At left are my workboots prior to the first day on the new job at the beginning of this year. These heavy duty puppies have steel toes and steel shanks, though the steel shanks have not kept me immune to the effects of stepping on nails. It took three incidents in the first two months of work for me to finally pay some close attention to where I stepped. Fortunately, only one nail (the last, of course) punctured a load bearing part of my foot. After that, I had a pretty good streak of avoiding nails until the day before Jack's Generic triathlon. I was prepared to walk the run portion if it was too painful to run. Not to worry. I fell off my bike during my dismount at transition, and the pain from my bloodied knee made me forget all about the silly puncture in my foot. My knee only hurt for the first quarter mile of the race, otherwise I would have stopped, right?
At left are my workboots from about three months ago, though they looked like this since the first week on the job. Notice the nail stuck in the sole. These were retired in late September. My feet hurt so much it was painful to walk barefoot. Apparently I wore out the soles. The new boots have been awesome, and will definitely carry me through the end of the year.
