is a rare Xbox 360 to the left of the 65" Mitsubishi HDTV. It's great AND has a Seagate Drive in it. Very cool.

Well. I think I've finally figured this Google blogger out. I tried to use Picassa and Hello with it but way too unintuitive. I'll just stick to the blogger and use it's own picture upload tools. I thought Google would do better...

The Eco Seagate 2006 journey begins...

Hi everybody. My name is Rob. This is my Eco Seagate 2006 blog. It promises to be quite an adventure and hopefully I can capture it in a memorable way. This is my first post and I hope to figure this out fast and give you guys something interesting to read : )