These Walking Boots

[bunn]

[Poll #1827999]

And for the sake of completeness:

the same brand & style of boot

Same brand, different style - but so cheap!

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I am undecided on this topic, hence the poll, but had to vote as something odd happened and wanted to check poll actually functioning. Which it is.

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I think you need to try them... If you buy them online, can you send them back if they don't fit? And is the saving worth the effort?

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Good point. I would have to check...

[seascribe.livejournal.com]

I voted yes, as someone with mutant feet. I've had good luck doing that. But it was with free shipping and returns both ways, so if you don't have that, I might be more careful. Also, I really like those boots.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Mutant feet! I am really struggling with a mental image of you now with the face in your icon - and duck-feet. Please don't take it personally :-D

I don't think I'd get free returns, but then, with walking boots I suspect I wouldn't know the worst until they were a bit unreturnable anyway... hmmm.

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

For the second bit it probably depends a bit how much cheaper they are.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I spose it also depends if I could actually buy the cheaper ones locally, I don't know if I could. Or not without going into a city, which I try to avoid at all costs.

They are £70 under the MRP, but I don't know if a local retailer might have them also at a discount. Hrmph

[andrewducker]

I would, but being male they're more likely to fit me.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I dunno. See below...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

??? OK, that's a new one on me. Why are boots more likely to fit male feet than female feet?

[andrewducker]

Purely anecdotal, but most men I know can find shoes that fit in about three minutes, while women seem to have many more problems with sizing being fiddly - width bring wrong or pinch points that men don't seem to suffer from.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh OK - I think shoes are different, as a lot of women's *shoe* styles are quite tightly fitted and often oddly aligned, with weird heels and angles and stuff, and men's shoes on the whole tend to be more foot-shaped.

I don't think that applies to walking boots. Well, not unless your feet are all weirdly squished out of being footshaped by persistent wearing of high heels, anyway. (mine definitely aren't! )

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Persistent wearing of high heels is not the reason why I can't get walking boots to fit either...

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

...although I guess it depends on what sort of walking you're doing. I wouldn't take risks with boots I wanted to use for insane coastal path marathon hikes, but if I just wanted the boots for shorter strolls, I might be less careful.

And, really, trying boots on in a shop and walking a few steps in them doesn't really show you how well it will suit you for 20 miles, so...

Gah. There I go again - answering a poll, and then dithering retrospectively about my answer.

trying boots on in a shop and walking a few steps in them doesn't really show you how well it will s

[bunn.livejournal.com]

This is a very good point. I have worn the original pair of Mammut boots until they have cracked and got holes in, which seems like as good a test as trying on a second pair and walking around a shop in it.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

After the experience I had when you bought the boots you are now replacing*, I'm not convinced that walking boots are designed to be comfortable. It may be that they're supposed to hurt so that the sort of people who do masochistic things like, say, walking all the way around the Isle of Wight can feel even more virtuous than they would have done in comfortable shoes.






* I tried on every single sodding walking boot in the outdoor-sports-for-townies shop** before coming to the conclusion that none of them were going to result in anything other than complete agony after more than 60 seconds of wear. I then went into a nearby outdoor-sports-for-country-folk shop*** and bought the first pair of boots I tried on**** http://uk-shop.dubarryboots.com/collections/men/footwear/country-boots/wexford-boot which fitted perfectly.

** The sort that sells nasty-looking clothes in flourescent colours and artificial fibres and smells predominantly of plastic.

*** The sort that sells shotguns and Barbours and smells predominantly of leather and waxed cotton.

**** Which, although admittedly bloody expensive, are still going strong and which I wear a lot. Oh, and unlike most walking boots which are impractical if your country walk happens to include crossing a stream, are also completely waterproof. And unlike most walking boots, actually look stylish too.

[andrewducker]

Clearly my experiences aren't universal:-)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

My walking boots are wonderfully comfortable - definitely the most comfortable footwear I own. I wear them even for a walk of a couple of miles on town roads. I have a tendency to walk on the insides of my feet, which means that I get joint pain and pain in the tendons of my feet after just a few miles in "normal" shoes. My boots give me ankle support and fit wonderfully, which meant that I could walk 70 miles last week without the slightest hint of discomfort in my joints or feet, and not even a hint of a blister. So just because you didn't find boots comfortable, it doesn't follow that everyone wearing them is doing them out of some sort of strange sense of martyrdom.

And surely something can't be masochistic if you enjoy every minute of it...? :-)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh you know what he's like, he loves to provoke. I have a theory that his family history contains troll blood...

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I knew I was feeding the troll, but one has to occasionally take pity on the species. It can't be nice hiding under a bridge, waiting for billy goats to come by, especially if your boots don't fit. :-)

(Really, several people this week have informed me almost aggressively that I was an idiot to do my big walk, so it's a sufficiently touchy subject for me to feel the need to respond, even though I knew I was rising to a deliberate bait.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

They're only jealous :-D

[king-pellinor.livejournal.com]

Surely if you're a masochist then you want to be doing something unpleasant, and doing something you enjoy can't really be unpleasant, so by enjoying yourself you'll be denying yourself your masochistic pleasures. Which presumably then counts as torturing yourself... :-)

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Late response, but my experience is certainly that different styles by the same brand do not fit in the same way. In this particular case, I note that the back/ankle looks quite different shape/height across the two models, which would be a concern to me personally as that's where I've found it tricky to fit my feet, though you may be fine. But LoA has a good point about trying boots on not necessarily being a good guide to how well they'll do long term - my last pair of walking boots were great when I tried them on and for several months/miles of walking and then for no explicable reason became intensely uncomfortable :-( This is no help to you, but I read about a shop in the Lake District that will hire boots OR sell you boots that you can wear walking while you're there and then if they don't feel comfy you can return them for a refund less a hire fee, which seems like a really civilised sort of idea.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, your original pair look really good, and like they might work for my annoying back-of-ankle issues, so I'll try to have a look out for them!