Other than during school hours, up until the age of nine, I was almost always barefoot. I loved walking around on the dirt, feeling its warmth and scratchy comfort on my feet. I liked challenging myself to step on gravel, twigs and other impediments and not to feel pain when I did; it rarely worked, but it was a good personal challenge, nonetheless.
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These days, I cycle through testing two or three pairs of outdoor-oriented footwear a week; I hardly ever walk barefoot anymore. In the decades between my youth and now, my feet have become soft, and have lost the toughness I treasured in my younger days. So when Xero Shoes approached me with the opportunity to test its brand new mid-weight hiking boot, developed in collaboration with Michelin, my past and present selves were intrigued: maybe this was a way to re-introduce the barefoot feeling back into my life outside.
So, I decided to test the boots out. Here’s what I thought after wearing them a few times.
First, a little background
When I got my Xero hiking boots in the mail, this small flyer was included in the box: two friendly, smiling faces looking up at me, thanking me for trying their shoes. These are Steven and Lena, founders of Xero Shoes — which, according to them, they started in a bedroom in 2009. Per the brand’s website, Xero Shoes was founded by the husband-and-wife team after Steven healed his running-induced injuries by way of the Barefoot Running Movement. After he realized it wasn’t practical — or safe — to run through the modern world with no protection, he and his wife started their company — which, by all accounts, had somewhat-instant success.
This was all good fodder for a formerly-barefoot person who missed the feeling of the ground.
