Uh ... let me put it this way: they're significantly less uncomfortable than one might expect. And sometimes they are much more comfortable than having your feet wet and squishy for a couple of days in a row.
They're really not too bad once you learn a slightly different way of walking in them, but they feel odd; they do need really thick socks; and walking uphill causes them to dig into the tops of your feet even after you've gotten used to walking downhill or on level ground. They feel a bit more clunky and clumsy than even stompyboots, which may be most of my discomfort right there (sometimes running shoes feel too big and clunky for me).
I would not call them comfortable, but I would call them acceptable for their purpose, much less distracting when on grass or mud than when trying to walk on a harder surface such as pavement or gravel, and as I said, more comfortable than having wet feet all day, then getting your spare leather shoes wet the next day, and not having any dry shoes to put on the third day. Which was exactly the situation that convinced me to buy the sabots in the first place.
Just remember the thick socks.
I also wore them indoors, when I was dealing with the worst of the roof leak, and had a few inches of water pooled on the tarp that I'd lined that room with. I was getting up in the middle of the night to go empty buckets and try to scoop more water off the tarp to throw out the window, so I put the sabots in the hall and slipped them on when I went into that room. For short periods like that, not moving very far, I got away with not wearing socks (or anything else, for that matter -- the neighbours can't really see in through that window), but I wouldn't try to go anywhere in them without socks, and they're a mite tricky on stairs.
OTOH, you probably want to ask this question again ifwhen you run into somebody else who wears them, as I suspect it might be a YMMV situation. It could be that I just haven't gotten good enough at wearing them yet. (Regardless, they are completely unyielding, so any time your foot tries to flex in a way where another shoe would give way a little, you'll notice you're wearing wood.)
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Date: 2008-06-17 02:23 pm (UTC)They're really not too bad once you learn a slightly different way of walking in them, but they feel odd; they do need really thick socks; and walking uphill causes them to dig into the tops of your feet even after you've gotten used to walking downhill or on level ground. They feel a bit more clunky and clumsy than even stompyboots, which may be most of my discomfort right there (sometimes running shoes feel too big and clunky for me).
I would not call them comfortable, but I would call them acceptable for their purpose, much less distracting when on grass or mud than when trying to walk on a harder surface such as pavement or gravel, and as I said, more comfortable than having wet feet all day, then getting your spare leather shoes wet the next day, and not having any dry shoes to put on the third day. Which was exactly the situation that convinced me to buy the sabots in the first place.
Just remember the thick socks.
I also wore them indoors, when I was dealing with the worst of the roof leak, and had a few inches of water pooled on the tarp that I'd lined that room with. I was getting up in the middle of the night to go empty buckets and try to scoop more water off the tarp to throw out the window, so I put the sabots in the hall and slipped them on when I went into that room. For short periods like that, not moving very far, I got away with not wearing socks (or anything else, for that matter -- the neighbours can't really see in through that window), but I wouldn't try to go anywhere in them without socks, and they're a mite tricky on stairs.
OTOH, you probably want to ask this question again ifwhen you run into somebody else who wears them, as I suspect it might be a YMMV situation. It could be that I just haven't gotten good enough at wearing them yet. (Regardless, they are completely unyielding, so any time your foot tries to flex in a way where another shoe would give way a little, you'll notice you're wearing wood.)