Re: Shoes and Water

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:02 PM, David Whittekiend

I don't think it will be that big of a deal. If it is a pretty hot day and we have to cross a river even the gore tex shoes will probably dry pretty fast. You carry a pair of socks or two much more easily than an extra pair of shoes for crossing. I'll bet we could test out how fast our shoes dry in the very near future and if someone has a pair of shoes that don't work for them they can look at replacing them. I'm sticking with my current shoes until they cause me a problem. I'll bet Dave Frei does the warmer weather orienteering races in barefeet. Those guys are animals.

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I think waterproof shoes in conditions like we have right now, during The Chill, or like we had on the Eureka Springs race.

I think total submersion (like a river crossing - Berryman) the non-waterproof shoes would be best. While they get wet, they must dry quickly too. Considering we would not have a total submersion unless the weather were much warmer, I bet they dry in a mile or two, or less than 30 minutes. Due to liability, no race is going to ask us to cross a river unless the weather is nice enough to ultimately dry the shoes quickly.

My other problem with no shoes in the river (it's not the 5 minutes it takes to take them off and then put them back on) is if someone steps on glass, the race is over for us.

Thoughts?

Judd

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Scott Young

I have also done some research on this, not necessarily from AR people, some people love gore-tex and some people hate them. I guess it comes down to how much you mind wet feet. These are my thoughts, I have non-waterproof shoes that are extremely well vented and are great when it is dry, if I get them wet they dry fairly quickly. However, I went for a run on lions club a couple weeks ago in the mud. Every time I steped in the mud which was every 100 ft or so, the water flowed in and my feet were clammy, pruned and miserable after 4 miles. If we do a race in wet conditions, I will want waterproof shoes. Since we do races in Feb, Apr, Sept. and Dec. chances are we are going to have at least one race where we are going to have wet muddy conditions. So I ordered waterproof shoes, if it is dry I will wear my dry shoes, if it is muddy I will wear my mud shoes unless my mud shoes are just as comfortable as my dry shoes then I'll just wear them all the time. Remember, we were only a week from slogging through the slush for the whole race (oh wait you don't remember because you were on the beach). I really don't think that taking five minutes to take my shoes off if we have to cross a river is going to make or break us. I may have a different outlook though since I wear my shoes for the entire race.

Scott

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Judd Boehme

OK,
I emailed Dave Frei about shoes and wetness etc. Here is his response.
We usually assume that our feet will get wet numerous times in an AR, so we just go full speed ahead and don't worry about wet feet (choose good synthetic socks).

We just go and don't worry about it. If a race was more than 24 hours this might be a problem.


Though, they didn't worry about it during the 36 hour Berryman race - probably because it took them less than 24 hours (maybe because they didn't worry about it).
If you note in the river crossing picture the Bushwacker team did not have shoes tied to their packs either. They probably had them on.
So this makes me wonder if the Gore Tex shoes are a bad thing to have. For puddles OK, but if water gets inside of them, does it not "get out", or dry very well. Maybe if the shoe is going to be fully under water, it's a bad idea to have the Gore Tex shoes?
Leaving shoes on would make the river crossing faster, more stable, and alleviate the need for stopping to put shoes back on wet feet in the dirt. It would also alleviate any possible pictures that need censoring.
I want to know what you guys think.
Judd

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