Stomp of Approval!!!

Monday, December 19, 2011

My First Attempt at Shoe Molestation!!

Since going BF I have become more acutely aware of the way different shoes fit and feel. I removed all my arch supports and inserts and such first thing after I started running BF and noticed my shoes were alot more comfortable, plus it felt as if it was easier to maintain my balance in them as well.

Fast forward to a few months ago when I purchased my first pair of Adidas Sambas to wear as a nice shoe. Other than the Sambas all I wore when going out was a pair of Adidas Kanadia trail running shoes, so my wife welcomed the addition of the much nicer (and cleaner) Sambas.

Right off the bat I realized that these shoes wouldnt work. The heel to toe drop isnt very extreme, maybe 2~4mm tops, but they were super stiff. It took great effort to bend them over double by hand, and were very uncomfortable to wear while walking, standing, or even sitting. I hated the way they felt, but I did like the way they looked. So I decided to use my red neck ingenuity and see if I couldnt make these shoes a little better!

Unfortunatley I didnt think to snap some pics untill after I had the surgery underway, so we will get to those in a minute. The footbed of these shoes was some type of super hard material almost like a piece of masonite board. So using my vast array of surgical tools and devices I went to work chopping and cutting away on it.



I started with the forefoot areas by cutting the insole in half where it would contact the arch of the foot. From that I would pull up on the insole while using one of the many knif... Err.. tools to cut the glue holding it to the shoe.







When I got to the very front of the toe box I couldnt reach anything to cut, so I resorted to some forcefull yanks, tugs, cursing, and pulling untill I managed to free the insole from the toebox of the shoe.

The heel portion was very easy and didnt require any cutting. It all came out with one solid pull, leaving me with this...




Thats the cement hard insole that I was walking on. It was heavy and very dense along with being rock hard. Im pretty sure you could shatter a bullet proof window with one of these damn things!

The shoe now was very loose, flexible, and extremily comfortable. It was almost like a water shoe, but without looking goofy. The inside is a honey comb looking structure, so zero dropping them by cutting off some of the sole wouldnt work as you would be left with holes in the heels of the shoes.



The second shoe was easier because I knew what to expect going into it. When I tried to pull the toe box part out, the shoe turned inside out. This made things a whole lot easier.





All in all, it wasnt too difficult of a project, and took maybe 10~15 minutes. It was very worth it, as the shoes are super comfortable now!

posted from Bloggeroid

3 comments:

  1. Amazingly, I didnt injure myself during this operation due to extremely precise hand eye coordination!

    And why would I run in them? Their shoes... Boobies...

    ReplyDelete
  2. IF you injure yourself, there's always Fagslapping!

    ReplyDelete