Building up the callous

Last week, it snowed in Toronto and I had to break out my trail runners. I hadn’t worn them in a while and it showed. About 7km into a 9km hike, I had a blister on the bottom of my foot. A couple of days later, having switched shoes and forgotten about the blister, I put on the trail runners again and headed out for another romp in the snow. Ten minutes in, I felt that damn blister again. Gah!

Today, I did the same thing: put on the trail runners (how is it that I keep forgetting about this blister!?) to go out for a run. Only this time, it was different. I had a memory of the blister about 10 minutes into my run, but I didn’t feel the wince. Oh, the blister is still there, but I’m getting used to it. It’s turning into a callous. This will come in handy, as I suspect I’ll be wearing these trail runners for a while, until the snow melts and the spring comes, and I have to change shoes again.

Change is hard, and sometimes it wounds us. The trick is to take it in chunks, and build up your callouses. Five years ago, I was a couch potato. Today, I exercise 5-6 times a week. That wasn’t easy, and man were there blisters. But I’m a different person today than I was in 2008, and I like the new me a whole lot better than the old one. And I did that one callous at a time too. This is valuable to remember, as I consider my resolution options for 2013…I hope you find it valuable too.

~Mel