Calluses and 2nd Opinions

Over the past weeks, I have shared much of my thinking on calluses. If you read the last post and went over to my Fixing Your Feet newsletter for August, you read about how calluses affected the Badwater race of Jon, a runner from Australia.
     Lest you think that what happened to Jon is an uncommon occurrence, I want to share an email I received from an adventure racer named Matt. He wrote:
     “I completely agree with your position on calluses. Certainly, they represent a natural response the body is making to an irritant but they should be managed. I’ve participated in multi-day adventure races and 24-hour Rogaine events and found my teammates that had calluses as protection from blisters had the worst blisters. I’m fortunate that I read and learned your thoughts on the subject or I’d been right there with a huge blister problem. While I can’t say I’ve not had a blister since I started managing differently, I’ve certainly lessened the potential cause. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom.”
     The key to what he wrote is: “… my teammates that had calluses as protection from blisters had the worst blisters.”
     I have seen this time and time again. Calluses can offer a bit of protection against blisters, but the tradeoff is when you do blister with calluses, the blisters are bad. Often times they are larger and deeper since they are under the callused skin.
     Thanks Matt, I appreciate your comments. Thanks for the 2nd opinion.